Blogs from San Pedro La Laguna, Western Highlands, Guatemala, Central America Caribbean - page 2

I have just arrived in San Pedro de Laguna ready for a week of Spanish lessons. After an hours boat ride across the lake I was met at the dock by Juan from the tourist information who kindly walked me around the maze of alleyways to the school. Which is closed until 6pm. I got here early on advice from an American I met yesterday at the Reserva natural de Atitlan near Panajachel. It{s definately worth a visit. With monkeys, lizards, coatis and large waterfalls and trails (as well as multiple ziplines over the forest canopy with incredible views of the lake. It took me al ittle while to make it there as the first tuc tuc took me all the way back to my hotel after I had walked halfway there already, the second one ... read more

Wednesday morning and we had the last breakfast at the little restaurant up the street. I had something different today, a ham and cheese omelette which was great, different from my usual pancakes and fruit but every bit as tasty. We had everything packed up at the hotel and were ready to head out once Jose arrived with the trucks. We are not travelling in the luxury we had coming to Xela in, which was a transport van, this time we are in two double cab pickup trucks which seem kind of crowed with the two seats in front and then three passengers across the back seat. I was the lucky one who got to sit in the middle, short legs so I could straddle the hump. It was a long 3 ½ hour ride for ... read more

Despite fears about our safety in Antigua, the first three nights we spent passed without incident. We had a moment of panic after the plane touched down when our hand luggage was missing but it turned up on a random seat about 5 rows in front of us. We’d organised a private car to take us from the airport in crime ridden Guatemala City to the tourist mecca of Antigua. Here we found narrow, cobbled streets with scattered ruins and churches every few blocks. The city lies 1.5km above sea level and is surrounded by volcanoes and green hills. Our hostel turned out to be dark and damp with too few toilets and our barred window looked out into the corridor. It did have a rooftop bar overlooking the city and free wi-fi which went some ... read more

After Pana we got a lancha across the Lake to San Pedro La Laguna a much small town nestled in the hillside. The hostel we stayed in had a great view of the lake and we had a hammock outside the room to laze about in. I´m now a big fan of hammocks. We kayaked for about 40 mins across the lake to a golden sandy beach. This beach was a strip of sand about a metre wide but the sun was out so we tried to make the most of it and started to tan hopefully. Although our hostel was very nice we were conned by the non-profit national park guide ´Johnny Hiker'(Juan Pablo) and paid too much for our room. He also tried to con us with our hike to the Indian´s nose by ... read more

Von Panajachel mit dem Boot nach San Pedro. Dort habe ich dann zu Fuss mit einem lokalen Guide die Gegend erkundet. Unter anderem Maya-Staetten und Felder wo Mais und Bohnen angebaut werden. Netterweise hat uns dann die Polizei noch ein Stueckchen mitgenommen - da die Gegend dort anscheinend etwas gefaehrlich ist... In Santiago haben wir dann das Haus eines spirituellen Fuehrers besucht (Fotos leider nicht erlaubt). Dort habe ich mir ein antikes Maya-Ritual angeschaut.... read more