Activity Summary
Wednesday 17th May - Day 258
Travel to Lake Atitlan / Panajachel
Dinner at Tuscani
Thursday 18th May - Day 259
Brunch at The Little Spoon
Walk around Panajachel
Water taxi to San Juan La Laguna
Late lunch at Restaurante El Muelle
Walk around San Juan La Laguna
Friday 19th May - Day 260
Indian nose / Rostro Maya hike (Luke)
Mirador Cerro (Nicola)
Lunch at Pita Sabij
Walk through San Pedro
Walk through San Marcos
Summary
Panajachel
One of the bigger towns around the lake and therefore probably had more to see and certainly more options for eating and drinking. A nice place to browse around.
San Juan La Laguna
Of the towns this was our favourite for wandering around and for things to do. The Nose hike is very close, the streets are open and have interesting art and decoration while not having a party identity. The best place for us to stay in our time here.
San Pedro La Laguna
Turns out there is very little to see or do here. The food and bar choices are a lot better than San Juan and the number of tourists that descended from our first water taxi here was probably indicative of that. Happy we went to see it, more so because of the pita.
San Marcos La Laguna
A proper hippy town vibe where yoga seems to be the main focus. Nice enough to walk through.
Lake Atitlan
The area is pretty cool with the towering volcanoes and mountains around the large body of water of Atitlan but the view never quite cleared enough to really take our breath away as a result of the constant haze that seems to overhang the area.
The hiking has so much potential but as a result of risk to tourists from banditos and the cost of tours, Luke really wasn’t keen to push it here. Massive shame, and is something that could be so easily fixed and resolved but there doesn’t seem to be a particularly large will to do so.
The towns around the lake are all quite unique and the transport between them is easy and cheap. Our two days here were plenty for us as there isn’t a whole lot to do in each. We had been warned from reading and also from first hand account war stories how polluted the lake is so in the interest of preserving our insides, we had zero interest in any water based activities.
Transport
Panajachel
Lanquin hostel -> [walk/tuk tuk] -> Lanquin bus terminal / Exxon petrol station -> [minivan] -> Panajachel petrol station -> [walk] -> Hotel
Lake Atitlan
The water taxi is the easiest and cheapest way to get between the towns, seemingly Q15 for short haul and Q25 to the other side of the lake. Tuk tuks are also an option but a little pricier.
Accommodation
Panajachel - Posada don Miguel
Number of nights - 1
Price per night per person - £14
The hotel was great for us after travelling for 12 hours and needing somewhere comfortable, two beds, a private bathroom, room relatively cool temperature wise (didn’t need the fan) and the nicest shower we have had in an age. The location was a bit annoying being down a narrow alley but it was central and also close to both the water taxi and bus terminal.
San Juan La Laguna - Posada Mana
Number of nights - 2
Price per night per person - £9
Turned out to be a very rustic accommodation choice. It had a nice outside area with hammocks that was nice to chill in, until the mozzies descended, and the basic kitchen / lounge area was alright. That was about the sum total of the positive / neutral points.
The room was small, quite warm without a fan but fortunately it did cool down at night. The double bed was tiny and not approved of at all. The surrounding town could be heard through the room, strangely worse on a Thursday night and not the Friday.
The one toilet and shower, both outside and with absolutely no space to manoeuvre was less than ideal.
Fairly uncomfortable but we made it work.
Diary
Our bus to Panajachel was at 8am and we had a pretty hilly walk to get there (although not overly long) so made the decision to take off a lot earlier than our departure time. Nicola wasn’t doing so well in the morning as a result of travel anxiety and the early rise wreaking havoc with her stomach but fortunately this was limited to the hostel.
We checked out with the hostel, settled our tab that had been building over the two days (by Luke’s estimates we had underpaid so we weren't going to contest this) and set off on our walk. Although not ideal, the walk from the hostel to the bus was really quite beautiful. We took it slow up the hills and on reaching the main road Nicola called it and opted for a tuk tuk the last part. It wasn’t very far but it was steep and given it was going to be a savagely long day the 50p each cost was deemed worth it.
Our direction was to meet at the Exxon petrol station which was the opposite side of the road to where we were dropped off. After sitting Nicola on a wall for a bit Luke went off to work out what was going on but we were a little early for someone to take charge. We half followed a group of gringos to the petrol station before Luke got the attention of one of the bus drivers and concluded, albeit not convincingly given it seemed our ticket didn’t match his list and there were some extended conversations in Spanish amongst other drivers at the stop, that this was in fact the bus to Panajachel. The aim of being first on was to snag a better seat for Nicola.
After others got on and we confirmed we were going to the same place we could relax a bit. The bus didn’t leave for an age however and then proceeded to get annoyed at 2 girls who had stepped into the petrol station to get water and therefore not on his bus when we left. Luke was in part to blame as he said he’d hold the bus, thinking we hadn’t moved for 40 minutes, what’s another few matter?
Turns out our positioning at the front of the minivan wasn’t a great plan. The road to Panajachel was incredibly hilly and winding so we were crawling up and down for the most part and when the engine needed it, what little air flow we had was well and truly turned off. The heat from the engine up front was savage and for ventilation the driver had his window open that just pumped in the flailing van fumes from the struggling hill climbs. Nicola ended up wearing a face mask pretty much the whole time.
Our first stop was back to the Coban Mcds for some late breakfast which was our only real meal of the day as our lunch plans of chorizo sandwiches were decimated when all the ingredients got cooked under our seats. We therefore decided against poisoning ourselves. The rest of the stops (about 4 in total) were short layovers to use the toilets and get junk food snacks. Never really a great choice available and Luke ended up paying £2.50 for a kinder bueno at one of the last ones after 10 hours in.
By the time we arrived in Panajachel it was gone 7pm, a 12 hour hour journey door to door and 11 hours by minivan. Nicola was so low energy by the end of it and the walk to our hotel didn’t help. Google wasn’t very helpful in locating the hotel so we went wrong initially and after asking some locals plus using directions from booking we eventually found the alleyway there. Annoyingly there were copious amounts of motorbikes (plus dog poop) also going down the narrow alley which made things a bit more tense.
At least the hotel was pretty nice. We dumped our stuff and for ease chose a nearby Italian place called Tuscani for dinner. Absolutely nothing special about the food.
Nicola was in bed comfortably before 9pm.
We were in no rush in the morning with checkout at 12 so pottered around for some time, had some cereal and then left our bags with the office to explore Panajachel.
We had brunch at The Little Spoon which served some decent food and had a nice enough place to sit for a while. Nicola’s order in Spanish and ending with her typical dirty French way of annunciating ‘croissant’ as if some stuck up Frenchies were there to judge this word alone, brought a great deal of laughter to Luke and on gently mocking also got the same lols from the waiter. The hybrid of accents was pretty amusing.
We spent the next hour having a nice stroll around Panajachel and along the waterfront of Lake Atitlan for the first time, browsing through the shops and stalls on the side of the road and ended up buying a beaded bird Xmas tree decoration. It was a very nice early afternoon activity and after the not so pleasant walk with our bags in Panajachel at night our views of the place changed dramatically. It also gave Nicola some renewed energy to combat her travellers fatigue of late.
Now a more sensible time to check in to our next accomodation we picked up our big bags and walked over to the water taxi in Panajachel. This whole process was a bit confusing as no matter where we went there was a constant heckle of ticket touts selling journeys to the various towns and stops around Lake Atitlan. Naturally we ignored all until we actually got to the waterfront but we couldn’t see a ticket booth of any kind nor did any of the blogs we had read shed any light on the process. By chance we just strolled down to the water taxi, said ‘San Juan’ and were put on a boat to pay Q25pp at the end. The bags were laid precariously on top of the boat without much of a lip to stop them from rolling off which made us slightly nervous and the driver on seeing this apprehension said all would be well. As we were traversing a lake the risk of severe swells was pretty minimal but it wasn’t exactly a robust method.
The water taxi to San Juan La Laguna stopped off at the main towns along the way so it did take a while.
Once in San Juan we paid the driver and had a nice steep hill to greet us to walk up with our big bags but at least it was quite a pretty street, colours flying everywhere and a load of umbrellas blanketing the open skyline.
At our hotel we had a short wait for the person to arrive so we could check in and then set off to town to explore. Laundry was first and then had a very uninspired late lunch at Restaurante El Muelle. There really wasn’t much option for decent food choices in San Juan so we settled on going to the shop for dinner as we had a kitchen.
We had a nice walk around San Juan La Laguna, browsed the shops and were so happy to find the church on top of the hill didn’t have a working bell so had a speaker system to replace the chiming sound. This sounded as if Jesus had just picked up a guitar for the first time as a kid and with his equally shit mates, started out in his awful rock band. It was all pretty amusing until we realised we could hear everything from our hotel room. Equally annoying the chiming didn’t even have a schedule, just kicking off at random times in the day.
We spent the evening in the hotel room, Luke making friends with the resident cat and on winding down for the evening realised we weren’t going to get much sleep. On a popping Thursday night a DJ of a nearby bar (no idea where this was however) decided to whip out a savage house/disco set that had reverb we could feel in our tiny double bed. This didn’t stop until comfortably last 12, and had the odd church shime (shit chime) vying for attention.
Neither of us slept well with the noise, it was quite warm and then got cold later in the night while clattering into each other with next to no space. This was the first time in a while we had shared ‘only a double’ and we didn’t enjoy it - Nicola proclaiming we must have singles at the next place if there is no AC. There doesn't ever seem to be AC in Guatemala.
Luke had intended for us both to hike the Indian nose / Rostro Maya a fair amount earlier to avoid hotter temperatures but this didn’t happen. We picked up our laundry first and set off for our walk at about 10am.
The walk itself is made of two parts; the Mirador Cerro is a viewpoint reached by walking along a pretty well laid out stepped path but with a fair amount of gradient that costs Q30pp to walk. From there the route diverges from the nice laid out path to a rustic hiking track to the nose where at the top a few of Q50 is paid.
The first part was pretty simple, albeit not so pleasant in the sun.
Once we started going up towards the nose Nicola called it quits given the incline and negative effect this would likely have on her feet a few days before hiking Volcan Acatenango. She therefore spent the next hour or so happily chilling at the viewpoint overlooking Lake Atitlan, San Juan, San Pedro and the various 3000+m mountains & volcanoes in the background. There were a number of stalls and even a live band to keep her entertained so she wasn’t complaining at all.
Luke carried on up the hiking track to get as far as he could without encountering the next ticket man. For fear of having all his stuff stolen when hiking (banditos run the same machete wielding thriving tactic on many of the easy to hike volcanoes, in particular San Pedro) he didn’t bring enough money to pay the second Q50 (£5) fee. He also wasn’t keen about spending £8 on a hike.
The walk was steep, quite warm but good fun. Some of the tracks were pretty narrow and the latter stages had a completely knackered set of stairs that were more hazard than helpful.
The views over the lake and mountains were pretty nice. There had been a constant haze and fog since being here that wasn’t so bad today but if clear, the view had so much potential.
Luke stopped short a few hundred metres from the top, having got some pretty decent views throughout and then turned tail back down to the lower viewpoint. In total it was 7km and 575m of climbing.
Once back together we took off back to the hotel for Luke to get a shower in and then grabbed a nearby tuk tuk to San Pedro for Q40. A bit pricey but we were hungry.
It turns out San Pedro has very little to offer apart from nightlife (not interested) and an amazing Mediterranean lunch spot called Pita Sabij. The pita here was possibly one of the best Luke has ever had and the rest of the food was top quality. Nicola was a little disappointed with her falafel and there was some food envy for the chicken shwamarma.
Our walk through San Pedro lasted about 10 minutes before we went down to the pier to get the water taxi to San Marcos. It would cost Q15 to go between each town so not too bad a price.
In San Marcos we had a slightly longer walk than San Pedro but there wasn’t a great deal to see here. The main street had a number of hipster cafes, plenty of yoga advertisements and more weirdly a lot of mushroom growing lessons. We walked up to the top of town, grabbed a lemonade and then were back on the boat to San Juan.
Back at the hotel we spent the afternoon in the outside hammocks & the evening in the hostel with some DIY nachos.
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