Pictures can be found at the end of this post.
After I finally fell asleep and had an okay night, we left to pay our bills and check out. I replied to a few Whatsapp messages and told my family we were waiting for our ride to the busstation. My mom asked me how much longer we had to wait and I said -9 haha. We had to be there at 7:45, but it was already 7:54. We eventually left around 8am but it turned out that we were already in the bus that was taking us all the way to to Lake Atitlán. There were others at the busstation that were joining us but we only had room for about 8 more and there were about 20 people waiting. It turned out they overbooked the trip but it didn't take long to arrange another bus and off we all went on a 10 hour ride to our next destination.
We're 3hours in as I'm writing this and we alreay had a 30+ min break. It was suppose to be 20 but the driver had to change buses, why? No idea, but we kept our front row seats and my friend could open the window in this bus (was broken on the last) so we didn't care haha. We're passing a lot of villages on the way, and so there's a lot to look at! But it also means the driver is limited in his speed. It's hard to imagine there's not a highway to take us to the other side of the country. But mañana mañana, we'll get there and to be fair, most of the road look very new and they are in good shape. All he windows are open, so there's a nice breeze. And I've got my puzzle book (wordfinder) to keep me busy in between looking at the views.
Right after typing this, we left the villages and are driving through green landscapes again. Lots of green hills and mountains. The road seems pretty new but with 100 turns to get up and down the hills, the driver is still limited in his speed. I think the speed limit is 30-40 anyways. We saw our first 'chicken buses' on the way! They are old American school buses that had a make over, a shiny, colorful, make over! We took another break a few hours later and got to Lake Atitlán around 630pm. All in all it was a very doable 10hour ride! After we got off the bus, we got to go on our first tuktuk ride here (and for my friend her first ever) to get to the hotel!
We checked in and ordered pizza (on-site restaurant was closed). A real wood fired oven pizza though, with blue cheese and figs! We ate it while watching America's got Talent All stars or something and I finally had a cup of hot tea again! Can't wait to see this place during the day, it should have direct access to the lake! Night night!
The place is beautiful during the day. During breakfast we looked out onto the lake and volcanos and a bunch of hummingbirds! We went to a nearby village San Juan. We took a small motorboat there, and again they took there time. We stopped at a few of the other villages on the way so people could get on our off on the way. San Juan is beautiful, very colorful! The streets were decorated and there is a lot of street art and 'chicken buses' and tuk tuks. It was exactly what I had in mind when I first thought of Guatemala. Also lots of markets where we finally found our first souvenirs. We then returned to the city, by boat again, we waites for a while though for the boat to fill up. And because of that, I think they wanted to make up for lost time so the went back triple spees haha. We flew in the air a few times but again, fun ride!
We had Indian dinner, which is a bit more expensive here but still cheap compared to home. A curry and some naan was about €10. It was delicious and too much, so we took about half of it home for lunch the next day. The pool at our hotel was great, a little cold but no too much and the views are amazing. Also during sunset! We also slept like babies, it was so quiet! No animals, no babies, no traffic, no nothing!
After we checked out, we went Ziplining down the road. It was my friends idea as she had never done it before and so we took the 'easier' route. It was just the two of us, the rest of the visitors went for the other option, ultra extrema. Before ziplining, we went to a butterflt garden and I finally learned the Spanish word for butterfly, 'mariposa'. Since Madagascar, I discovered I know the word for butterfly in a lot of languages and so I wanted to learn the Spanish one as well. Ziplining was fun to do again, but as it was just the two of us and it was the 'easier' one, we got through it pretty quick. We did have to walk up up up and up some more, hot but fun! We crossed a few hanging bridges and climbed up a few fun steps!
For our last night here we are staying in the centre of Panajachel, since we have to take the bus from here to get to Antigua. Our final stop :-(! The place is great though, with pool and quiet, even though we are right on the main street! We also had a bit of rain while we were at the pool but only for a minute or so. The main street is full of restaurants, shops and markets. And so hopefully we'll find a few more souvenirs here before we take the 12 o'clock bus to Antigua!
Hasta la vista,
T.
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