Panajachel

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Panajachel is a different kind of town. The weather is great year round. Not too hot, not cold at all. The weekends bring hordes of tourists but the weekdays are relatively quiet. It has tourist areas and others which are more authentic. It is surrounded by volcanoes and situated on the shore of the beautiful lake Atitlan. You also got to interact more with the local population than with tourists and speaking Spanish is useful.
I like it and it seems like a great place to spend a few months. I may just have to come back.
My beautiful apartment is right on main street with a balcony and a roof top patio that Steve took great advantage of to work on his tan. It is fun just to be outside to read and watch people go by. Moreover, it came with daily maid service. It does not get any better. Even Steve, who thinks money spent on accommodation is wasted (you should have seen the room he got us in Athens, I still shudder thinking about it), agreed that apartment living on vacation could make sense and was amazingly comfortable.

We arrived on Monday afternoon and spent the rest of the day discovering our new environment and falling in love with it. On Tuesday morning, we hiked to Atitlan reserve. What a beautiful place! Quiet and gorgeous. The path is through a forest with great vegetation and flowers. After a bit of a hike, we got to an observation platform and saw many flying monkeys. It also gave a chance to the monkeys to observe us. Both groups seemed satisfied. We then walked through a series of suspended bridges. A bit scary for me who dislike heights but beautiful. Also Steve seemed to rather enjoy my fright. I did say he could find humour everywhere...
We encountered very few people but many pretty flowers and small water falls. The path was somewhat arduous and I made the comment to Steve that older people could have difficulties hiking the reserve (OK we made jokes about it but with both of us being around 50, we felt entitled to laugh at our near future) and sure enough, as we turned a corner, two older persons were resting on a rock. They pretty well confirmed our feeling that they had overheard us when they made it a point later on to tell us they had made it back. The reserve also has a butterfly area and zip lines which we did not try.

On the way back, we went looking for the market and bought beautiful vegetables. I love those local markets. They are full of colours and sounds and pleasant smells. We took a tuk-tuk back home (some kind of motorized tricycles) and had a siesta before I made my famous pasta. A perfect day.

On Wednesday we decided to take the boat to San Pedro. The ride itself was interesting. Most of the boats look barely seaworthy but somehow they all seem to make it across. Took about 25 minutes and I personally liked the ride. When the lake is choppy (most afternoons) it feels a bit like being on a amusement park ride. You get to spend about half the time being airborne. All very funny but a bit hard on the butt.

We walked around San Pedro which is a nice little place full of hippies, at least half of them our age. After a while we stopped for lunch and I started reading the "dessert" menu left on all tables. At first I was not sure if the menu said what I thought it said, but Steve, who is more worldly and knowledgeable in certain matters, confirmed that the dessert menu was indeed offering "funny" muffins and brownies.
Bizarre!!! Still, I bought a muffin and Steve bought a brownie, to go... I did not ask Steve how is brownie was but my muffin was really sweet and I ended throwing a good chunk of it out. My heart was racing a bit from the chocolate and the sugar but I did not feel anything or see any pink elephants. Maybe they were just desserts after all.

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