The writer, Aldous Huxley, famously wrote wrote of
Lake Atitlán,“Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of
permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of
several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing.”

While, I’ve never been to Lake Como I have been to
Lake Atitlán and it is stunning. However, there is a fear that the lake is
dying and will become marshland through man-made interventions. These
interventions include, for example, farming, tourism, and the lack and/or
breakdown of public services to manage human waste.

This article by Danilo Valladares, on the Inter Press Service,
is titled Environment-Guatemala: SOS from Lake Atitlán and begins, ‘a
thick, chocolate-coloured scum floats on the normally clear blue waters of Lake
Atitlán, in the southwestern Guatemalan province of Sololá, caused by
agricultural fertilisers and untreated sewage from surrounding villages and
farms’.

The always interesting
series Entremosle
a Guate features the challenges and possible responses to the
current crisis currently facing the Lake, including a list of contacts. It is in Spanish.

Episodio 48 – Atitlán, El Clamor de Un Lago from Caminos del Asombro on Vimeo.

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Categories: Culture, Environment

Tags: Lago Atitlan