On Sunday, September 13th, we left the little lakeside village of San Marcos and made our way across the lake to San Pedro La Laguna, where we would be spending our week learning Spanish at the school of Casa Rosario. When taking the boat across the lake one more time, we took the advice of Jane, who we met at the Hostel del Lago in San Marcos, which was to never ask the captain of the boat for the cost of the ride. Apparently, everyone ¨knows¨ that it only costs Q10 per person to get from San Marcos to San Pedro. [View Full Entry]

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For 2 nights we stayed with a local Mayan family in the village of San Jorge le Laguna on the shores of Lake Atitlan in western Guatemala. To get there we took several chicken buses and minivans through windy and bumpy roads, including what must be a record - getting 23 people in an 11 seater minivan! Living with family Ajcalon for 2 nights was truly a humbling and inspiring experience. They were welcoming, generous, fun and curious, despite living in dusty conditions with limited heating and occasional cold running water. We had great evenings explaining in a mixture of pigeon [View Full Entry]

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We took a shuttle from Antigua to Panajachel, or Pana as it is known, on Thursday afternoon, September 10th. We found a nice hotel room with a shared bath at Mario's Rooms less than a block away from the shuttle station in Pana and settled down for the night there. It had a beautiful courtyard full of plants. The next day, we went to Santiago de Atitlan because most of boats were going there at the dock and we wanted to see other towns around the lake. (Actually, there were 2 docks and the public boats going elsewhere on the lake [View Full Entry]

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On sunday I woke up with no voice and a horrible cough. I went to the pharmacy and was given meds. This is me with them. Crazy thing...all I did was go in and tell the guy behind the counter my problem and he came back with antibiotics and some cough medicine'. No doctor necessary! I had my last spanish class on Sunday morning. It was a struggle because I didn´t have a voice, but I got through it and my teacher had me writing a lot more than talking. Every day during my break I had been running back to [View Full Entry]

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My real reason for rushing back to Guatemala was the start of the Moon course in San Marcos La Laguna. Far more hippy and low-key than San Pedro, the lakeside lanes are home to crystal healers, massage therapists and herbal remedies as well as the locals selling fruit, veg and cake. The village is also home to a meditation and yoga centre called Las Pyramides; here I will make my home for a month and try to get to the bottom of who I really am. This is the objective of the Moon Course; to give you time, space and exercises [View Full Entry]

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Hi everyone (go get yourself a coffee....this is quite a long one!), So where were we....looks like the last you heard we were in Acapulco.....is that right? Yes....? Ok then we´ll start from there. It was such a hardship spending a couple of days at the beach that we decided we should...er....go for another couple of days on a fabulous beach. Huatulco in the state of Oaxaca (pronounced Wa-ha-ka) has a few awesome seasides so we picked one and spent a couple of days looking around and being a bit lazy. The highlight was the world´s best spring roll which we [View Full Entry]

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The return to San Pedro brought back a lot of funny memories of Xmas and New Year shenannigans. Though this time the party never even got started as Mhairi and I planned to dive the next morning so late night boozing was a no no. I hadn't been diving since Malaysia in 2007 so they reccommended a refresher session, which I was very thankful of as soon as I got under water and the fear began to rise. I remembered most of my skills but became a bit paranoid about bouyancy and not being able to wait for the safety stop, [View Full Entry]

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The following photos are from the view of our rental along the lake before Santa Cruz. The location is about a 15 minute walk to Santa Cruz next to the well known Laguana Hotel. Here we would rent canoes and try to stay away from the lanchas heading to and from Pana... [View Full Entry]

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After a bit of a fiasco with buses, we made it out of Flores a day later than we'd planned. There was no direct bus to Lake Atitlan, where we meant to go to next so we decided to go to Antigua first instead. As we had to go through Guatemala city, it was a chance to get a good look at the place from a mini bus window; once we changed bused in the main terminal. Guatemala city has a bad rep, and everyone I spoke to who had been there said not to bother with it, so I was [View Full Entry]

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In all honesty, I really felt like our travel came to a close with our hike up the volcano and the day trip from Antigua. By the time we got to Lago de Atitlan, I was ready to curl up in a hammock, read, get caught up on e-mails and relax. It was a great place for that. The town is very low key. Lots of Spanish schools, which ironically meant that everyone spoke a little English. We stayed at the Hotel Sakcari . Nice place with nice rooms. My time there consisted of doing very little. We hung out at [View Full Entry]

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