Mayan Circle Part 9

a long day of travel today. 7am woke up and met in the hotel lobby. Then we caught a cab to the bus station. Obviously we’d be carrying heavy luggage and it’s ridiculous to expect us to carry them. At the bus station, the bus was due to depart at 7:45, or 8:15am Mexican time. After our 3hour journey, we crossed the Mexican boarder, grabbed a chicken bus, then tuk-tuk, then a private van before arriving at our final destination of Panajachel Guatemala.

I didn’t know much about Panajachel, except that my Guatemalan friend highly recommended it. I usually don’t get overly excited over peoples recommendations because they tend to fall short of the expectations they set. As we private van drove down towards the town at the base of Lake Atitlan, the view was different than any other place I’ve been to. At the top of the lookout point, you could see the tiny lights of the houses being lit signaling the end of day. At the very end of the town, you could see the edge of the lake, and in the background, you have two inactive volcanoes, guarding the waters and islands. 

We checked into our hotel which was a bit far from the center of town, but close to the shore. There were lots of restaurants near the shore, but for some reason were empty. We headed into town ate3r that evening to have dinner and get some money from Atms. I was last at the ATM, and the girl before me took out a huge amount of money. By the time it was my turn, it said it was unable to process transaction at this time. I decided to try again tomorrow, when they refill the machine. I had enough until tomorrow at least.

The restaurant we decided to eat at was a poor choice. Not because the food was bad, in fact is was quite delicious and good value, but because the service was slow. The restaurant was quite large and could fit about 30 people comfortably, but the kitchen was the smaller than most north American houses. With 2 burners running, a husband and wife cooking team, the 10 hungry gringo mouths were getting inpatient. Each hour that passed, turned our frowns into frowns so deep, you would have thought we were all heavy smokers. A lot of us had not eaten anything since breakfast.  After about 2.5 hours, we all received our meals. I purchased a bottle of water, and retired to my room. Tomorrow would be an early start for our boat trip to the Islands of Lake Atitlan.

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