Panajachel / Lake Atitlan: 21st - 24th July 2025
21st July – Monday
The journey to Panajachel today was long, 10 hours long. I had my ‘free’ breakfast and most of my ‘free ‘coffee before the first bus took us to Lanquin. From there I got on another bus, which was packed. I had to sit next to a girl with extremely long legs, I think she was Dutch or Croatian. She wasn’t very chatty but did inform me of everything the driver kept telling us, which was very nice of her. I was on that bus for all of two hours and then had to change onto the final bus for Panajachel. There were three of us on that one and no-one else joined us enroute, so we had more than enough space. One of the girls was from North London, she is doing a year out here, and her friend was from Poland, but she is leaving in a weeks’ time.
As I have come to expect from Guatemala, the scenery was delightful and mountainous all of the way until we descended to Lake Atitlan. It was nice to see the jungle disappear and the landscape change to forest and land planted with sweetcorn. I think I also saw some baby tomato plants at one point. We passed through a couple of villages, some larger than others. I also noticed quite a lot of new builds going up in some areas. It was good to see and I expect the locals are extremely happy to move from wooden shacks to concrete properties, they must be far warmer and certainly more rain-proof.
The decent into Panajachel was awesome, we passed through a town called Solola, which looked very interesting, I wish we had time to stop and explore it for a couple of hours. However, my mind was taken off of that as the volcanoes surrounding Lake Atitlan came into view – stunning. It was hard to get any good photos of them while we were moving. However, the driver dropped us of at a petrol station and one my walk to the hotel I managed to get a couple of snaps. I am looking forward to tomorrow.
I’m actually in a fair bit of pain, I put a lot of strain on my left shoulder yesterday, and from where I sheered the corner off a few years ago it’s not very strong any more. The bus journey did nothing to help as it was not only very uncomfortable but it was not at all smooth. The Guatemalan roads leave a lot to be desired, in a lot of places there is just rubble, no concrete, there are pot holes everywhere and not to mention a speed bump every 100 yards. I need to take it easy over the next few days and hope I haven’t done anything worse than just strain it. However, at the same time, I am also very happy on several accounts. I have been accepted into the Spanish Community School and start on Thursday and there is also a vape shop in town! I was not so happy with my room as there is no balcony, I asked for a room change but all the balcony rooms are full. However, the garden area is very beautiful, not only is there a small pool, there is also a little undercover seated area where I can smoke, vape and drink. I am only here
for 3 nights, so it all gravy. One last negative thing about this room is the fan, although it is huge and very powerful it’s bloody noisy, so noisy that I don’t think I will be able to sleep with it on. It actually sounds like an airplane engine! There are also too many blankets on the bed so I have stripped it back and will see how the night goes – fingers crossed for me.
Later: I was going to go for a little walk, but it started raining. Instead, I ended up playing three games of pool with the receptionist’ son. He must be about 6 or 7 and is non-verbal. We got one very well even though he cheats; he kept moving the white ball to a better position, would knock any coloured balls out of his way and take several turns all at once – lol. However, I did manage to show him how to hold the cue properly and when he remembered to do so he was actually quite good and got several balls down. With a bit more hight and practice I am sure he will make a good pool player.
It’s an early night for me, I’m exhausted. I just hope I don’t wake too early as the restaurant for coffee does not open until 7am, although if I do I may go for a walk and see if any of the myriad of shops are open.
22nd July – Tuesday
I’ve warmed to this hotel. The bed was comfy and the room dark, I slept really well and dreamt about Yasmin 
I was awake at 6 am so I thought I’d take a walk and look for coffee, but first I needed to refill my water to brush my teeth and much to my delight the water dispenser has hot and cold water; I made my own coffee and sat in the outside room, that will save me at least £4 a day! My next mission was a cheap breakfast, most of the places I looked at were even more expensive than the hotel in the jungle, but I found a bakery and got a bun and apple turnover for £1 and I even found a cheap laundrette and put all of my clothes in for a good washing for all of £3 – Happy Days!
Later: This afternoon I went for a walk looking for the vape shop and found myself in a part of town that was not touristy. It was nice to be away from all of the hawkers, and there are hundreds of them here, they are so annoying. I found, amongst other shops, a supermarket, home-depot store and a fruit shop, so I bought fruit. I also found the shop that sells vapes and am so happy to be off the cigarettes. However, I must make a concerted effort to give up again. I was doing so well until Justine arrived and then I gave in to temptation, such is life.
On my back I bought a piece of chicken for 10 quetzals and found a shop that sells beer for 8 quetzals. I have decided that if I can keep my spending down to less than £15 a day for the next week then I will splash out on a paragliding session over the lake. I was watching them earlier and it looks awesome but it is £65 for half an hour.
I spent all evening working on my website; Mexico is now finished
23rd July – Thursday
I didn’t really do much today. I went for a walk this morning to find the pier for the boat to San Pedro. I may take a tuktuk there tomorrow morning, it just depends on how much change I have. I only have 100-quetzal notes and they are proving hard to change unless I make a decent purchase. I spent the afternoon in the outside room trying to sort out the home page of my website, I keep messing it up and it takes forever to do anything, but I am getting faster and better at it. This evening, I bought chicken and chips for dinner, I’ve spent a total of £6 pounds today. I went along the water front and ate it, drank a beer and watched the sun go down. It actually went down to the far right of me but the sky in front, between the two large volcanoes was very beautiful. While eating my food a couple of Gatemalan ladies stopped on the path in front of taking and one of them was wearing a shirt with my name on the back! I late found out it is actaully a popluar name in this region of Guatemala, however they pronounce it Root.
I am a bit concerned about getting the ferry tomorrow morning. I left it too late to purchase a ticket online, so have decided to get up early and hope I can catch one and pay on the spot. It’s not high season so hopefully they will not be too busy and leaving early will mean that if I have to hang around I should still get to San Pedro before midday. I am feeling very nervous but excited about starting at the Spanish Community school tomorrow and staying with a Guatemalan family for two weeks – I hope they like me.
