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Showing posts from July 18, 2010

Lago de Atilan, Hippy Heaven, and Van Aca

Yesterday morning, Liz and I sadly said goodbye to Antigua (for now) and struck off on the next leg of our adventure, ending in Lake Atitlan . The lake is ringed by volcanic peaks and has stunning scenery . I can't do it justice, so I'm linking to photos of it on Flikr . In a nutshell, the mountains basically project vertically from the lake shore, with "fields" of corn stretching from top to bottom on slopes so steep that I'm sure even mountain goats would tumble to their doom. The ride into Panajachel, the main town, was treacherous to say the least. The roads are steep, have hairpin 179-degree turns, and oh, crazy drivers speeding up straight at you, at speeds only seen on the Autobahn. But we made it and after a short lancha (boat taxi) ride to our hostel, we relaxed for a bit reading in the hammocks, visited a nearby town, and enjoyed a fun Tequila Thursday. But today was truly incredible. Liz and I started the day with delicous eggs and toast outside

Highlights

Sorry I didn´t write for a few days, but we have been über busy and having a blast. Here are just some of the highlights from the past few days: Pastores For starters, I hate shopping. More than almost anything. I´d rather drive rusty fish hooks under my fingernails than spend a day doling out money for things I didn´t want in the first place and that Liz didn´t know she wanted until she saw them. On that note however, I LOVE Pastores. This quaint little town (i.e. two street village) 7 km from Antigua is awesome. The main drag hosts 20+ leather stores in a 500 yard stretch. By leather stores, I mean handcrafted boots, bags, belts, cowboy hats, and overstuffed taxidermied animals. Liz and I did some serious damage by Guatemalan standards, but by American standards, we made out like bandits with four pairs of handmade boots, crafted and molded to fit our feet in the back of the store, and two belts, all for less than my one pair of cowboy boots back home. Needless to say that I