Lago de Atitlan

Thursday 16th - Friday 17th September 1999

Met numerous other travellers in the courtyard of our hotel in Antigua, and got drunk for a couple of days in Antigua. Didn't see much of the town, but had a good time.

Saturday 18th September - Saturday 25th September 1999

Saturday morning, we decided to move on to Lago de Atitlan, and more by default than anything else we opted for San Pedro La Laguna. The journey to Panajachel on the lake was a thing of surreal beauty if not serenity. We had been reliably misinformed that there were two direct buses a day, one at 7 and one at 11 in the morning. Being hungover, we tried to go for the 11 a.m. bus, only to discover that no such bus ran. In the end, we caught a bus to Chimaltenango, which took an hour to travel 17 kilometres. We then stood waiting for about 25 minutes for a bus to Los Encuentros, little more than a road junction. On the way from Los Encuentros, it rained heavily, and our luggage was on the roof. By the time we got there, it was soaking. Luckily, we didn't have long to wait to get an "express direct" bus to Panajachel. After about another half an hour, they announced that we were in Panajachel and threw us off the bus, almost driving away with Veronika still on board. We soon discovered the reason for this rapid departure when we realised that we were not actually in Panajachel but in Solola. Fortunately, there was yet another bus waiting to take us to Panajachel.

Any complaints we might have had came to a speedy end when we started on the road down to Panajachel and saw the lake for the first time. The lake is located in a volcanic caldera and is ringed by high volcanic peaks, some of them still active.

Panajachel itself is not much of a town, and seems to have developed in line with the fluctuating needs of the tourist industry. As soon as we got off the bus, people offered to take us back to where we had just come from, while others offered to guide us to a hotel. We managed to fight them off and make it through the souvenir market to the dock, where we caught a boat to San Pedro, only having to wait for a relatively short time.

The boat journey was excellent, providing superb views of the lake from different perspectives. The only downer came when we started riding straight into the rain, which began to soak us. Fortunately, the two kids helping out on the boat were ready for this, and held a large tarpaulin sheet over the gap at the front of the boat, shielding us from the wet. Thus we arrived at San Pedro La Laguna, the whole journey having taken some five hours. The boat even took us to the docking point for the hotel we wanted to stay in, the Hotel Valle Azul ("Blue Valley Hotel").

This was an excellent choice of hotel. Our room had a hammock on the balcony directly outside our door with a view over the lake to the volcano, so needless to say I spent a great deal of time lying back trying/pretending to learn Spanish. One of the delights of the Valle Azul (and indeed San Pedro) is the Mayan women who, nonchalantly carrying baskets almost as large as they are on their heads, come into the hotel and sell you fabulous fresh fruit and sweet and savoury breads. It was a highlight of the day whenever one of these women (usually the same ones) would appear, calling out "Frutas, bananitas, pinas, naranjas, melon" or my particular favourite (largely because I'd never tried one before), the garishly purple pitaya. Come mid-afternoon, a large group of foreign travellers would be sitting on the balcony watching the lake and waiting for the fruit and bread ladies ("Pana pan" as I joked with the three Polish students staying in the next room to us) to appear and tempt us with their produce.

Fergus enjoying the fruits of his labour

The family that runs Valle Azul are a real delight. They live up behind the hotel, and the whole family helps out: one of the daughters, Hilda Elizabeth, cleans the rooms and the balconies; another daughter runs the restaurant; a third does the laundry. The mother is obviously in charge, and the father deals with the money. Rudi (or possibly Arudi), apparently the eldest son, seems to be the odd-job man, as he is continuously called by one or other of the women to perform some task. And the younger children, when they're not at school, wander around being cute and adored by all the family and half of the visitors too.

For the first four nights, we stayed on the first floor, the same level as the family, and this was a real experience. We've stayed in some pleasant but impersonal hotels, but with the family living at the same place, it was a healthy dose of real life as opposed to the (ab)normal life of busy travellers. The youngest girl would come home from school in her immaculate tartan skirt and white blouse, and would immediately change into her beautiful traditional Mayan costume, worn by all of the women in the village and the neighbouring villages too. Most of the men wear western-style clothing, although we did also see a number of men in traditional costume. Each village has its own typical costume, a fact which became patently obvious when Antonio, a young male member of the family running the hotel, saw my picture of two girls in traditional costume and immediately said "Ah, Santiago". He recognised the costume as soon as he saw it.

Veronika and some girls from Santiago Atitlan

We didn't do much in San Pedro, and that was the right thing to do. We'd been travelling fairly hard for three and a half months, and the time had come to stop for a few days to relax - San Pedro is an excellent place for just that. We didn't originally plan to stay so long, but the atmosphere of the town seduced us.

On our first day in San Pedro, we rented a couple of "canoes" which were not exactly watertight, and were extremely difficult to manoeuvre with only one oar/paddle, so we only spent about an hour on the water. The locals made it look easy, although there were never more than one of them in the boat at a time, while we had two or three people in each.

On Tuesday, we visited the market at Santiago Atitlan, a short boat trip away from San Pedro. Here we finally succumbed to the temptation of making a purchase of artesanias, in this case a pair of trousers and a pair of shorts for me, and a woollen top for Veronika. After some hard bargaining, we got all three for a reasonable price.

Wednesday we studied a little Spanish and lazed about, enjoying the relaxing atmosphere. Thursday we made it as far as the market in San Pedro, and we bought the ingredients for guacamole, firmly established as one of our favourite foods in Central America. The avocados are so fresh and ripe that the guacamole becomes extremely creamy, and when this is combined with fresh coriander and chillies, the taste is exquisite.

Vicenta, the bread lady, San Pedro La Laguna

Thursday came and went, and we didn't go anywhere. I went for an abortive swim along the lakeside, but when I saw what appeared to be leeches in the water, I decided that discretion truly was the better part of valour and opted to get out of the water. It was only later when I was walking along the shore that I found the remains of a shellfish which was obviously my "leech", but by then the weather had deteriorated sufficiently to persuade me not to go back again for a second attempt.

We spent the afternoon and evening on the balcony looking onto the lake, doing nothing much of anything. I studied a little more Spanish, Veronika spent several hours carefully disinfecting the ingredients for another fabulous guacamole. The atmosphere was again totally relaxing. Veronika and I had spent the previous few days dealing with increasing numbers of bites from what would appear to be bed bugs - we moved upstairs to a room with new beds and I at least didn't get bitten overnight. At least they're not mosquitoes - the senora who runs the Valle Azul assures me that they're not dangerous.

In the last couple of days, a certain absurdity has been lent to the scene a couple of occasions by music - last night, what sounded like a karaoke version of Auld Lang Syne, with many verses all apparently in English, and this afternoon Save All Your Kisses for Me.

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