Lake Atitlan

So we arrived in Panajachel, some town on Lake Atitlan, surrounded by three volcanos. Sweeeeeeet. We had a nice little hotel too, with only like 8 rooms, check it out:

(Anne bought a giant quilt, which inspired my dad)

The narrow walkway from the street to our hotel, lined with flowers:

It had cool flowers and fruit trees and lots of plants and growing things and bright colors. And most people were happy for more normal-ish showers with pressure and heat, and bigger comfortable beds. Oh yeah, and for each person, including the hotel for a night, the bus ride there and back for the weekend, and a half-day intermittent boat ride from town to town around the lake, the weekend was I think under $40 a person. I forget what we paid- might have actually been a lot less than that. We didn't linger long here though cause it was time for our boat ride.

Lake Atitlan:

These were papayas. Massive. Not sure I've ever actually eaten a papaya.

Our room was up there with that balcony, a nice place at night to sit in some chairs and chill out, which we did do, while waiting for other people at dinner or taking naps.

So we walked down the street to the water, where they were having a swim across the lake (8 kilometers (~5 miles) according to someone down at the event. I don't believe them that it was that far. But whatever. They were having a big party in a small-ish park right there by the water. We got in our little blue fiberglass boat and headed off.

Some town in the distance, Brie and Luke hanging out (which they did much of later on after we left, apparently- they were hospital buddies)

A random wall with little patios and walkways that belonged to someone's house. Kinda sweet.

One of three volcanos.

Pulling away from the dock and the party.

We started seeing the towns across the lake, the volcanos surrounding us, etc. It was nice and sunny and warm and splashy and breezy. Until the typical afternoon weather rolled in and deluged us later. Our first stop was a hot spring of sorts, which was really a tall tall stone wall at the edge of the lake, going right down into the water, and from underneath it seeped hot water. Hot. It mixed with the chilly lake water and also rose to the surface, so there were spots on top of the water as warm as a hot tub, and little swirling pools of warm water around near the wall, and hot bits of water coming out that kept us nice and warm. We lingered quite a bit, while talking to an older man and woman- the woman's family owned the brewery we lived near, and the man was her friend, an Italian from Venice who moved to Guatemala then Cabo san Luca, ten years ago, and never looked back. Except when he said he thought he was losing his Italian because of the Spanish he was learning. We talked about that a bit. Then back in the boat, time for some tourism.

Us up against the wall staying warm, like a hot tub in winter :)

A bit chillier swimming out here.

Me.

Anne and the volcano. Isn't that like the name of a movie?

Looking back into and above our boat at the same time- where the driver stood and watched, stone cold, for like 45 minutes. Unwavering.