“To the Mayan people, everything is about cycles,” Nana Maria told me. Rain comes down. Plants grow up. The lake rises. The lake falls. The lake rises again. Later I shared a meal with Dave and Deedle Ratcliffe, a couple in their 40s (he’s American, she’s British) with two young sons, who run a diving center beside the dock in Santa Cruz, a town hit hard by the lake rise. Their restaurant is not likely to survive another rainy season, and once it goes they — like so many others I spoke with that day — have no idea what they will do.“Find religion? Find tequila?” Dave said.“At the end of the day, nature’s going to win. Meanwhile, we’ve had ourselves a big adventure.”
i spent 5 days at lake atitlan last summer and it was magical, mystical, and really important to me. i hope it exists long enough for me to return to it one day.
