Lake Atitlan

My first international trip after the pandemic was a 10-day self-retreat in Guatemala in May of 2021. I had been wanting to visit Guatemala since 2015 when I tried to host a yoga retreat with a fellow yoga teacher at Lake Atitlan. However, no matter how hard we tried, we could not get a single person to sign up for the retreat. I’ve led many yoga retreats during my teaching career and have never had that much trouble getting people to sign up. International retreats are naturally more difficult to fill because of the cost and time commitment, but I think this one was particularly difficult because of the location. Guatemala has a bad rap because of violence and cartel activity. Many people I’ve talked to have preconceived fears about the safety of traveling there. But for some reason I’ve always been drawn to visit, and after doing some research, I found that there are several places that are safe for travelers.

Lake Atitlan is known as one of the most beautiful lakes in the entire world. The lake is expansive, surrounded by volcanoes, and the water is clean and clear. There are eleven villages that surround the lake which are primarily inhabited by indigenous Mayan communities. Five of the villages are popular tourist destinations; Panajachel, San Pedro, San Marcos la Laguna, Santa Cruz, and Jaibalito. San Marcos is known as being the “most spiritual” of these five, and there are many yoga retreat centers located there. I found an eco-retreat called The Yoga Forest that is literally built into the side of a mountain. The Yoga Forest has since been sold and now operates under the name of Kawoq Forest. I booked a seven-day personal retreat, and decided to end my trip with three nights in Antigua, a small city about an hour outside of Guatemala City. I read good things about Antigua’s safety, and that it is a popular tourist destination with many attractions. 

I took a red eye flight to Guatemala City, and due to the safety concerns in the city, I booked a private driver to pick me up at the airport and bring me to the lake, which is generally between a 3-4 hour drive. I slept through most of it but remember waking up during the decent to the lake. The view was breathtaking as we made our way down a mountain on the windy switchback roads. Once we arrived at my drop-off point in San Marcos, there was a porter from The Yoga Forest waiting to carry my bag and escort me to the retreat center, which is about a 15-20 minute walk deep into the forest. As we walked through the forest, I wondered how they carried food and supplies to the retreat center since it wasn’t accessible by car. We finally arrived and I was greeted by a couple who was checking out of the retreat. They sang its praises, telling me what a wonderful time they had had during their stay. 

I spent my first day getting settled in and oriented with the property. Because it is an eco- retreat, the cabins don’t have electricity, WiFi, or even mirrors, and the toilets are shared compost outhouses. The community showers are outdoor and solar powered. WiFi is available in the main dining area, but otherwise, I got the true unplugged experience. I brought a headlamp and battery powered book light, which were my only sources of light after the sun went down. I stayed in a shared dormitory with four beds, but lucked out and had the entire cabin to myself for the full week. Guatemala had only recently begun allowing travelers back into the country at that time, and the tourism industry had been hit hard by the pandemic. My cabin had an incredible view of the lake, with active volcanoes in the background. It rained on and off in the evenings during my stay, but there was one clear night when I was able to see a small eruption from one of the volcanoes light up in the darkness. 

My week at the retreat was lovely. My days began with morning meditation and yoga asana classes. After yoga, we were served a delicious, healthy, and hearty vegetarian breakfast in the mid-morning. The late mornings and afternoons were kept open for us to do as we wished, and then we had a late afternoon restorative yoga class followed by dinner. I spent a couple of my afternoons exploring San Marcos and a couple of the nearby villages with other retreat participants I befriended. The other retreatants were friendly and open, and I made many new friends from all over the world. My first friend was a girl who was originally from California but had been living the past year in Mexico with her boyfriend, a Mexican native she met while traveling. She was in Guatemala for only a couple nights on a visa run, and we spent some time together, exploring San Marcos and enjoying a few meals at local restaurants. We also befriended a young New Yorker named Sephy, who was fun and energetic. We ended up skinny dipping in the lake, which was magical and liberating. Toward the end of my weeklong stay, I got a spontaneous tattoo from a local artist in San Marcos, of a beautiful monarch butterfly on my left forearm.

There also happened to be a group of around 15 holotropic breathwork students staying at the retreat during the same time I was there. They had been participating in a remote breathwork facilitation training program over the previous year and were coming together in person for their final certification requirements. They all had to facilitate breathwork sessions, and the rest of us who were staying at the retreat were invited to participate in the sessions for free. I had participated in a few holotropic breathwork sessions in Denver and one in Bali. It is a spiritual practice where students are guided into a deep meditative state using a specific breathing technique, which can help release trapped traumas and bring people to altered states. Some people have reported visiting parallel or alternate realities and/or receiving visits from ancestors or loved ones who have passed. I’ve had some deeply healing experiences of my own, primarily releasing emotional traumas. I had the pleasure of participating in one of the sessions at The Yoga Forest, and it was one of the most peaceful breathwork sessions I’ve experienced, which I came out of feeling deeply grounded.

I purchased two wellness services as part of my personal retreat, and I chose a tarot reading and a past life regression. I had gotten tarot readings in the past, but never a past life regression, so I wasn’t sure what to expect. It was easily one of the most spiritual experiences I’ve ever had. The woman who facilitated the session, Naomi, started by guiding me into a deep state of meditation, similar to the hypnogogic state you are guided into during a yoga nidra session. I laid on a massage table while she led me through an in-depth body scan and several visualizations. This lasted around 45 minutes, and by that point I had dropped in deeply. She then led me through a visualization of walking down a long spiral staircase. At the bottom of the staircase, I walked into a hallway of doors. She instructed me to walk down the hallway until I reached a door that I felt called to open. I eventually found that door and opened it. She then turned things over to me and asked me to start telling her what I saw. I saw myself in a desert. She asked me to look at my feet, which I did and saw that they were barefoot, standing in sand and with olive colored skin. She asked who I was with. I was with two children, a boy and a girl. I can still see their faces vaguely in my mind. She asked if I recognized them from my life now, but at that moment I didn’t. Naomi then snapped her fingers and brought me to a different scene in the same lifetime, where I found myself in a busy marketplace with my two children. She asked me questions about what I was observing in the marketplace. I told her that I felt I was in danger, and then suddenly I found myself gasping for air and crying out in pain. I felt an intense pain in my heart, deeper than I’ve ever felt before. She asked what was happening and I told her that my children had been taken from me and I was captured. She sat with me for a few minutes while I cried, and talked me through the pain and emotional release I was experiencing. It was at that moment that I knew who the children were, two people from my past that I had spoken to Naomi about before the session. Eventually I was able to collect myself and she snapped her fingers again and brought me to another scene in that lifetime, further into the future. I was a servant for a wealthy family, and I knew that my children were too, but we were not together. We then moved further into the future, and I was an old woman on my deathbed with a medicine woman next to me. I knew I was never reunited with my children in that lifetime, and I carried that guilt for the rest of that lifetime and into future lifetimes. I saw myself leave my body. Naomi then guided me through a cord cutting session to detach myself from the children, and gave me the opportunity to apologize to them, and to forgive and release myself from my attachments to them. At that point the deep pain in my heart subsided. Naomi then guided me back out the door of that lifetime and into the hallway. I walked back up the spiral staircase, and she slowly guided me back into my body. It took days for me to fully recover from that experience. My body felt heavy for several hours after, and I was emotional for several days. I still can’t quite grasp the intensity of that experience.

My time at Lake Atitlan was incredibly special and I will always remember that week. It was exactly what I needed after a stressful year following the pandemic and my first year of grad school. I had many memorable experiences and hope one day to have the opportunity to return to that magical lake.