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Published: February 13th 2009
Panajachel is the biggest of the towns surrounding Lake Atitlan, in the south of Guatemala. We came here with our travelling buddy Julius and a new French guy named Alex. The lake is surrounded by volcanoes, both active and dormant, and has spectacular scenery. Unfortunately, the town of Panajachel is quite touristy, but this also means that there are good choices of hostel. Ours was so private and friendly that we had to track down the owners in order to pay when we left town.
The sunset our first night here was phenomenal. It was also a full moon, and although we never found the rumoured full moon party, we sat on the roof of our hostel drinking beers, and could see the surrounding town and mountains perfectly in the moonlight.
The main thing to do in Panajachel is to explore the lake. We did so by taking a boat tour of three other islands scattered across the lake. We took the cheaper public boat, which turned out to be the slowest boat in the universe (we fell asleep on several of the crossings). However, the tour was great, and the smaller towns we visited were picturesque.
We
Vista of Lake Atitlan
View from the last town in the boat tour. got hassled a lot by vendors at each town on the boat tour. They seem to be able to sense that Julius is a pushover, and he tends to get mobbed by diminutive, brightly-coloured women selling scarves and friendship bracelets. We thought we would be late for our last boat because Julio got waylaid by a woman named Olga, who finally convinced him to buy his ladies (us) some friendship bracelets. Julius also petted about 45 stray dogs, who are very friendly and cute here (but of questionable cleanliness) and come to beg at outdoor restaurants. They are routinely shooed out by restaurant staff, and come in through another exit, making puppy eyes and wagging their tails hopefully.
We had really good taquitos, at last. We have been searching for these yummy mini tacos since we left Morelia, and found them here in a sort of fast food joint. There are a few bars with mostly all tourists, so We then a pretty touristy bar serving 2for1 cocktails and listened to some early 90s rock. It was pretty fun, but only because of the company and not the setting.
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