Last Saturday, Iva and I decided to go to visit San Antonio Palopó in search of pottery owls. I had read an article on Antigua Daily Photo about tecolotes, owl figurines made out of clay that bring good fortune to the house. Well, I definitely need one of those!
We met in front of the Despensa for a pickup truck. Well, it's the town fair this week (and last week and next week) so the road was blocked off and a big parade was shuffling down the street.
Hmm, the road to the Despensa looks different today.
Yay, parade!
This was totally cool. These guys had built a working Wall-E!It was rolling down the street under its own power. Every now and then they would pick it up and point it in the right direction. Its eyes even moved!
Iva and I wended our way back thru the parade towards the yellow bridge to find a pickup. The first one was full, so we waited and chatted. Another one didn't come so we decided to walk thru Jucanya along the road to Santa Catarina. We got to the end of town and a pickup came up behind us and we were on our way!
TIP: Our pickup cost Q3 to Santa Catarina another Q3 to San Antonio. On the way back, we paid Q5 for a pickup from San Antonio direct to Panajachel.
Discovered there was road construction in Santa Catarina. They let us off and we had to walk through the mud and construction men to get to the other side of the town to find a pick up to take us to San Antonio.
Looking back at the road construction. See that guy kneeling on the bottom right. His entire job was to chip away at that rock with a chisel and mallet. Wow. And you think your job sucks?
Well, we found a pickup, got in the back...and waited. And waited. And waited, Until the driver decided, forget this! I'm going back to Pana. So we and the few other passengers got out of the back of the truck to wait for someone else. Weird.
Several trucks went by but they were too full. We were getting a bit frustrated when a minivan with a San Antonio sign on the dash drove up. We flagged it down and hopped in. It was very full so Iva sat in the front seat -- premium! -- and I knelt on the floor between the back seats -- not so premium! HA!
A short ride later we arrived in San Antonio Palopó on the eastern shore of Lake Atitlan.
The lake was beautiful, as always, and it was neat to see the volcanoes from a different angle. Cerro de Oro, the little half-volcano lumpy thing, was very obvious from this viewpoint.
We were super hungry, so we stopped at the first restaurant we saw: Cessi's at Hotel Nuestro Sueño. (Our Dream Hotel) The hotel and restaurant were gorgeous, with a nice view of the lake from our comfy lounging chairs, but the food was overpriced and disappointing. Oh well. Can't win 'em all.
After lunch, we strolled along the shoreline road admiring the view and hoping to stumble upon the pottery shop. We saw stores selling the traditional blue ceramics but we wanted to find the workshop itself that I had read about in this article.
The hills behind San Antonio. Do you see the dirt path waaaay up there? There were people walking down it.
This swingset has the BEST view!
The hotel where we had our lunch. Really nice property!
Interesting art on the wall of the restaurant.
Really old canoes. The use them for fishing. Surprised they're still afloat!
A cloudy day. The two volcanoes, Toliman & Atitlan, are hidden in the clouds to the left. Cerro de Oro is the lump in the middle-ish. San Pedro volcano is to the far right.
San Antonio Palopó, Guatemala
Fancy communal washing area.All the ladies were down at the lakeshore washing their clothes the traditional way. So much for progress! :)
As we wandered down the road, a man motioned us to his shop selling pottery and figurines. Then we noticed a narrow dusty stairway leading up between some buildings, and a small sign basically saying, "ceramic workshop this way". Cool! The man insisted on leading us, which actually worked out well since he brought us up to a room full, I mean REALLY full of ceramics!
Whoa. No bulls allowed in here! Surprised I didn't break anything!
We got to meet some young guys in the workshop who were sanding down the shaped clay pieces and painting things by hand. Everything was coated in dust and a few of the guys were wearing masks. The workshop had an amazing view of the lake. What a great job!
A box of owls waiting to be painted.
Iva bargained well for her owl!
So many cute owls to choose from!
After we made some purchases at the workshop, we walked back down the stairs and perused a few other shops along the way.
There was a wide variety of animals figurines, as well as dishes, vases, drawer pulls, crosses, cups, sugar bowls and milk jugs, salt & pepper shakers, and even ashtrays.
I loved the octagonal dishes and the hummingbird motifs.
Very rare to see a colour other than blue!
We wanted to walk a bit more around the town and started up towards the churches, but by the time we got there, it had begun to rain pretty steadily. Lucky for us, a pickup was right there and he was heading to Panajachel. Yay!
My two owls. I love their different personalities! The big guy is all "oooOOOooOOh" and the little guy is like, "Don't mess with me!"
I love going on day trips! It's nice to be able to just hop on the back of a truck and go to the next town whenever I feel like it. Cheap and easy. Still so much to see around the lake. I've got a couple more towns to hit up before I can say I've seen them all. :)
Such a fun article and fun day Cristel!! Can't wait for our next adventure!! Your little owl is super cute by the way! :)
ReplyDelete