Blog 6: Lake Atitlan, "the most beautiful lake in the world"

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We left our wonderful $55 per night hotel in Antigua (Posada La Merced), and came by van with several other turistas to the town of Panajachel on Lake Atitlan. It was a pretty nice drive through little Guatemalan towns that almost crowded onto the road, interspersed with long stretches of the verdant Guatemalan countryside. We rose fairly steadily at first into the Western Highlands , a winding highway, up and down, for about two and a half hours until we caught our first glimpse of Atitlan. It lies in the caldera of an ancient supervolcano , fed by several small rivers, but having no outlet to the sea. Someday it will be a salty lake, but not yet; it is still young, only about a million and a half years old. In the years after the super-eruption, several smaller eruptions ringed the lake with three volcanic cones, each as perfect as Fuji, but smaller.



The oldest, San Pedro, located inside the old caldera, stopped erupting about 40,000 years ago; then its hot spot moved a short distance and continued to erupt as Volcan Tolimán, which has not been active in historic times. Then the youngest, Volcan Atitlán, erupted on the southern rim almost in historic times, about 10,000 years ago. Weird to think that early man might have witnessed this volcano building its cone, like Paracutín in Mexico. The last big eruption was in 1853, but still it puts on the occasional show of smoke and red hot rocks. Guides will take you up for look down into it if you are young and hardy enough.



Panajachel was a hippie colony in the days of Vietnam, and many are still there today, older than they were, but otherwise pretty much unchanged. Locally Panajachel is called Gringotenango (The Place of the Gringos, in Tz'utujil). The old hippies live by supplying the needs of more affluent Gringos who have flocked to Atitlan in recent years. We did not spend much time in "Pana", but immediately took a launch across the lake to our hotel just outside the town of Santiago Atitlan. There is no ring road around the lake, so a lot of the town-to-town traffic is on the water.



Atitlan is indeed a gorgeous lake, deep and blue, with a mixture of landscaapes surrounding it.. Some places are steep and clifflike, where the old caldera still dominates; others gently sloping and very approachable where the newer volcano cones slide right down into the water. The towns are built on the laps of these later volcanos, each with easy access to the lake.



See the photos for a little idea of this place, though the photos are only a dim shadow of what you see when you are here. "We were unprepared for the power of its beauty". (Help me identify this quote, Google can't seem to find it. I think it is originally about the English discovering Jamaica.) Our hotel, Hotel Bambú, is one of the greatest bargains ever. For $65 a night we have a huge room with a good hot shower, and an outside porch that overlooks a perfectly planted tropical landscape, with the lake in the background. Bambú is also one of the two best retaurants in Santiago, with a decent bar that is able to supply our evening needs.



But no place is perfect. Atitlan is glassy perfect in the mornings, but in the afternoons a brisk wind called the xocomil blows up ("the wind that blows away sin") and churns the lake up pretty well. This makes travel by small boat very choppy and uncomfortable, ranging on to downright dangerous. We had a very choppy ride yesterday on a small private launch about 3 PM from San Pablo to our hotel dock, and we heard later that the public boat at 4:30 had to turn back because the swells had become too high.



We explored Santiago yesterday and participated in a weird ritual strictly outlawed by the local Catholics, and visited the scene of the last known murder of a priest. Then we went to a fabulous pool party where bikinis for the young were de rigeur. But that must wait for next time.

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Photos

1.Lago Atitlan as we first saw it
A bit grey, but still impressive

2.Hotel Bambu from the water
A fabulous hotel, found for us by Gerlinda in Antigua

3.From our balcony
One tiny view. I need a panoramic camera

4.Hotel garden 1
Perfectly kept piece of jungle

5.Jacaranda tree
One of many flowering trees

6.Bird of paradise flower
On the path to the restaurant

7.Public launch on the lake
Another view of Atitlán from the hotel

Comments

[Meredith]

delightful
After our blizzard day last Monday, today I had the patio doors open all day bringing in the mild spring-like air. So glad you all are finding these hidden treasures. How do you know which hotels to book? Love, Meredith