Blogs from Panajachel, Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 5

Friends, So the past few days, Jin and I have been doing some obligatory highly touristed activities. They have been much fun, believe you me, much fun and highly unoriginal. But hopefully, we bring our own originality to the mix. First, a vignette on my travel companion. Jin, my college room mate, ever playful with language, and desperately lacking in Spanish skills, has terribly mispronounced the local currency. The Quetzale, pronounced Ke-tzal, Jin has taken to pronouncing kwetzle. This of course rhymes with pretzle. So, dinner tonight was effectively, 78 pretzles. This folks, is what I´m working with. To say we´re enjoying ourselves would be an understatement. From Antigua, we ventured to the top of the Pacaya Volcano. Rembering that we will be able to see molten lava right before our eyes, I decided to purchase ... read more

Here we are just a few minutes from the shore of the lake. Another full day has passed since logging out last night. I have abandoned the noise of ´The Simpsons´in Spanish... and have wandered down the street to this somewhat dingy cyberland. I always find internet cafes fascinating.... kinda like being in a different place or a different world when you step inside. Though, as different as they are from one corner of the world to another... they retain many common features.... and one of those always found in hot countries is ankle biting insects. Those little ones that you cannot see but sure can feel!! So... after scooping our rental SUV we headed west... taking the road less travelled to Lake Atitlan. Avoiding the InterAmericana, we took secondary road that were scenic and stunning... ... read more

Day 22: Monday 21st July - Lake Atitlan Its an early start today, I'm being picked up at 7.30pm to get a bus to Lake Atitlan, a couple of hours west in the highlands of Guatemala, in the south west of the country. Fortunately the water is back on when I get up so manage to get a welcome hot shower, but the gear I was wearing from the Volcano climb is still wet. Arrive at Panajachel, the main town on the lake at 10am. A local at the bus station takes me to a guesthouse....its basic but at less than 2 pounds a night I'm not complaining! Spend the afternoon hopping on and off boats, visiting a couple of villages around the lake. Lake Atitlan is beautiful, described as the most beautiful lake in Central ... read more

GUATEMALA Somehow, she has been calling since childhood, when I first visited in 1973, still in cloth diapers, where my parents decided to travel different ways... Guatemala has been beckoning since I was one. Perhaps, by returning, I can be One, again... Since the beginning of this voyage, there has been a sense of awakening, of dreams not yet dreamt becoming real, of finding myself while shedding bits of a past being, a being carrying energetic loads of karma that were unknowingly gathered and treasured as my own. With every day, the Wow! is even stronger, the importance of the now, more present! It is funny that every time I set foot in Latin America, I feel instantly charged and revitalised! My body starts to be awake... I need very little sleep, just love the ... read more

We’re sorry - did we say we were going to climb a volcano? We meant that we were going to get up at the crack of dawn and wait for an hour on the curb until we realized that they were not, in fact, coming to get us. As Shalea pointed out, it’s not the U.S. These things happen. We were pissy nonetheless. But not being so fond of the stew, we decided to get the hell out of dodge. We allowed our crazy-haired old landlord to call and yell at the agency who bailed on us and we switched our worthless volcano voucher for a shuttle to Panajachel, right on the shore of Lago Atitlán. This involved frantic packing and the idiots actually sending the shuttle 20 minutes early. But we were off. (We will ... read more