These photos are among those from my personal collection of 3,000 images of Lake Atitlan, taken over 7-years.
Here's a photo looking out from my fave cafe in San Pedro at about 9 AM (that's actually a dugout-canoe there fishing the lake):
Another photo illustrating why few vehicles attempt to actually drive to the lake-side villages:
The permanent residents of the Caldera choose to live there, and will fight to the death to remain in the Caldera at all costs, to retain their traditional lands. There are 4 distinct Mayan groups occupying the Caldera currently; several of these ethnic subdivisions appear to have been living and farming the slopes of this Caldera very successfully for at least 2300-years(!). Yikes.
I've been shown numerous villages covered by landslides throughout the country (and, Honduras, Nicaragua and Mexico). It is indeed true that rescue attempts are only made to retrieve landslide victims that are readily accessible; all others remain buried where they lay with hundreds and sometimes thousands of crosses permanently installed roughly where their houses once stood.
I recall in Mexico during the terrible 1999 hurricane season that 1,475,654 inhabitants were badly affected by landslides, and well over 270 (and perhaps 5 times that) were killed as a result. The tragic thing about landslides is that by using terrain modeling and soil engineering, areas potentially prone to landsliding can be easily identified, and, legislated as "no build zones." Sadly, even resident of Canada and the US routinely build in designated landslide hazard zones knowingly, and many times suffer the consequences.
Campeche is truly a most beautiful early Colonial Mexican city. Old Campeche is a paradise for architectural hounds as it is an enormous walled city with myriad historical actions of interest (walled to protect it from large fleets of roving pirates, a long time ago). A medium-sized RV park exists out of town near the University and shopping mall if you want to visit.
One of my select Maya ruin sites near Campeche is: Edzna. The myriad palaces and pyramids of ancient ruins was raised from the rubble by teams of highly-skilled Guatemalan refugees (fleeing brutal dictatorship); reconstruction of Edzna was directed by an American archaeologist based in Campeche:
I was invited to the Governor's Palace to photograph Rigoberta Menchu (she had just received the Nobel Peace Prize), then Campeche Governor Jorge Salomón Azar García (very few photos of Garcia exist, it's extremely rare for him to grant permission to make photos) and other dignitaries at a speech and reception for Menchu way back in the early '90s:
I'd have to say that Campeche is my other fave location, some of the criteria listed above...
Cheers,
Silver-
* This post was
edited 07/10/08 02:25pm by silversand *
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