Chilling at the lake

Trip Start Jan 30, 2008
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Trip End Ongoing


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Flag of Guatemala  ,
Thursday, June 12, 2008

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.

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 Art and church Antigua
Art and church Antigua
 . 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.
So tomorrow we are heading north a bit towards Coban and then towards the Carribean coast see if we canīt catch a bit of sun before crossing into Honduras.
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Comments

zmh
zmh on Jun 12, 2008 at 03:12PM

hi from wet portsmouth
The kayaking sounds lovely, the water looks great. Here it has been hot the last few days then today began to rain and get cool again. It never lasts long. Caught up with Sally Turner and Marisa last weekend. They are both well. Marisa reminded me that the 2 of you met at her 30th birthday, so Simon we have met, it was just very brief!
Had a recent trip to barcelona which was fun. Check ou zoehemsley.site.shutterfly.com/ although my barcelona pics aren't there yet, there are plenty more to see!
Enjoy...

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