Lake Atitlan has been on the gringo trails for many moons and is also now part owned by North Americans who have created some spectacular holiday homes on its banks. Panajachel was our first sight of the lake. It had a sports bar (Holland wasn´t it?) and good shopping and a relaxed vibe. We got the launch to San Marcos, famous for being a hippy hang out. One of the smallest and arguably most charming villages on the lake, San Marcos is unique because the bottom half of the village is filled with posadas (hostels) that are linked by tight leafy alleyways. It is like a fairytale, especially at dusk (or ´tusk´ as Anna called once, which I won´t let her forget:)) when the wailing of several local women starts. It is spooky, accompanied by some bells, and definately adds to the cosmic vibe. There is a yoga resort made out of pyramids, and our place, La Paz, had a yoga hall, Mayan sauna and good food. The Mayan sauna was brick, low, fired by wood outside, and you put water on the metal of the oven inside. It was only warm but very sweaty, which was good. The manager of the hostel we named Kinky Bill, after his T-shirt, which was suitably prophetic as it transpired he was known for walking around naked and walking in on sauna-ing visitors. There was a little security problem in the surrounding hills, which one long term gringo dealt with by always carrying a cricket bat - not unlike Ian {mandolin strings in Austin) Faith.
We swam in the lake, we met Germans, we met the Belgians again, Anna went to Yoga, I spanked axe. It was very cool. And we met Lauren and Laura, the multi-lingual Swiss-English couple, famous for giving us the Kiterunner (ace book), who we should have given Middlesex (similarly ace book) but hadn´t finished it yet.
Just when L&L thought they had lost us, we ended up on the bus out of Pana with them, and while they went onwards, we went local, via Antigua, the duff town of Chichimula (Chikki) for the Honduran border. At Copan, we didn´t bother seeing the ruins or the butterfly sanctuary but, within 5 minutes of arriving we saw the Grangers and Ficeland again, and when we went to buy bus tickets, Laurent´s de}readlocked permagrin was there to meet us. Around this time Central America started to feel very cosy. And we were in Honduras and I had a plan...
Always the search for...
The view across Lake Atitlan
Anna takes a dip late in the day
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