This different view of the Lake was taken by Armand Boissy with a wide-angle lens installed on his iPhone. Armand photographed it on May 16, 2014.
View the Photos of the Week archive at: http://santacruzlalaguna.weebly.com/photos.html
There are no special events happening this week, but don't forget to check out the regular weekly events that are happening: Lake Atitlan Events Calendar,
http://ev-cal.com/fb/106177
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Flora and Ollie, managers of La Iguana Perdida, have gotten engaged! Congratulations to you both!
TripAdvisor®, the user content generated travel website, recently awarded Certificates of Excellence to several businesses at Lake Atitlan including our own Café Sabor Cruceño at CECAP in Santa Cruz!
Other businesses that garnered a 2014 Certificate of Excellence are:
Jaibalito:
- Club Ven Aca
Panajachel:
- Restaurante Hana
- Cross Roads Cafe
- Chez Alex
- Pupuseria Cheros
- Circus Bar
- Jose Pinguino's
- Deli Llama De Fuego
San Juan la Laguna
- El Artesano Wine and Cheese Restaurant
San Marcos la Laguna
- Blind Lemon's Restaurant and Cafe
- Restaurant Fe
- Hospedaje y Restaurante Tul y Sol
San Pedro la Laguna
- El Barrio
- The Fifth Dimension
Other locations:
- La Fortuna at Atitlán, Patzisotz
Congratulations to all! If I have missed anyone, please let me know and I will follow up next week!
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I am pleased to announce another Community Service Award suggested by Jeanne Mendez. This award goes to Riley Sise, new owner of the Isla Verde, and Lee Beal. Riley took the initiative to fix the pathway between Santa Cruz and Isla Verde and Lee contributed cement. As many of you know this pathway was very difficult to navigate with some haphazard and uneven stones and steps. Now there's a gorgeous set of level, wide, deep steps that make walking that part of the path a breeze! (photo below with Donna Belk. Thanks!
If you know of someone who deserves a Santa Cruz Community Service Award, please let me know!
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Tilda Zorn of Casa Milagro reported on their Mother's Day event:
"We had a very lovely event on Saturday for Mothers Day - a visitor from the German Congregation, the Lutheran Church in the City, his little son, and his volunteer, naturally singing his children-church-songs together, all delighted! Seniors and Mothers received their lovely decorated basket, filled with sweets and children's homemade cookies,and a surprise handmade necklace by their children. A feast followed with tamales, homemade cakes and hot chocolate, more singing and feeling very tired finally.
Off we went to meet with Caracol-Waldorf-School in S.Marcos, were four of our children are learning since this year."
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Tilda Zorn recently donated quite a few movies to the Santa Cruz Movie Library which is housed at Sarito's. Drop by the Library and check them out!
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Lizzy Gerson reported that in Panajachel a tuk tuk driver in Pana robbed 2 of his passengers a few weeks ago. He took them down a small callejón and threatened them with a weapon. The passengers, a Life School teacher and her friend, gave him all their money and he left them there. A police report was filed. It was also reported that the tuk tuk had the number 34 on it.
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Pana resident, Richard Morgan Szybist, just released the Kindle version of his most recent book, Hitchhiking on America's War Machine - 1964-88.
From the Amazon book description.....
"This is the story of Ron Baran; a guy I met a few years back in a bar in Central America. I don’t generally write stories about people I meet in bars, but I found Ron’s life journey extraordinary. He had made a career of what he off-handedly called “hitchhiking on America’s war machine.” A combat veteran of the infantry, he had served 24 years in the U.S. Army, seen the world, and risen to the rank of colonel before retiring at the age of 45. It had been a cheap way to travel and a productive one from the standpoint of material advancement - but the cost had been high to both his physical being and psyche. His life since retirement had become a restless quest to rejuvenate his body and spirit."
His story is both an “eye opener” for anyone who hasn’t lived in the military sub-culture of American society and a caveat emptor for any young person considering a military career. As a view from the “grass roots” level of implementation of U.S. foreign policy, it is also a valuable “think piece” for any American concerned with the appropriate role of the U.S. in world affairs.
The time frame and setting of his adventure includes both the Cold War of US – Russian confrontation in Europe and U.S. involvement in Vietnam. Baran served at the” line of contact” of both of these conflictive chapters of U.S. history. Initially an idealist, his sense of patriotic fervor dissipated in the face of his experience as a self-described “tool of institutionally-sanctioned violence.” His transparency in sharing personal details of his life and his feelings bound me to his passage as he recounted it."
To buy and download this Kindle book, go to:
http://www.amazon.com/Hitchhiking-Americas-War-Machine-1964-88-ebook/dp/B00KIWUQLI/
Richard has several other books also available on Kindle. Here is his Amazon page:
http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=ntt_athr_dp_sr_1?_encoding=UTF8&field-author=Richard%20Morgan%20Szybist&search-alias=digital-text
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The Santa Cruz Feria was mostly a fun activity for the village, but Saturday night around 3:30 a.m. a young Santa Cruz man, Mario Chiyal, was stabbed and killed in an altercation with several men from Jaibalio. He was married and had a young child.
The police grabbed two of the men involved and an angry group of Santa Crucenos was ready to lynch them, but the police intervened and took the suspects away to jail.
Condolences go out to the family of Mario Chiyal.
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Zampopos, zompopos, sampopos, sompopos. Whatever you call them, on May 8 the flying ants made their annual appearance at our house prompting me to do a little research on them.
Apparently these little demons are the flying version of the leaf-cutting nocturnal zampopos. The little demons that are forever munching on my garden. The Flying Zampopos! Sounds like a circus act to me!
I found this interesting article in Wikipedia,
"Once a year, a colony, consisting of one queen and many thousands of workers, produces reproductive individuals called alates which have a different morphology, including wings for flight. After these individuals leave the nest of the parent colony, mating occurs high in the air with each female mating with between three and eight males (Wirth, et al., 2003). Colonies in close proximity conduct nuptial flights at close to the same time, increasing outbreeding. Males die after the mating flight. The queens then store the sperm acquired from the males in spermathecae, which they will use to found a new colony. Mortality for queens during mating is estimated to be as high as 52% (Wirth, et al., 2003). Queens begin a new colony starting by excavation of a nest chamber 20–30 cm below the surface; the cavity is about 6 cm long. After excavating the cavity, the queen begins a new fungus garden by spitting out a mycelial wad harvested from the fungus of her parent colony. By the third day, the mycelia has started to grow new fungus and the queen has begun to lay eggs, usually between three and six. The queen and the first larvae do not feed from the garden; rather, they eat 90% of the eggs laid by queen. During this initial stage of nest development, the queen is the sole cultivator of the new fungus garden. If she does not maintain the garden well, the colony will not survive (Wirth, et al., 2003). "
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atta_(genus)
I also found that these flying ants (sometimes called Sompopos de Mayo) have been considered a good source of food. Just Google it and find a few recipes! If you try any of them, let me know how they turned out!
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I missed putting out the blog last week so have 2 weeks to report.
Rainfall in Paxanax for the week of May 12-18: 2.85 inches or 7.3 cm
Rainfall in Paxanax for the week of May 19-25: 5.15 inches or 13.08 cm
I've created a Google Docs spreadsheet for anyone to access the Rainfall Report at any time. Here is the link for you to bookmark: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1b6pM1oRFAZl-UdQzrF7a4XzKMDCb8V36it5Fcj4859I/edit?usp=sharing
*** The Mayan glyph Kawoq symbolizes rain, lightning and thunder, water and air. It also represents the collective consciousness. ***