Day 17 – Panajachel / Lake Atitlan

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I got up early to try breakfast at one of the restaurants in Panajachel. I had the most delicious pancakes with some fruit. Panajachel has lots of nice eating places, bars and street food. It’s definitely a good place to stay if you want to see Lake Atitlan.

After breakfast, the whole group got together and we went on this speed boat and crossed Lake Atitlan to visit a small popular village called San Juan, this was a great experience when travelling over the lake, as you get to see the volcano/mountain scenery and local people collecting pond weed from their boats.

Once we got to the other side of the lake, we were greeted by a local tour guide who showed us around San Juan. We first visited an art shop where they had loads of cool paintings on canvases, mainly of Lake Atitlan. I brought one of these paintings and they kindly removed the painting from the canvas and wrapped it up for me to take home. We then went to see some locals who made things from cotton and saw the equipment they used and all the steps that went into making items out of cotton. We then went and saw a local who grew lots of herbs in the garden for medicines. After this, we had lunch with a local family. The food was nice but unfortunately the chicken was on the bone and I don’t like it that way.

After we had food, we had to get back on the boat and head back to Panachel to get our bus to take us to Antigua.

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Photos

Paintings
Paintings in art shop

Men collecting pond weed
Men collecting pond weed

Me with Lake Atitlan
Me with Lake Atitlan

Equipment used for cotton
Equipment used for cotton

Cotton Shawls/Scarfs
Cotton Shawls/Scarfs

Lady collecting cotton
Lady collecting cotton