LAKE ATITLÁN –

HEADING TO THE LAKE

After a fantastic week or so in Antigua, it was time to move on and the next stop was to be Lake Atitlán, which was about 2 hours away by road.

We booked an Uber, which was a much easier interaction than trying to find one in Costa Rica, fortunately, and we were on our way.

It was a pleasant journey, Hols had taken a travel sickness pill before we set off, so she was nice and chilled and falling in and out of sleep. Meanwhile I happily tinkered away on my laptop from the back seat.

The peace was disturbed a little by an ominous notification from the Uber app – “You seem to be diverting away from the designated route. Is everything ok?”

Alarm bells rang.

Are we being kidnapped, I thought. You hear all these tales about tourists being kidnapped and held to ransom in Guatemala and other Latin American countries and I wondered if this was our time to become a statistic.

I frantically tried communicating with the driver. He didn’t speak English and my distinct lack of ability to understand or communicate in the Spanish language had not come on one jot, despite the time spent in Spanish speaking countries.

I dove for the Google Translate app and translated my question re the change of route. The driver tapped away and presented back to me “bad routes”.

I replied back “What makes them bad”

The driver responded with 3 words, which made me take serious notice and sit up straight – “Assault with guns.”

I was not prepared for this response, but looking back I took it all very calmly. I simply said, in English, “Cool. Just keep doing what you’re doing then,” quickly packed my laptop into my rucksack and stared intently at the road ahead.

To think, Hols and I were thinking of renting a car here, after the ordeal of getting around in Costa Rica. We would have been sitting ducks. Fate was on our side, it seemed.

 

PANAJACHEL

We made it to our destination without issue and settled in to our first stay at Lake Atitlán; the town of Panajachel.

The lake itself is a huge body of water. Approximately 12km across and 6km wide, with many distinct towns dotted along its shore line. Our plan was to spend a few days in as many towns as possible over a total of 2-3 weeks and we were starting in Panajachel.

The hub of the town was a pretty standard shopping street, with many bars and cafes along the route, which led down to the edge of the lake.

Some of the shops were a bit more random than others:

Walking down this street we made our way to the end to catch our first glimpse of this epic lake:

On our final day here we went for a trip to a nearby nature reserve, where they had a butterfly enclosure, hiking trails and zip lining. Oh, and much to Holly’s immense satisfaction, more hanging rope bridges 😂:

Here’s a few snaps of the rest of the day here:

VIDEO – BUTTERFLY PARK AND ZIP LINING

It was quite a good day out and the zip lining in particular was a real treat. I pulled together a video of the day, so you can watch this below:

SAN PEDRO

The next town on the agenda, after 3 nights in Panajachel, was San Pedro.

Getting around from one town to the next was most easily accomplished by boat, so we packed up our things and made our way down to the jetty and hopped on the next boat going in the direction of San Pedro.

A relatively short trip to the other side of the lake and we were there.

What to say about San Pedro?

It’s a bigger town than Panajachel, with much more to offer it seemed. For good and for bad, which I’ll get to later.

We had a pretty simple hotel room there for the few nights we were staying. It felt unfinished and there were building works going on, which explained the bargain price per night, but it had everything we needed and it was right in the heart of the town.

I found an awesome cafe, with a great view of the lake, where I wiled away many hours working on the blog:

Another restaurant we went to a couple of times had some strange signage going on:

BAD TIMES….

San Pedro was generally a lovely spot, with great views of the lake and nice hangout spots, but there’s one significant problem there, as we were to find out applies to the whole of the lake area.

Dogs.

Bloody dogs.

Stray dogs.

Lots of them.

Packs of them.

Snarling, growling, packs of blood thirsty, potentially rabid, stray, fucking dogs.

One morning, Hols was heading over to a yoga class, which was maybe 10 mins walk from our hotel. It was early and no one was really around, except for these fucking dogs. She walked past a pack of about half a dozen of them. One chose to bark aggressively at her, which alerted the others to do the same. This, in turn, alerted another pack of 4 or so dogs to join the fray. Hols, never really a dog lover, was petrified and started screaming for help. Alas, there was no one around to come to her aid.

Armed only with a yoga mat and circled by these blood thirsty hounds, Hols began swinging it at the dogs as a means to scare them off, while she steadily stepped backwards. Somehow this tactic did allow her to get some distance from them and she was able to scuttle off to her yoga class, unharmed physically, but quite traumatised by the incident. Any stray dogs that came her way in the following weeks resulted in a near panic attack.

Needless to say, Hols love of dogs hasn’t improved since this moment.

Time to move on.

SAN JUAN

Not too much to say about San Juan really, although we did spent nearly a week here.

It was only a mile or so from San Pedro, so we got a tuk tuk over to our accommodation. A beautiful eco hotel, high up in the cliff face, overlooking the lake, with an impressive balcony adorned with hammocks that I spent many hours in, enjoying the views and the peace.

With it being an eco-hotel, there were no plug points in the rooms, which meant I had to get a bit creative.

There was one plug point in the bathroom, with the typical shaver port, so I used a travel adaptor for this to good measure. It did risk affecting the romance of our relationship, due to a lack of bathroom privacy, however.

From our balcony we were able to admire the lake and see a profile of the ‘Indian Nose’ peak. Can you notice it below?

Still can’t see it? Here’s a closer look:

It’s a well known hiking spot to catch a glimpse of an epic sunrise over the lake. We were too lazy to attempt it, however. We were done with overwhelming hikes for now.

We did make use of one of the hotel’s kayaks for a morning row. I say ‘we’. This basically consisted of Hols showing me around, while I relaxed in the back, taking in the sights.

The town of San Juan was about a 10 minute walk from our hotel, so we spent some time looking around there. Quite a cute town. The first thing we noticed though was this alcoholics anonymous place, which made sense in hindsight that we couldn’t find any booze anywhere in this town, except for the hotel.

This is the public jetty at San Juan, which proved much more effective when getting a boat. Our hotel had its own private jetty, where we tried futilely to get a boat over to San Marcos and ended up wasting 2 hours just sitting there waiting, only to watch dozens of boats go past and ignore us, despite the hotelier trying to wave them down.

SAN MARCOS

The last town that we visited at the lake and the one where we spent the most time was San Marcos.

A town with a particularly hippy vibe, which reminded me a little of Pai in Thailand.

We got a boat over here. A slightly longer journey that allowed us to take in more of the coastline of the lake and appreciate its vastness.

Upon arriving here, the hippy vibe was clear as day. Loads of shops featuring homemade clothing – Hols managed to get hold of a swimsuit that she’d been craving, that was made out of recycled plastic bottles! – foodstuffs, potions, ointments and the obligatory adverts for healing workshops and psychedelic experiences:

We took a hike up through the ‘Mirador de San Marcos’ one day when we were here, which is basically a nature park at the southern tip of the town, overlooking the lake, with a spot known as the ‘trampoline’ where you can jump from 12m above the lake into the crystal, blue waters.

I took the drone up here to get some shots of the surroundings and it was beaut!

SPANISH SCHOOL

Feeling forever awful about our lack of any Spanish language skill, Hols and I decided to enrol in a Spanish class while we were in town.

Getting up at 8am with lack of sleep and lack of coffee, proved to be a difficult recipe for taking in something with which I’d always strugged. Language. But not to be deterred, off we went for our first class in Spanish school.

Past the decaying carcass of a cat and the stench of both this and dog shit all around, yes stray dogs were a problem here, too and we arrived at the Spanish school.

Avert your eyes if you’re sensitive to the sight of dead animals. I just wanted to paint a picture of reality here, rather than just the Instagram effect.

Trust me when I say all is not just gorgeous beaches and blue skies when travelling.

I was handed a very adult notebook with which to jot down my learnings.

The teacher dove head first into complex language for which I wasn’t prepared and then got us to roleplay some Q&A without the foggiest of how to even ask a question.

I did state that I needed to grab a coffee as my head was really not working and any attempt to try and think was met with huge internal resistance. Hols gave me a strong nudge in the ribs and I pushed myself to carry on.

Futile.

We never went back for our 2nd lesson.

 

COFFEE

I befriended a guy that ran a local coffee shop here, which sold oat milk! Yes, to the oat milk. Such a treat to find somewhere that did this, so I’d return on a daily basis for my fix of awesome Guatemalan coffee with a different work of art lovingly depicted on each cup.

Crisis struck when the guy told me they’d run out of oat milk 😱, but the shop adjoined to the cafe sold it, so I bought myself a carton which they kept on side just for me. Phew 😅

I was such a regular here that when it came time to move on the lad who worked here gave me a hug, gave me a free coffee and emblazoned it with this image to wish me safe travels. What a lovely guy.

It wasn’t until later that, feeling particularly unwell, I realised that the oat milk they served wasn’t gluten free. Man, this diet is a bastard at times!

 

FOOD

Speaking of diet, San Marcos was one of the best places we’d eaten throughout the whole trip. Almost everywhere was vegan which meant gluten and dairy free meals were pretty easy to come by. There was also another branch of Samsara’s here. The same restaurant that we’d fallen in love with in Antigua.

This place did some of the best gluten free food I’d ever had and to top it off, gluten and dairy free cheesecake.

Banging.

 

EMBRACING THE CULTURE

MEN’S CIRCLE

After being here for a few days I felt it was time to try out some things a little out of my comfort zone and embrace the culture and ethos of San Marcos.

This all started with the ‘Men’s Circle’. The premise being simple; a forum for men to meet and discuss their problems openly, without judgement.

Being a man who’s prone to anxiety and depression I thought it would be a good outlet, if a little too hippy for my taste.

Oh boy, was it a bit too hippy!

Off I went for the weekly meetup and made my way up the blue elephant staircase.

Yeah that’s right, I wasn’t tripping. There really was a blue elephant staircase.

Upon entering I encountered six or seven men, sitting in a circle on the floor on cushions and was greeted with a big hug by the facilitator of the session. A Canadian man named Drazzo. You couldn’t make this shit up.

We settled on the cushions, held hands, took a few deep breaths with exhalations accentuated by a uniform declaration of “ohhhhhhmmmmm”.

Then we moved onto the main course of the session. We each took it in turns to spend 5 minutes talking, without interruption, through the issues we were currently facing and then welcomed questions, before moving onto the next person in the circle. I was surprisingly without resistance when it came to be my turn and let the thoughts flow. Quite liberating really.

One thing that totally killed the vibe was that there was one guy there that sat behind the circle, on a bench and didn’t engage at all with the process. Didn’t take part in the hand holding – I don’t blame him for this; it was a bit much. Wouldn’t share at all, but would only ask inane questions. It seemed he was a regular so he was tolerated, but it did affect the dynamic badly.

Overall, a very interesting experience and there’s a lot to be said for having these sorts of forums for men. I might be inspired to set one up in London. Perhaps minus the handholding and the “ohhhmmm’s” though. London isn’t ready for that.

 

TAROT READING

One day, when wandering through San Marcos town, there was a market of sorts going on where people were selling their wares and services. One such thing going on was tarot reading. Hols and I were at a bit of a crossroads in what to do with our travel plans, so we thought why not give Tarot a shot.

Hols went first. The reading was done by this woman called Gemma, who Hols developed a bit of a girl crush on. Gemma had hairy armpits and it inspired Hols to give this a try, much to my disappointment.

This didn’t last long, however. Once back on UK soil, Holly hit the gym and became a little self conscious about her burgeoning armpit hair growth and swiftly reached for the razor and got rid of the evidence of such progress.

Anyway, back to the tarot card reading.

Hols had hers read to her, to which there was some clear indication apparently of being at a crossroads in life. I didn’t get a pic of her reading, but here’s mine.

Apparently there was some crossover here with Holly’s. Of course there was. Call me a sceptic, but it’s all very ambiguous and you can read anything into it; especially when you’ve been given a leading question of “what should we do next with our trip”.

Regardless, it was a fun thing to do and I’d like to believe there was more to it than random ambiguity.

 

ECSTATIC DANCE

Now this was the one to put me out of my comfort zone!

At the men’s circle, Drazzo had mentioned to me about the weekly ecstatic dance ceremony that took place at the Gaia Dance Temple, every Sunday. I’d said that I might be interested, but this was a token response that I use when I really mean, ‘no chance, mate’.

It turned out Sunday was to be our last day here and as luck would have it – you can determine whether this luck was good or bad – when out for a morning walk, Hols and I bumped into Drazzo. He embraced us both in his typical fashion and went straight into conversation about the ecstatic dance session. Using his passion for such things he managed to sway Hols into wanting to go. I was ambivalent at best, but decided that we should embrace it on our last day here.

We made our way over to the dance temple via tuk tuk, paid our entrance fee (roughly £10) and entered into the fray.

The area was lush. A grassy, two-level chill out space, vibrant nature and an elevated dance platform with DJ booth.

Drazzo was in attendance and promptly came over to greet us and talk us through the proceedings. When the time came we all made it up to the decking and sat in a large circle. There were probably around 50 people here for the dance.

Things started off with a cacao ritual. A large pot of heated cacao was spooned into cups and handed around the circle where you were supposed to receive a cup, give it a silent blessing and pass it on to the person next to you, to repeat the process until everyone had a cup in their hands. We were sat near the start of the circle, so there was a lot of passing before everyone had a cup. This probably took 20 minutes. Some people really took the silent prayer seriously.

The cacao drink apparently eased inhibitions and made people more at ease in letting their emotions flow through dance. It was either that or just the power of suggestion at play, but as soon as those cups were drained people started to move, while the two at the DJ booth busted out some chilled ambient vibes.

It started with one woman who got herself almost immediately into the centre of the decked dance floor and writhed and rolled across the floor theatrically with blissful abandon. At first I thought she was a stooge, put in place to get things moving, but no, she was just cutting loose!

Then a shirtless man got in on the act writhing around, too. He danced alongside the woman in harmony, without giving two shits.

Things then progressed. Gradually people would get up and dig into it, finding their own rhythm and style. Some remained seated for several minutes, or just stood at the side, but before I knew it everyone was getting their groove on. That’s right. Everyone. Including me.

It was actually quite liberating, when you let the internal chatter of “what the fuck am I doing here?” die down.

We danced for around an hour or so and then sat at the chillout area for a while. I was actually not feeling too good, thanks to the glutenous oat milk, I reckon, so we had another 20 mins or so dancing before sneaking off.

By the time we left there was a strange vibe about the place, like it could at any minute descend into a mass orgy, which I was interested to see how it would all play out, but we felt we’d had our fill.

We headed outside and were fortunate enough to grab a tuk tuk to take us back, driven by a lad who can’t have been much older than 10.

 

LEAVING GUATEMALA

After 2-3 weeks around Lake Atitlán, it was time to move on and leave Guatemala, but there’s one more thing to mention.

We were getting a boat from San Marcos back to Panajachel where we would get our transfer back to Antigua for a couple of nights before making our way back to Guatemala City for our next flight.

Our boat was pulled over by some sort of police escort. At first I thought we were going to get robbed, but it’s turns out they were just warning us that the waters were really choppy and a couple of boats had capsized. That’s just what I wanted to end the trip in Guatemala 🤦🏻‍♂️

Everyone was forced to wear a life jacket, so they handed them out to all of those on board. Everyone except me.

They’d run out!

The police wouldn’t let us carry on until everyone was wearing a life jacket. I was surprised at the level of health & safety, to be honest. Those in charge of the boat went scavenging around to see if they could find one more life jacket. Disco. They found one!

They passed it down the throngs of people aboard the boat until it finally landed in my arms.

What an absolute shit show.

We made it to shore unscathed and on we went, back to Antigua.

We’d decided to move on to Mexico next, just for 9 days, for our last stop in Central America and then onto New York for 4 days before our trip back to London.

I’m not planning to write a blog about those 2 stops as they were fairly quiet parts of the trip, without too much to write about, although a lot of fun was had.

So it’s goodbye for now and I’ll see you all on the flip-side when the next epic trip comes along.

Ciao and Pura Vida.