A strange little corner of the world

Sometimes, you just know that things are going to get weird.

Two days ago, Isolde and I had one of those moments.

We were staying in San Marcos, a little lakeside village largely populated by smiley new agers with glazed eyes. The room we had was euphemistically billed as a cabana and would, I think, make Ted Kaczynski feel right at home. The wall boards didn´t connect -- keeping the mosquitoes happy -- and our lock actually fell apart several times.

But that all would have been fine. The village was cute as hell, even if most of the other tourists there had come for enlightenment. Turns out the trick to personal power is pyramid-shaped lodging and yoga. Very kind people though. The Mayans who lived there busied themselves (at least by day) harvesting avocados and firewood from the hills above town. Occasionally, we´d see men wander through town carrying machetes and net bags packed with 100 or so avocados.

A cute, woodsy place. Like camping. Peaceful. Sane.

Then we met the man from Austin, a recently hired ¨security guard¨ for a little bodega.

The storeowner himself was a piece of work. We´d popped in to the tiny shop looking to buy a little food for dinner. It was well stocked, as far as the places go here. Most people here stick to eggs, tortillas and beans, with a little rice or sweat bread. This store had Nutella and Top Ramen, and wine, which is quite the rarity. The storeowner proved to be a rare breed too. An American who we´d later learn had only been in town for a month or so and was not well liked, the man could not give a straight answer to any questions.

¨Do you run this store?¨ ¨Sometimes I think it runs me?¨ That kind of thing.

But his little friend -- the giant Texan -- seemed to have all the answers. The man had been gone from the states for two years. He didn´t like the new age people -- they wrongly thought there were many ways to god, he said. The local people knew ¨the truth.¨ As it would turn out, he was all about ¨the truth.¨

He was glad to be gone from the states. But he´d heard that more Americans were figuring out that 9-11 was ¨an inside job.¨ That was the moment things took a turn for the surreal.

The man went on to explain how his friend, a self-proclaimed expert on the 9-11 attacks, had found that the U.S. government was behind it. But his friend, he said, failed to comprehend the ¨the truth¨ -- that the attacks were predicted in the Bible. He then started talking about numerology, and how the Guatemalans knew to be meek (and inherit the earth, one supposes).

We left. Fast.

The man had also given a dubious description of the robbery that necessitated his new position as security guard at the tienda. It all made for a hurried walk home to our cabana.

But then, just after sundown, the chanting started. From churches situated in the hills above the village, preachers and choir members spread the Pentecostal word of God throughout the valley. The songs and sermons -- in both Spanish and the region´s Mayan language, which is usually pleasant but that night sounded a bit like chickens arguing in German -- from two or three competing churches formed a deafening cacophony that filled the valley. It reminded me of the scene in Apocalypse Now when Martin Sheen rose out of the swamp to kill Marlon Brando. Just loud and crazy.

The churches continued until after midnight, when a now-creepy silence fell on the jungle. Then they started up again at about 6 a.m.

We´d later learn from an gracefully aging hippy -- a former fashion writer in the Canadian press -- that Evangelicals had moved into the highlands during the 1980s. Back then the Guatemalan government, you´ll recall, was not too happy or kind to Catholics. And many citizens looked to the Evangelicals to prove they were not in league with the guerrillas the government supposed the Catholics were aiding. For whatever reason, it seems to have stuck.

Apparently, the new churches have taken to fighting for souls via loudspeaker. And it´s driving out the tourists, which may be what the residents have been praying for.

Isolde and I returned to San Pedro the next day. The little city is much more relaxed, or at least relatively free of chanting.