We flew from San José, Costa Rica to Guatemala City. We planned to head to Lake Atitlan for a couple of days R&R before meeting our G Adventures group in Antigua for our “Mayan Encounter” tour in Guatemala and Belize.
Rather than taking a tourist shuttle bus from the airport we took an Uber to a bus station in the city. OK, it wasn’t nearly as simple as that – long story, but we got the locals bus in the end. The bus was leaving just as we arrived, so our rucksacks were thrown on the roof, and we jumped on for the four hour journey.
Guatemala has a lot of second-hand US school buses which have been restored and highly decorated. It was very rattley but surprisingly comfortable despite the bench seats.
We were dumped off in a town 8km from our destination and told to “cambio” (change). We had to ask locals where to get the next bus to our destination – Panajachel.
Lake Atitlan is famous for its volcanoes.
The next morning we took a water taxi to Santa Cruz where we were to spend a couple of nights. Santa Cruz is only accessible by boat. We got a clear view of the volcanoes across the lake.
We walked up the steep path and steps us to the village for a late lunch in the not-for-profit, community-run restaurant.
On the last night we had dinner in a restaurant which also had a hotel and youth hostel attached. Mistake! We ended up in a big drinking game with the staff and the (much younger) hostel crowd. Far too much tequila and miscellaneous other clear spirits!
