Thanks for all your messages

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On Sunday while still in San Pedro we decided to climb a Volcano on Sunday morning at 6am. We got out of bed at 5.30 and met the tour guide who was a Guatamalena dude with zero English and we with zero spainish other than "Olla". We headed off on our 6 hour hike. We stupidly thought it would be just a stroll in the hills but it was extreme hill walking. When we bought the ticket the previous day we were told that we would need sercurity in the mountains in the form of police to ward off bandits who lay in wait for unsupecting tourists in the highest parts of the mountain tops. We started off our climb which was firstly through the hills of the town before we got into the mountains. While walking out of the town Eimear was feeling the pressure of the early morning exertion and I am sure the tour guide thought this was going to be the longest tour of his life. About a half and hour later we arrived in the base of the mountain park where the spainsh park rangers and police saw us off up the mountain. To cut along story short after 2.5 hours of climbing shear vertical faces we were absolutely recked. We had to stop every 5 mins for about 10 mins. We had eaten all of our food and had hardly no water left. We then reached the piont where we could go no further without the police. Problem was after 1.5 hrs of waiting for the police to arrive for our escort they never showed up. I reckon we were so bad in the beginning that the tour guide told the police on the park not to bother coming up that we were so unfit in the first few minutes that we would never make it. He was right but it was pure determination and stubborness that would not let us give up! Anyway we could not finish the climb which was a bommer but it was not for the lack of trying. And it was so much nicer and easier coming back down the mountain.

The town of San Pedro where the volcano is was very nice. The island like all the others around Lake Attilan are perached at the bottom of these volcanos! None of them are active in this area but the streets in and around the town are so steep it is extremely hard to even walk up them (similar to Jones's Hill in Ross for those of you who know it).

After out epic attempt at climbing the volcano we got washed up and headed off by boat to another little island over the lake called San Marcos. It is quiet small with a population of only 3000 people. The island was lovely and much quieter than San Pedro which had a population of 10000. We stayed here with this american woman who had excellent accomodation. The resturant we had our first meal in had two resident american stonners who just read books and smoked all day it seemed in here. This island had maybe a couple of cars and all the rest of the taxis etc were tuck tucks.

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Photos

SP
Attempting to hike the volcano

SP
The volcano, half way up!!

SP
From San Marcos