San Pedro: Places to Go

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When we arrived in San Pedro we spent the first day relaxing and nursing our freshly blistered feet. We didn't have anything we needed to do, so we didn't.

The second day we were excitedly waiting for Ryan who was making an impromptu trip to Guatemala for a visit. He'd been delayed and we didn't really have any way to contact him but we just wandered around town and found the Spanish school that we would be attending. All along the water front is very touristy: loads of restaurants, bars, and souvenir/textile shops. As we climbed the hill to the town centre you get a much more local vibe with the market and Catholic Church. Apparently the locals call the center of town 'San Pedro', while the water front and touristy area is referred to as Saint Peters (referencing that it's all gringos in that part of town). Finally, at the end of the day, Ryan messaged to let us know he made it and found a place to stay. We met up with him for dinner and spent the rest of the week partying (a little too hardy), relaxing, and catching up.

Day trips by boat to Panajachel (25GTQ each way) and San Marcos (10GTQ each way) were easy and a good way to break up the day/week. Panajachel is the main town on the lake and has a massive market street catering to tourists. The main street also has an awesome coffee shop: Loco Cafe. We didn't hear the whole story about it but it sounds like a couple of young guys (from the States and/or Korea maybe?) started it and have quite a variety of coffee based drinks. Unfortunately, we didn't hear about the cafe until the end of our trip so we only went once but the coffee was so delicious, we even tried an espresso. We're not big coffee drinkers and prefer it diluted with lots of milk but the espresso was incredible. On our trip to Panajachel with Ryan we got to witness a little bit of excitement. One of the boats at the dock (not the dock where we took the public boat to) had sunk. There was quit a lot of hubbub as scores of men hauled on ropes to pull it out. We're not exactly sure if/how they got it floating again, but by the time we were done lunch all the excitement seemed to be over. Walking around town we also got to see some para-gliders landing on the far side near to what seemed to be a gravel yard.

San Marcos la Laguna was another town around the lake we visited. It's was an extraordinarily hippy town. Lots of businesses related to health and wellness: physical and spiritual; not to mention you can find a massage almost anywhere. We went for a walk around a conservation area and found the trampoline (not a real trampoline Ashley was disappointed to discover but a jumping off point into the lake). The town itself feels different from others we'd visited. There were very few roads and more pedestrian paths it seemed; very zen.

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