Lake Atitlan
On Friday afternoon, I left for Lake Atitlan with 4 people I met here at Pop-Wuj. As we descended into the lake region, I was captivated by just how beautiful the area really was. The lake is at around a one mile altitude and surrounded by three volcanoes (Atitlan, San Pedro, and Toliman). The lake itself is 300 meters deep, but people are beginning to think it could be up to 600 meters deep. The lake is surrounded by a couple of towns. Only Pan is reachable by road while all the others require a boat. Anyway... it was just picturesque. We got to Pan around 7pm and immediately tried to scout out a perfect hotel for the night. We ended up finding this great deal (60Qs each!) on a hotel that was right on the water. Our rooms were on the third floor so that we could see the fantastic views from our rooms. After a dinner directly on the water, the five of us piled into a three wheeled cab to the other side of the city so that we could just walk back to our rooms and enjoy the sights. We listened to some live music and watched as the skankily clad Marlboro girls went around convincing people to smoke and enter a contest (I have never seen anything like that except with beer the night before... skankily clad Gallo girls were giving prizes to people caught drinking Gallo... hmm a theme here?) Anyway, when we got back to the hotel, we all decided to watch for shooting stars on the roof of the hotel. Shalini, Alex, and I ended up staying up late discussing the meaning of life and God... very cliche but it seemed to fit with the atmosphere.
On Saturday, the boys got up super early to watch the sunrise and then woke Shalini and I up at 745am to get the day started. We found a nice place to have breakfast and then rented kayaks. We got them from an hour to explore the shore around us. The whole experience on the lake was breath taking. We found a cliff to dive off of and parked our kayaks at some random house before going to the cliffs to play around in the water. We barely made it back in time and then we had to check-out. With all of our stuff, we toured the market and found a bar to watch France beat Brazil! We were the obnoxious France fans surrounded by Brazil fans.
We caught a boat to Santa Cruz where we had heard of a hostel that had crossdressing parties on Saturday nights. The Inguana Perdita was this awesomely chill place where the rooms were for eight people with no walls, only a ceiling (24Qs a night... that's barely $3) and a serve yourself on the honor code bar. Usually the place is packed, but that night only us and 3 other guests were there for the party. The boys went all out in dresses and it was hysterical. The night was very chill with us just listening to music and basically having fun seeing girls in boxers with beards and guys trying to figure out how to sit in a dress (which, the couldn't).
On Sunday, Jon, Alex, and I went for a hike towards a nearby village. We could see these awesome cliffs from the hostel and wanted to check them out. The path swung up the mountain before we got to the cliffs so we just jumped in and swam the rest of the way. I love cliffdiving and these rocks were at a point so you didn't see the land around you, only the volcanoes and water in front of you... beautiful. We tried to follow the stairs near the cliff up, but they just got too steep and we turned back. After swimming and hiking back, we lazed around for a bit before heading back to Pan to head home. We finally got on the first chicken bus at 4:15. It took FIVE busses to get back to Xela, which was highly annoying, making our arrival around 8pm. However, I successfully had my first phone convo in Spanish with my host family (phones are hard!) which made me happy. It's always the little things that make me happy =)
On Saturday, the boys got up super early to watch the sunrise and then woke Shalini and I up at 745am to get the day started. We found a nice place to have breakfast and then rented kayaks. We got them from an hour to explore the shore around us. The whole experience on the lake was breath taking. We found a cliff to dive off of and parked our kayaks at some random house before going to the cliffs to play around in the water. We barely made it back in time and then we had to check-out. With all of our stuff, we toured the market and found a bar to watch France beat Brazil! We were the obnoxious France fans surrounded by Brazil fans.
We caught a boat to Santa Cruz where we had heard of a hostel that had crossdressing parties on Saturday nights. The Inguana Perdita was this awesomely chill place where the rooms were for eight people with no walls, only a ceiling (24Qs a night... that's barely $3) and a serve yourself on the honor code bar. Usually the place is packed, but that night only us and 3 other guests were there for the party. The boys went all out in dresses and it was hysterical. The night was very chill with us just listening to music and basically having fun seeing girls in boxers with beards and guys trying to figure out how to sit in a dress (which, the couldn't).
On Sunday, Jon, Alex, and I went for a hike towards a nearby village. We could see these awesome cliffs from the hostel and wanted to check them out. The path swung up the mountain before we got to the cliffs so we just jumped in and swam the rest of the way. I love cliffdiving and these rocks were at a point so you didn't see the land around you, only the volcanoes and water in front of you... beautiful. We tried to follow the stairs near the cliff up, but they just got too steep and we turned back. After swimming and hiking back, we lazed around for a bit before heading back to Pan to head home. We finally got on the first chicken bus at 4:15. It took FIVE busses to get back to Xela, which was highly annoying, making our arrival around 8pm. However, I successfully had my first phone convo in Spanish with my host family (phones are hard!) which made me happy. It's always the little things that make me happy =)
posted by Sarah at 6:38 AM
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