We spent the first weekend in July on "a vacation from our vacation," swapping our normal Antigua routines for a visit to Lake Atitlan. The lake is the deepest lake in Central America, a huge volcanic crater. The majority of the population here is Maya and many different Maya languages are spoken, with Spanish as their second language.
SaturdayOur shuttle picked us up around 9 a.m. for our ~2.5-3 hr drive to Panachel, a larger town (~15K ppl) on one end of the lake. Pana was the first place where we saw older Guatemalan men in traditional clothing. (In Antigua, many women wear the beautiful traditional clothes but we never saw any men.)
We ate lunch at a traditional Guatemalan place where Bill had a fish fried whole, then walked to the dock to catch a boat taxi over to the small village of San Marcos. Boats are the easiest way to get around the lake because it's surrounded by so many volcanos and other mountains that there aren't really any big roads circling it. People at the dock let us know which boat taxi was the right one for San Marcos, and we crowded in for our ~20 min ride (~$3/person).
San Marcos is the "hippie town" of the lake. We'd read that if you're looking for reiki, drum circles, or info about your prior lives, this is your place. We didn't see much of that, but it was definitely easy to find vegetarian and vegan options everywhere in this tiny town! When we got off the taxi, the dock led right into a road (well, sidewalk? path?) with restaurants and stores on both sides. It was the equivalent of maybe two blocks long, and that was the end of the main drag. We checked our Google maps and decided to try the next street over, then found that it was basically just a sidewalk. We ended up eating dinner at a traditional restaurant called Comedor Konojel, where we tried several new-to-us traditional foods like kaq'ik, agua de jamaica (hibiscus), and platanos en mole.
I'd booked our hotel online where it looked like we'd paid in full, but we realized when checking in that our card was never charged. The hotel did not accept credit cards in person, so after some panic at being asked for cash (we didn't have enough and had read that the one ATM in San Marcos often runs out), we ran through other options and figured out they could take PayPal. Fortunately Bill could log in, since I got blocked by the MFA request associated with my normal cell number (I'd swapped to a local SIM).
Once that got worked out, we enjoyed the hotel. It was a small place but we had a large suite with cool recycled bottle stained glass windows. "El Dragon" had a - you guessed it - big dragon statue over the pool. One odd thing was that they drained and refilled the pool and hot tub every day, so we had to wait for the hot tub to be ready. They asked that you notify the desk one hour prior to when you'd like to use the hot tub so they could heat it up.
Panachel, San Marcos, and Hotel El Dragon
Sunday
We started our day at a coffee shop we'd read about, Circles Cafe, which was one of the only places open early. No complaints though - the coffee was some of the best we've had. We also ordered several different pan tostados, toast with various toppings. Bill's fave was goat cheese with honey and almonds. This place had a great menu, was attached to a bakery, and also sold used clothes and accessories.
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| "Ooh, that's a good croissant." |
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| Circles Cafe courtyard |
After breakfast, we headed over to Cerro Tzankujil Nature Reserve. The hiking trails led us through several different areas with old Mayan altars (the rock circles that look like fire pits in the video below), up to the summit where we had a great view of the town, the lake, and the surrounding volcanos. At the bottom, we sat for a while near the lake watching waterskiiers, then hiked up to the cliff diving platform ("la trampolina" < > a trampoline). We saw a bunch of people who looked like they were trying to get up the nerve to jump, but didn't get to see anyone do it. It was so high!!
We visited Moonfish Cafe for lunch (falafel burrito for me, yum), found Ruth a cute ring as a souvenir, then headed back to the hotel's game room to avoid the rain. We played ping pong, then darts, then pool, where even Zadie was getting the hang of it and sinking some shots by the end. Later, we relaxed by the chilly pool and enjoyed the sunset while Zadie swam, then shared some appetizers for dinner at the hotel's restaurant near the pool and lake. We finished the day by watching some of Disney's live action Beauty and the Beast movie in Spanish.
Monday
Zadie's favorite "random perro" in San Marcos met us early at the beach and walked us over to breakfast. We called this one "perro sucio" (dirty dog) because he kept jumping in the lake and then rolling around in the dirt. Here's his good side. ;)
We went back to Circles Cafe for breakfast but tried the chocolate croissants and banana bread this time, mmmmmm:
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| "Where'd perro go?" |
Our shuttle ride back to Antigua left at noon, so we took a boat taxi back to Panachel early enough to explore that town a little more. This boat had a different path closer to the shore with lots of stops, giving us a better view of some amazing places to stay around the lake. If we ever return, I'd consider staying at a more remote place on the lake where you're basically just stuck at one hotel or rental house but there's a dock for swimming/kayaking/etc.
We walked around the shops on the main drag and down to the shore, then back up for early lunch/breakfast part 2 (a tasty traditional Guatemalan breakfast) before our long, bumpy shuttle ride back. This shuttle is where we met the Franciscan monk-in-training who slipped us this note after seeing Zadie with Harry Potter:
After relaxing back at home for a bit, we headed out for a 4th of July dinner at a BBQ place owned by a Texan - 'Merica!
All in all, it was a fun weekend and I'm glad we got to experience the totally different vibe of the lake.