A cabin at the lake

Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala

The poster child for Guatemala's natural beauty is the volcano-ringed Lago del Atitlan (Lake Atitlan).  After a short, less than 2-hour, drive from Xela, we find ourselves in a completely different world.

Our first stop was in the village of Panajachel (know as "Pana" by most everyone).  This is reportedly the busiest and most built-up of the lakeside settlements that surround the lake and is definitely what we would call touristy.  The main street is one long stretch of hotels, restaurants and souvenir shops.  We stayed here for two nights and just sort of vegged-out.  It was kind of nice, after two weeks of school, to be able to just sleep in as long as we wanted again, and the food was pretty good, but otherwise, Pana did not have a lot to offer us - just a little too frantic for our tastes.

Today, we took a boat (the public taxi) to a hotel part way around the lake.  This is a place that Susanne discovered on a fellow cruiser's blog and thought would be a nice change of pace.  It is called "La Casa del Mundo", and is an incredibly beautiful spot, all built on a steep volcanic slope.  It is the kind of place you imagine exists on the coast of France or Italy, not something that we would ever have thought to find in Guatemala.

The climb to reception from the dock

We have our own little private cabin with its own balcony overlooking the lake.  The view is hard to beat and the food that we have sampled so far has been excellent.  I think I could live here, at least for a while.  Of course, climbing up and down the steps to get from anyplace to anyplace else can be a chore.  The only real downside is that we seem to be in a perpetual fog or low-lying cloud.  The visibility is has not been great - most of the time we cannot see the volcanoes on the other side of the lake at all.  Oh well, there is always  tomorrow...

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