White nosed Coati (pizote)
One of the must see attractions in the Antigua region of Guatemala is Lake Atitlan. Most visitors head to the village of Panajachel, which is on the shores of the lake and base their activities around there.
The cheapest way to get there is actually to book an Uber, so that’s what we did. Whilst we waited, we grabbed some pastries and coffee for breakfast, then piled into our car and headed off. Despite only being 50 km away, all the navigation apps said that it would take around two hours to arrive. Actually, it took well over 2 1/2 hours by the time we went through roadworks and dodged breakdowns up and over the mountains. As with most roads in Guatemala, they are narrow and wind their way through the mountains, and ours were no exception. We actually didn’t arrive until close on 11:30 and asked our driver to drop us at the entrance to the nature reserve just out of town. It’s effectively a small national park on the shores of the lake, but it had a lovely walking track and we wended our way through the forest looking at the pizotes or coatis, which are a racoon like creature that live in the trees. Eventually crossed three swinging rope bridges, and arrived at the beach at the end of the trail (which, like many beaches around the world, has more stones and pebbles than sand).
The lake is extremely deep, and they’ve never managed to accurately measure it’s depth. It’s also ringed by a number of volcanoes which have duly erupted infrequently over the centuries. Stopped for a while, had morning tea, then wandered back up the trail to the entrance and back along the winding roads into town.
We wandered through the town of Panajachel visiting the artisans and craftsmans’ markets along the central streets. Lots of local wares but, in the tradition of markets around the world, most of the stores sold very similar items. At the end of the market road, we found ourselves on the shores of the lake again, and after enjoying the view for a while we wandered back and attempted to book ourselves on a return shuttle to Antigua. Wasn’t as easy as it looked as most of the shuttles had already filled up, but we finally found one that had three spare seats and would take credit cards, and we duly hung around the street at the appointed time, and the bus eventually rolled up.
Again the bus took about 2 1/2 hours to return to the city, but did so via a very winding and hilly back road, which included the thrill of fording a river that had washed away the bridge in recent floods. Didn’t really expect the bus driver to try and take a bus full of passengers through, but he did, and we managed to get through safely and eventually back into town well after dark.
Lovely dinner at a local café.
Walking the National Park
Lake Atitlan and Panajachel
Local artisans market
The bus drove straight through