Living it up at Lake Atitlan...

Similar to the shuttle from Flores to Semuc Champey, the one from Semuc Champey to Panajachel took about 14 hours. This sound horrendous, but it wasn't that bad in the end as we were very fortunate and landed a pretty empty bus which meant we could have two seats to ourselves so I made myself comfortable and settled down to watched as many episodes of Elite as possible - if you haven't seen it, I highly recommend it, and the fact that it's in Spanish means I can kid myself into thinking I am doing something productive when watching it :))) For the majority of the journey we were driving on smooth tarmac roads, looping their way around the Guatemalan mountain tops which meant that the views were incredible. Along the way, we passed the odd little village but not many as we were in such a remote location, and at one point we passed a concrete platform on which cocoa beans had been laid out to dry in the sun. We stopped off at a small petrol station in the middle of nowhere where we grabbed some ice creams and more snacks while admiring the valley far below from the edge of the road, trying not to think about how high up we were...

Finally, after a long day, we drove down into the town of Panajachel. Pana is located on the edge of Lake Atitlan, a body of fresh water inside a volcanic crater in the southwestern region of Guatemala. It is beautiful, surrounded by steep hills covered in coffee plantations and farmland with numerous Maya villages such as San Pedro, Panajachel and Santa Cruz, dotted around the lake. However, one of the most striking features of the lake are the Three Giants - Volcan San Pedro, Volcan Toliman and Volcan Atitlan - which rise up in the sky in the background. Panajachel, one of the bigger towns, has a lovely atmosphere with streets lined with vendors selling traditional Maya textiles and has a lakeside walkway where you can watch the sun set behind the trio of dormant volcanoes.

By this time we arrived, it was dark so we couldn't make much out, so after hauling our backpacks out of the bus window and onto our backs - Esther's smelling suspiciously strongly of spilt alcohol - we wandered off to find Dreamboat, our hostel for the next couple of days. Dreamboat is wonderful, definitely my favourite hostel so far. Apart from the twisted staircase which it a struggle to carry our enormous bags up, everything from the rooms to the staff to the social areas to the stuff they had going on was perfect. We were ravenous so as soon as we sorted out our room, we followed the staff recommendations of getting the street food from across the road and came back to eat, where we bumped into some other British girls (see what I mean about being a magnet for other British travellers??), one of which we would go on to travel with for the next month - love you lots Eleanor, you crazy lady.

Dreamboat's rooftop is a great napping place but don't be stupid and fall asleep in the sun without suncream....

The next day Izzy wasn't feeling too great, so Esther and I let her rest and decided to take a trip to the town of Chichicastenango as it was Sunday which meant it was market day! Chichi is about an hour long bus ride away from the lake, and what a stunning ride it is; as we had arrived in Pana at night, we hadn't been able to appreciate the view, but now we could look out the window over the lake and admire the lake in all its glory. Wooooow.

The small town of Chichi is known for its open-air craft market which sells everything you could possible imagine. We wandered through aisles of hand-made crafts, clothes, pottery, machetes and wooden boxes, although we spent most of our time sussing out the jewellery stands and thanks to Esther's bartering skills, we came away with some gorgeous silver rings and earrings to add to the collection. In other areas of the market, animals were being sold but we skipped through here very quickly as seeing tiny kittens tied to baskets and boxes full to the brim with chicks didn't sit too well with us. We eventually stumbled into the central square where the famous white church is located. Standing among such an array of bright colours, it stands out, making it all the more impressive in its simplicity. Its steps were covered in baskets of flowers, and once we eventually made our way up to the church doors after clambering over passed out local drunks, we peeked our heads inside the church but couldn't see much as some elderly women were swinging metal cans back and forth, wafting clouds of incense at the entrance.

I later learnt that this was 'pom and copal' which is traditional Maya incense, and it smells amazing. Looking down at the market below was quite a lot to take in; hundreds of people were milling around the stalls and weaving in between each other, tourists with their cameras and backpacks slung on their front mingling with local Maya women carrying baskets of colourful materials on their heads. It was pretty crazy and chaotic and while we loved it, every now and again we had to leave the market and venture down some of the town's side streets to take a breather. One of these times we headed to the cemetery up on the hill, however on the way we had to make a quick dash for the pavement to avoid being trampled by a crowd of people in rather scary decorative masks dancing their way down the street. We asked a local what was happening and he explained how it was the 8th of December which, in Guatemala, is known as the 'Feast of the Immaculate Conception', a very holy day for Catholics. During the night of December 7th at around 6pm, an unusual custom called 'La Quema del Diablo' (The Burning of the Devil) takes place, where an effigy of the devil is burnt in attempt to get rid of all badness in preparation for the new year. Explains the creepy masks...

It seemed quite fitting to follow this display with entering the cemetery which was beautiful, which shouldn't have taken me by surprise as it is considered to be one of the most colourful cemeteries in the world. Interestingly, most of the tombs are coloured based on the status of the person’s family as well as a way of celebrating the afterlife. For example, tombs painted white represent purity whereas graves of mothers are painted turquoise for protection and those of grandfathers are yellow to signify how the sun will protect humanity.

Battle of the handbags...

Soon it was time to head back, and after watching an entertaining couple of elderly American women battle it out for the best seats on the bus, we got back to the hostel, quickly heading out again to catch the lakeside sunset. After grabbing crepes for dinner, we spent the rest of the evening watching 'The Irishman' as it was movie night at the hostel, but somehow I just couldn't make it all the way through the three and a half hour long film, so it wasn't long before I fell asleep.

We had planned on leaving the next morning and moving onto our next town on the lake of San Pedro, however we found out it was the Dreamboat's two year anniversary and the staff were planning lots of crazy stuff to do so we decided we couldn't leave just yet and booked another night. And boy am I glad we did. It ended up being extremely eventful, full of frantic thrift shopping for outrageous outfits to wear on the tienda-crawl (like a pub crawl but with little Guatemalan convenience stores instead), during which we made friends with a volunteer at Free Cerveza, a hostel in one of the other villages around the lake, and were gifted a free night stay voucher which came into use later on....

During the day, we were introduced to the Quetzalteca, the traditional Guatemalan alcohol named after the national bird of Guatemala, the Quetzal. It comes in a variety of flavours hibiscus and grape in small stylish glass bottles and are only about $2 each, so dangerously affordable. It was founded by a family of immigrants from Spain, and in the last decade or so, it has gone from being viewed as a drink of the lower classes to now one of the upper-class. Our very busy day was followed by a very interesting night, so let's just leave it at that...

We eventually managed to pull ourselves away from Dreamboat and said our goodbyes to the wonderful owners and their adorable baby Jade, who will have my heart forever and always. The next morning we lugged ourselves over to the ferry terminal and after haggling with what felt like our hundredth con man, we got on a small ferry and headed off to San Pedro.

The boat ride gave us little tasters of the different towns as we docked at them to drop off and pick up new passengers on our way. Each town is very different and has its own reputation, for example San Pedro is known as the party town whereas Santa Marcos is a bit more of a yogi retreat. San Pedro was good to us, and we spent a little shy of a week there. We stayed in Hostel Fe which was perfect with its own little private pier where we spent a lot of time relaxing and doing a whole lot of nothing, Esther providing the entertainment as always with her impeccable Gemma Collins impression :))))

Elegant as always...lucky I didn't fall backwards

The owner of Hostel Fe, a lovely British man, took us out on his sailing boat one day, however the previous person he had loaned it to had torn the sail so after a period of very aggressive sailing where we repeatedly almost tumbled into the lake, we ended up pulling the sail down and just bobbing about for the rest of the afternoon, which suited me. Meanwhile, he told us a lot about the history of San Pedro and how as a result of San Pedro's party reputation, locals had complained about the disruption which resulted in the implementation of a 1am curfew, however this was soon changed to an earlier time of 11pm when it wasn't abided by. He also recommended the hike of the Indian Nose Peak (La Nariz de Indio) which sits at 2,863m above the town. So, after much deliberation as almost every single review on trip adviser warns you about the lake robbers - thanks for scaring us witless Harry - we signed up to the sunrise hike. We got up at the unbearable time of 4am and waited, shivering, in the street until the mini bus picked us up and took us to the base of the peak. Well, I say it was the base but that's probably a little misleading as in reality the bus took us about half way up the mountain so the hike itself really wasn't that bad. When we reached the top, it was freezing and so we huddled up on the wooden platform, warming our hands with the cups of coffee that the guides handed out, and watched the sun creep over the volcano summits, spreading golden light across the surface of the lake as it rose. It was stunning, especially as we could spot the Volcan de Fuego erupting in the distance.

Before leaving San Pedro, we spent time with friends treating ourselves to a fancy dinner (fancy by travelling standards) where I had risotto and, I hate to say it because I feel as though I have described all the food I have tried on this trip like this, but it really was the best mushroom risotto I have ever had. We ended the night at the thermal pools which were scaldingly hot and a bit of squeeze to fit all of us, but it was good fun nonetheless.

On we moved to another village called Santa Cruz. Remember how I said that we were given a free night stay voucher at Free Cerveza, one of the hostels in the lake, when doing the tienda crawl in Panajachel? Well, it was time for us to use it! So, we turned up, booked our yurt (they house you in very fancy canvas tents so we were technically glamping whooheyyy) and headed down to the social area to meet our friends and that's where the games began...Up until this point, my favourite hostel had been Dreamboat in Panajachel, but Free Cerveza quickly took first place. It is located in such a beautiful setting, right on the lakeside with a big pier and a variety of paddle boats and kayaks on offer, and the accommodation is gorgeous; waking up and stepping out of your tent to the view of fluorescent pink flowers and volcanoes and the lake glittering in the sun is magical, and something I could definitely get used to. Esther and I have decided that one day we will come back and volunteer for a couple of months, it's just too wonderful not to return. Free Cerveza was such a crazy whirlwind of a time that I don't really know how to sum it up apart from elf onesies, bar-top tattoo sessions, lots of cerveza, Ger and his ukelele, midnight music sessions on the pier, fire pits, Sam's desperate attempts to make dogs love him, Maddy floating about constantly giggling and Eleanor frantically downing sea sickness pills before getting on the party boat...Oh yea, the party boat was fantastic, I even got to play captain and steer the ship although apparently Carlos - the actual captain - kept having to correct my steering as the rest of the passengers were complaining about how much we were zig zagging...I'm pretty sure I was great...

Sadly, our two weeks by the lake had to come to an end and it was time to move onto Antigua. I really could have spent the rest of my holidays at Lake Atitlan and been so satisfied with my time there, but we still have a long way to go and lots of things to do and see. So, for now, we said our goodbyes, but I know we'll be back one day...

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