Day 6

Hey everyone!

Today was our free day, so we decided to journey to the beautiful Lake Atitlan. The bus picked us up bright and early at 6am and we slept most of the three hour ride there. Just before we got there, we stopped at an overlook to take pictures...

                                                              A view to our right

                                                              A view to our left

Its hard to show the size of the lake without a panoramic view, but its HUGE! And its completely surrounded by mountains and volcanoes - super pretty! After a few minutes at the overlook, we headed down the mountain to a cute little town, Panajachel (can be seen at the bottom of the "left" photo). Once we arrived, we toured a couple museums talking about the history of the lake and surrounding towns. They had some cool artifacts that were found at the bottom of the lake from a really old city (unfortunately we werent allowed to take pictures). Afterwards we headed back through town to the shore, where we took a boat across the entire lake (about a 30 minute boat ride!) to another town, San Pedro.

                                                            Me and Meg on the boat!

Once in San Pedro, we took a short walk through town to eat on some rocks at the edge of the water. We picked up some tasty sandwiches and banana bread yesterday from a couple bakeries in Antigua for our snacks and lunch today. Great decision on our part! It was delicious. After eating some of the others went for a swim in the lake, who were quickly joined by some locals. (Funny side note, Tristan and I hung back to watch our stuff and while the others were swimming and a few of the local kids came over after swimming themselves and one of them asked to use Nates towel. We assumed Nate would be okay with it and said yes. After drying off, the kid, Pedro, starts wrapping the towel around his waist as if he was about to leave with it. Instead, he takes off his swim trunks and starts wringing out the water. Tristan and I found it very funny, but Im not so sure Nate found is as funny when we told him later.)

Nate getting his food with the lake in the background

Amelia loves the water!

After drying off, we headed into town and ordered some drinks at a cafe and hung out there for a while. Virginia ordered a yogurt platter, and the fruit bowl that came with it was the size of her head. Om nom nom. From there, we got some kayaks and traversed the lake to a beach across from where we ate lunch (you can faintly see it in the background of the picture of Nate eating). It was a bunch of fun! On the paddle back, the waves were choppy from the approaching storm which added another level of fun!

The view of San Pedro from the lake

Meg kayaks!

Back in San Pedro, we just headed to the dock to catch the next boat back to Panajachel and then hopped on the bus back to Antigua! All in all, it was a great day!

Happy reading!

Claire