Well, lets start with the town.
San Marcos is a small town perched on the side of the mountains on the shores of lake Atitlan in Guatemala. It is effectively divided into two sections by the road that heads off around the side of the lake. The section above the road is the village where the locals live, and the section below the road is where the tourists live. I am really only familiar with the lower section...
There are no motorized vehicles in the lower section. There are a couple of long paved paths that lead the 150m from the main road down to the lake shore, and then any other paths are dirt. There are perhaps a dozen hotel-hostel businesses and they all seem to have an attached restaurant...Well its a place to eat for Westerners but few of them would qualify as restaurants by Western standards. There are also a couple of small shops for groceries etc.
The thing that makes San Markos different however is the vast number of services offered for healing and meditation and massage etc. It has become quite the centre for "Spiritual Learning".
All these services attract a very definite type of tourist and I have seen more dreadlocks, heavy bead jewelery, strange hats, scraggly beards, and very colourful baggy pants here than anywhere else I have been on this trip. That said though, I have to point out that all these "alternative" people are really very nice. There are very few that seem to be fixated on drugs and the rest are diligently trying to improve their health or learn something new.
My course in meditation is being run at the original spiritual facility in the town called "Las Pyramides" and it was established some fifteen years ago after a spiritual vision by the founder (A guatemalan woman). As for the people in my course, there are about eight other regulars and there are drop-in attendees on a random basis as well. I seem to be the oldest student in this group and the students range from complete neophyte meditators like me, to people who have been doing it in their home countries for years and are deeply into studying the literature and improving their skills as they head toward "enlightenment". For myself, I am just here to try to "turn down" the constant chatter in my head! Again I can say that without exception, they are all nice friendly people.
What does the course involve.
Well its simple really. At 7am in the morning there is a Yoga session that goes for about an hour and a half. Then there is a break for an hour and a half for breakfast and showers etc. Then at 10am there is a class session informing us about astral traveling and lucid dreaming and chakras and spiritual dimensions etc. There is a half hour meditation session at the start of this class.
Most people with my sort of upbringing would pretty much dismiss these classes as being full of wishful thinking rather than anything useful.
For myself, I'm going along for the ride while I'm here and I'm not getting uptight when something I'm told doesn't "gel" with my own views. After that class ends at midday, the afternoon is free for whatever I want to do (mostly work on my bike or do my laundry or read books in the sun). Then finally at 5pm there is a meditation class that goes for another hour and a half and sometimes involves sitting or laying or chanting mantras and also exercises of various sorts. Then the day is done and dinner is with other students at whichever local restaurant we feel like patronizing that evening.
So that's it for now. I'm one week into the course and not feeling much progress yet, but I am quite relaxed about it and plan to stay for a while longer :)
