Panajachel

The name Panajachel comes from Kaqchikel and is usually translated as 'place of the matasanos', the white sapote tree. The town grew on the delta of the Panajachel river, which spreads across the north-eastern shore of Lake Atitlán. In the 16th century the shore of the lake saw a battle in which the Spanish and their Kaqchikel allies defeated the Tz'utujil, and soon afterwards Franciscan friars built a church and monastery here and used the town as a base to convert the peoples of the lake. By 1700 the convent had three priests in charge of some 1,800 people and twelve cofradías, religious brotherhoods; in 1754 the Franciscans had to hand their parishes to the secular clergy, and in 1770 the archbishop described 'San Francisco Panajachel' parish.

In 1892 the archaeologist Alfred Maudslay and his wife Anne passed through. Anne Maudslay found life in the town monotonous, and the couple saw irrigation canals watering orchards, gardens and coffee on the delta, where a large flood some years earlier had destroyed several houses.

The 20th century brought outsiders. Casa Cakchiquel, opened in 1948, was one of the first hotels on the lake, and in the 1960s the town drew many hippies. Visitor numbers collapsed during the civil war but returned after it ended, and tourism again became the base of the economy. In October 2005 the rains of Hurricane Stan caused a mudslide along the river that destroyed about 100 homes.

Panajachel is a Kaqchikel town with an international face. Maya dress and weaving are central to the textile trade that fills Calle Santander. Across the water, the villages of the lake are Kaqchikel and Tz'utujil, each with its own character and dress, and Panajachel serves as their meeting point with the outside world.

The town's patron is Francis of Assisi, and the parish church of San Francisco, with its colonial façade, is one of two historic buildings protected in the town; the other is Casa Cakchiquel, now a cultural centre with a museum of historical photographs of Guatemala and the home of a local radio station. The town fair in honour of the patron is held in the first week of October, with the election of a festival queen.

Since the hippie years of the 1960s Panajachel has also drawn long-staying foreigners, and it is home to many international non-profit organisations working in education, health and handicrafts around the lake. Religious life has long mixed Catholic and Maya practice: in 1892 Anne Maudslay watched pilgrims returning from Esquipulas gather at night around their saints in the plaza, in a ceremony she judged to be Maya.

The 2018 census counted about 15,000 people in Panajachel, the administrative centre of the municipality of the same name in the department of Sololá. Tourism is the backbone of the economy: hotels, restaurants, shops, travel agencies and boat services employ much of the town, alongside the textile trade.

The town is the lake's main transport hub and economic centre. Boats leave its jetties for San Pedro, Santiago Atitlán and the villages between, carrying villagers to market and visitors to the far shore, and buses and shuttles connect it to Sololá, the Pan-American Highway and the rest of the country. Tuk-tuks fill its narrow streets.

The lake itself is the town's most pressing issue. The introduction of predatory bass eliminated more than two-thirds of the native fish species and contributed to the extinction of the Atitlán grebe, and blooms of cyanobacteria, first seen on a large scale in 2009, returned in 2015, raising concern about pollution and the lake's health. The afternoon wind, the Xocomil, can stir up waves strong enough to capsize boats, so crossings are usually made in the morning.

Panajachel eats the food of the highlands. Tortillas come with every meal, alongside black beans, eggs, fresh cheese, chillies and herbs, and tamales and chuchitos — small tamales wrapped in dried maize husks — are sold on the street and in the market. Pepián, a meat stew thickened with seeds, is one of the national dishes, and atol, a hot maize drink, is one of Guatemala's traditional drinks.

Calle Santander is the town's food street. Vendors sell tacos, chuchitos, empanadas, tortas, sweet corn and sweetened nuts, and the street is lined with cafés, bakeries and restaurants serving everything from Guatemalan set lunches to pizza and steak for the many foreign visitors. The market, in the older part of town, is where local families shop and eat.

Coffee grows on the slopes around the lake, and the Reserva Natural Atitlán sits on an old coffee farm. At the lake's Maximón shrines, popular offerings include money, tobacco and moonshine.