Travel can be liberation: Away from one's everyday cares and environment, the blinkers are removed from one's eyes and there is a freshness about the world that one can't have at home. But travel can also make one feel like a parasite, caught in a mutual embrace with an unwilling host of a different species altogether.

This ambivalence characterized our weekend diversion from Antigua to Lake Atitlan and Chichicastenango. We went to a cheap travel agent, who booked us seats aboard a Saturday morning minivan and into a modest hotel in Panajachel, a backpackers' haven at the shores of Lake Atitlan. After a boat tour of the lake, we would spend the night and in the morning board a second van for Chichicastenango, a Mayan town renowned for what was billed as "the biggest market in Central America." In the afternoon we would return to Antigua.

The first van took us in the early-morning darkness northwest out of Antigua, its diesel engine grinding up the steep hills and around the tight bends in the road. We passed through open agricultural country, along steep canyons, through cool glades and muddy towns with women doing laundry in the municipal washbasins. By 8:00 in the morning we were winding downward toward the fabled lake, which glowed like a pale blue gem in the highland air. The flooded caldera of an absolutely enormous volcano, Lake Atitlan's edges are rimmed by smaller volcanoes, whose steep slopes descend directly into the water. Towns and villages speckle the shoreline and nearly-vertical plots of farmland erode the heights. The views are unique and truly stunning.

In Panajachel, after a cup of coffee and pan dulce in a cafe, seated by some large, chatty, drawling Texans on a religious volunteering vacation, we were handed bag lunches and led to a boat on the lake itself. Ten of us, including some Dutch physicists on their honeymoon and our Canadian housemates, boarded a roofed version of the ubiquitous fiberglass panga. The boat sped off along the rocky northern shoreline, passing costly modernist mansions, half-finished caprices in concrete block, other tour boats, local fishermen's plank-sided dugout canoes, and reedy inlets. All around us, reflected in the sparkling water, were the conical forms of the volcanoes, clouds growing in the sky around their tops.

After an hour we landed at a tiny, rickety wooden pier and were told we had an hour to stroll around and be back at the boat. With a little prompting of the guideâ€"who, it turned out, was not OUR guide (we had none)--we learned that a path to the left would lead us where we wanted to go. Signs along the narrow alley informed us of places we could pay to meditate, do yoga, eat whole-grain Mayan breakfasts, spend the night in a hammock, reintegrate our chakras, and use the Internet. Another sign told us we were in San Marcos. At the end of all this New Age development we found the older town, with a school and a couple of churches, a road connecting the town to others around the lake, a rambling plaza with a big tree, and a couple of men selling fruit from a cart. A few slices of papaya and watermelon later, our little group (the Canadians and ourselves) meandered along the road. The Canadians were particularly excited to discover a driveway gate with an enormous maple leaf flag welded in. By the time we made it back to the boat we were a few minutes lateâ€"the non-guide checking his watchâ€"and we roared off to our next stop. It was barely 11:00.

Our next stop turned out to be San Pedro La Laguna. Tourists visiting here are greeted with a much more aggressive array of opportunities. The steep road up from the docks is lined with restaurants, travel agencies, jewelry shops, and signs like "Broken English Spoken Here." Continuing upward one finds the town proper, with a market spilling out into the streets around it and tuc-tucs and pickup trucks jostling with the crowds. Mayan people in traditional costume share the streets with tourists and Ladinos; like most of the towns on the lake, there is a large indigenous population here. This is a town of a great deal of religious signage on the walls--generally on the theme of "Jesus es el Senor"--and some flamboyantly painted churches in yellow, pink or lime-green. We found our way above the town and could take in the breathtaking vistas of the red roofs and blue lake below, and green mountains above. Grey clouds were mounting around the mountaintops, and by the time we made it back to our boat (12:00) an overcast had set in.

By 12:30 we had landed at our third town, Santiago La Laguna. Santiago La Laguna is famous in part for being the site of considerable fighting between the military and the Maya during the Guatemalan civil war, and in 1981 an American priest was shot by a death squad in the town's Catholic church. The town stretches over a low hill, and the path from the dock is lined on both sides with vendors of tourist goods. We were waylaid by a guide who delivered us to a restaurant and then waited while we ate. He arranged a pickup truck to take us to see Maximon, probably the main attraction in Santiago.

It's a little difficult to describe the Guatemalan cult of Maximon, but at its center is an ancient wooden doll, dressed in fancy clothes and a carved wooden mask with an unlit cigar in its mouth. People come from far and wide to consult with his shaman caretakers in hope of curing themselves of disease or financial trouble or lack of marriage prospects. Maximon doesn't live in a church; rather, every so often he moves from the house of one member of the cofradia or council that is responsible for him. Everyone who comes to visit must leave an offering, but those with bigger troubles leave bigger offerings: A silk tie or a woven sash are particularly welcome, but liquor, tobacco and money are also good. Every week the shamans dress him up in a new outfit, and at night they put him up in his special bed in the rafters.

We were struck by several things during our own visit to Maximon. First, the rain on the way there. It came galloping down, filling the road and sending spray everywhere. We were riding in the back of a pickup truckâ€"fortunately covered by a plastic tarpâ€"which made it particularly impressive. And second, despite the ritual significance of Maximon, there was something profoundly informal about the whole experience. Although Maximon has a room dedicated to him, he sits on the cement floor in front of a picnic table at which were seated two men and a woman, chatting. We were welcome to hang out as long as we wanted, and if we needed something cured we were to ask the shaman, who was otherwise busying himself with the candles and tidying up. People came and went; someone opened a big bottle of beer and poured it into glasses to share.

By 3:00 we were back in Panajachel. In six hours we had visited three towns and one traditional Mayan deity, and taken three passages by boat. We really felt like tourists.