Chilling at the lake

Once all the mudslides had been cleared we fled Xela over the mountainous transamerican highway (although in its current state its more like a country road with washed out bits and lots of contraflows!)  to spend a couple of days in Antigua, Guatemala whilst it was still raining. Its a beautiful city with lots of character and crumbling colonial buildings with cobbled streets. We liked it a lot although after Xela found it very touristy as there was a tour agency literally every other shopfront! Worth a look though and we expect it looks even better in the sun. We skipped climbing the live volcano due to weather considerations but if we return that is definitely on the menu.

Art and church Antigua

From Antigua we backtracked to Lake Atitlan and found a lovely chilled out campsite on the outskirts of Panachel (or Gringotenango as its known). We based Betsy here not trying to be too adventurous with driving the mountain roads and  took lots of trips, spending a day at Chichicastenango where we took bargaining at the market by storm (in a thunder storm) and Linz came away with some very funky trousers. We then crossed the lake by lancha (boat) and spent 3 days in San Pedro which is a party town in the shadows of Volcan San Pedro. Despite a thorough soaking on day 1 which rendered us both helpless with sneezing fits for the remainder of the stay we managed to kayak for a morning across the still waters of the lake to San  Marcos. A totally tranquil time. Linz cannot move her arms today which must mean it was decent exercise!!! We also caught a couple of Euro 2008 games - keeping tabs on the competition even if England are a no show at this event. All is good apart from the annoying Britain-like colds.

Eco Parade in Antigua

So tomorrow we are heading north a bit towards Coban and then towards the Carribean coast see if we can´t catch a bit of sun before crossing into Honduras.

Jim with Guatemalan local specialty

Lake Atitlan

Linz kayaking

Locals fishing on the lake