Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

July 5: Antigua to Panajachel

Today we woke up at Earth lodge and decided to take a short hike through the surrounding farmland. We had a map, but got a little confused with which turn to make, since there were branching trails about every few hundred feet (most of these go to people’s houses, but it gets confusing). Even still, the land was beautiful and we had a good time. After taking the shuttle down to Antigua, we decided to take another short walk up a hill to Cerro de la Cruz, which is basically just a cross on a hill overlooking Antigua. The view was pretty amazing though, since you could see all of Antigua with the volcano Agua in the background. We walked back down to Antigua with enough time go munch on a sandwhich at a local café, where we met this Guatemalan who gave us lots of (hopefully) awesome advice on things to do in Guatemala. Then began the waiting… and waiting… and waiting for our shuttle to Panajachel (it felt like a long time to Phil at least), until finally this guy shows up and says “¿Panajachel?”. We walked outside and get into his car (which was a shock, we were expecting a shuttle), after which we enjoy a 10 minute drive through Antigua to meet up with our real shuttle, which we can only assume forgot to pick us up.  Otherwise, the ride to Panajachel was pretty nice and was the first and probably only shuttle with all Americans on board (two from SF, one dude from North Dakota, and this missionary from Florida).  Arriving in Panajachel, we went to our chosen hostel for the night and took a walk through the town. Much like Antigua, Pana seems to be set up for tourists, because you see the same types of goods in pretty much every store. After a while, we got hungry, and ate some street tacos followed by some “Pho” from a Vietnamese-mayan fusion restaurant. At first we had our doubts, but it was actually pretty decent considering we’re currently in Guatemala.

July 6: Panajachel to San Pedro la Laguna
We woke up early this morning so that we could go to our first Guatemalan market in a town just north of Pana called Solola. The market was pretty awesome, full of almost entirely Maya in traditional dress, from all around the area coming to do their weekly shopping and pick up fruit, veggies, meat, fabrics, etc. An hour or so later, we caught the bus back to Pana, packed up our stuff, and headed to a coffee shop called Crossroads Café. We meant to only spend less than an hour there, but ended up staying for over two. The main reason is Mike, the owner of the shop, who was all over the place helping customers, talking to us, packing up coffee orders, inspecting beans being roasted on site, and in general just being himself.

For a bit of background, Carlos, from Finca al Cisne in Copan, Honduras, recommedned we go to this café. Mike goes all around Guatemala looking for the best beans he can find so that he can roast them himself and produce some of the best coffee in the region. One of his specialties is called the peabody roast, which is very unique. Nearly all the coffee anyone drinks comes out of the fruit in pairs of beans, 2 beans for one fruit. What makes peabody so special is that only one bean develops in the pod instead of two, which apparently makes for an awesome and unique cup of coffee. We didn’t get the chance to try this at the shop, but are coming home with a whole pound, so stay tuned. While at the shop, we also got the chance see the roasting process, which was also pretty exciting. Having (again) learned about as much about coffee as we could stand, we made our way to the dock and caught a boat across the lake to San Pedro la Laguna. After we got there, we had some much needed help finding our hostel, booked a hike for the following morning, and then settled down at our hostel to relax and eat some middle eastern food.

At some point that night, a local walked on by and asked if we wanted to book a tour. Stupidly, Phil decided the best way to wave him off was to tell him, “No thank you, because we’ve already booked a tour”, to which he responded, “with who? What time? Where are you going? How many people are in your group?”. Phil, again like an idiot, responded quickly and truthfully to all the above. This then caused about 3 hours of freaking out, using the internet to read horror stories about people being robbed on Indian Nose (our planned hike), and in general thinking “holy shit, we’re going to get robbed, stabbed, and then have our kidneys removed”. Eventually, we decided that either way, we’d go into it with a guide and figured whatever happens happens.

 To be continued….

July 7: Indian Nose and San Marcos la Laguna

*Continued from July 6

We woke up this morning after a pretty shitty nights sleep, at about 3:30am. Our guide came and got us at 4 am, at which point we caught a chicken bus up to a town high above the lake called Santa Clara. Here, we began a 30 minute assent of the nose, all in all uneventful with no robbing, no stabbing, and no kidneys removed. All that freaking out, and nothing happened… Whew!!!! Anyways, the view at the top was pretty spectacular and watching the sun rise above the mountains and light up the entire lake was incredible. After a while, we were cold and made the hike down, arriving just in time to see Santa Clara setting up their weekly market. We bought some strawberries, and then hopped into the back of a pick-up for a ride down the mountain to a town called San Juan la Laguna, where we caught a tuk-tuk back to San Pedro. If at this point your starting to get confused with all the names of the towns, don’t worry… we’re confused too… the point is, there are tons of small little towns surrounding the lake both on the shore and on the mountains above. After arriving back in San Pedro, we were exhausted and took a nice long nap. When we woke up, we caught a boat across the lake to San Marcos la Laguna (if you’re coutning, that’s 4 modes of transportation in one day! I think that’s our record—bus, truck, tuk-tuk, and boat!).

To put it bluntly, San Marcos is a big hippy town. Think Taos or Santa Fe, but on crack. We walked around for a while looking for a massage, but it was too exensive so we gave up. Then we decided that a sauna would do, and walked around looking for one.  Eventually we found one, which was amazing. Its basically a cement hut built around a small (30 gallon? Not 50 for sure) oil drum lying on its side. They build a roaring fire in the drum, you climb inside, and then pour water over the metal to make the steam. The first two steams were really good, but on the third one some of the leaves (local leaves? Not sure what they were, really interesting smell when they’re just wet and steaming) started catching on fire and that smoked us out. Super relaxed, we caught the boat back to San Pedro, showered, and called it a night.