Lake Atitlan

We spent the past weekend at “The Lake”, Lake Atitlan. It's unique since it doesn't have any outlets to the sea and it's surrounded by three volcanoes. There are a number of villages surrounding this landlocked lake in Guatemala. We stayed in the village of Panajachel, which is one of the few villages around the lake that is accessible by road.

We arrived on Friday night after a treacherous ride in a van through narrow winding roads, with scary steep cliffs that were just a little to close to the road for comfort. To be honest, it made me pretty darn sick but it was worth the drive, both for the views along the way and the destination.

On Saturday we chartered a boat and a driver to take us around to three different villages around the lake. We started in Santiago which also happened to be the name of our boat driver.

When we got to Santiago we were approached by two young boys who wanted to be our “tour guides”. “No, grasias”, we said numerous times. But they latched on and ended up being a hoot and the best part of the day. They knew just enough English to tell us about a few parts of town and to remind us to be careful of the traffic. They even picked up on the fact that Harold needed constant supervision, so they took over as the child care. We were pretty impressed with the entrepenurship of these two 10 year olds.

We then headed over to San Antonio where a festival happened to be going on. We saw dancers, heard some music and watched part of a soccer game.

We stopped in one final village Santa Catarina for lunch then back to Panajachel.

--AnnMarie