I’ve now been in Guatemala for just two days. I joined Suzanne Schefcik and Ryan Hugget at the Guatemalan City airport and made our way to Antigua for about 24 hours, where we enjoyed spending time strolling the cobbled streets and getting our first glimpse of Guatemalan life. Many of the women wearing the traditional huipils (traditional dress) were hoping to lure tourists to buy goods. We were surprised at the number of high class restaurants, bars and hotels catering to tourists. We finished our time in Antigua off with an amazing breakfast with eggs revueltos, plantanos, black beans and café for 15Q (about $2).
We then took four chicken buses and three hours later arrived in Panajachel, also called Pana by most people here around Lake Atitlan. This is the main port on the lake and the stopping point to get to the rest of the lakeside villages. We had our first sketchy encounter with theft right at the get go. The man collecting money on the bus was a sneaky little bastard who cleverly positioned our seating arrangements to get into Ryan’s bag. Fortunately, we were on it and Suz gave him some wrist slapping when he tried to unzip her purse.
From Pana we bartered for a water taxi to the lake side town, Santa Cruz. There are dozens of communities around the lake. The lake was created about 85,000 of years ago after volcano eruptions that created a caldera that is now Lake Atitlan. More recently the lake has been rising due to heavy rains and changing climate. You’ll see in some of my photos that houses on the lake are nearly underwater. After arriving in Santa Cruz, we went straight into the first hostel we saw when we walked off the dock called Iguana Perdida (Lost Iguana). We should have known what we were getting into when we were greeted in English. Until then we had always been addressed in Spanish. It was a pretty interesting pocket of Western culture right in the middle of Mayan life. They offered crepes among other American items for breakfast but we missed hearing Spanish and eating fresh made tortillas. Time for another adventure.
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