Lake Atitlan in Guatemala is firmly on the tourist trail, it’s a large lake in an old volcanic crater, a beautiful place surrounded by hills and volcanoes. It was great to go and spend a few days relaxing there after climbing Acatenango.
For most of the time we spent there it was very cloudy, so we didn’t get the amazing views and bright blue water that I’d read about. Regardless of the weather, it was still a great place to explore, relax, and recover.
Our first night was spent in the hub town of Panajachel, as we knew we would arrive too late to get further out onto the lake after dark.
Guatemala is a large country, and it seems to be easiest to travel by shared shuttle as there aren’t direct public buses to many towns on the tourist trail. The downside of this is being at the whim of the shuttle company and driver for timings. Our advertised two hour shuttle ended up being three and a half hours, arriving after dark and dropping us off quite a walk from our hostel. The driver insisted our hostel was a short walk down an alley and he couldn’t take us further. It turned out he was being honest, it’s just that he had translated the name of our hostel The Friends, into Hotel El Amigo. They both existed and were about 15 minutes walk apart, which felt a long way in the dark with our big bags and aching legs!
Continue reading “Downtime and boat-hopping around Lake Atitlan”
