Panajachel, Guatemala

After spending the day in Antigua, my friends and I boarded a van and headed out to the town Panajachel, which is on Lago de Atitlan.  The drive was a bit scary as a lot of it is through very tall mountains with nothing but a strip of grass or gravel between you and a very big drop.  While it was quite beautiful, I was happy to arrive in the town.  We ate a quick lunch, then found a hotel.

We walked down to the lake and immediately we were surrounded with people trying to get us to go on their boats for a tour.  They lied and said the public ferry is $60 American each way across the lake, and they could take us for $50 each way.  Luckily we had our guide book with us and showed them that it said the public ferry is only $2.50 each way, so then they changed their tactics and said we should name our price.  We ended up getting on for about $5 since we were only going to one city across the lake called San Pedro.

San Pedro was a nice little town, but there didn't seem to be too much to do there.  Some guy tried to sell us heroin or cocaine as we got off the boat, but I guess if you don't want to do drugs your choices are limited.

The next day we went to Reserva Natural Atitlan.  It was fantastic!  My friend Ian and I did ziplines, which was quite possibly the coolest thing I've done so far in life.  You're sooooo high above the trees and you look to one side and see a giant waterfall, and to the other side you see the lake and the volcano.  It was cheap too, only about $12 American dollars (225 quetzales).  After that, we walked on the path and went back to take pictures of the waterfall, as well as some monkeys that live nearby.  Then we went to the public beach and dipped our feet in the water, which was actually quite comfortable, then we headed back into town to catch our van to Guatemala City.