san pedro la laguna

after a kidney jiggling 2hour shuttle over bumpy mountain roads and a 40 minute organ jostling ferry ride across a choppy lake we finally arrived in san pedro. Its one of 6 or 7 small villages around Lake Atitlan in the highlands of Guatemala. We arrived in Panajachel and saw a little of it on the ride in, then immediately jumped a boat and headed to San Pedro. We plan on also checking out Santa Cruz la laguna as well.

the lake atitlan area is amazing, huge mountains surrounding a turquoise blue lake. it was quite rainy and cold on the way in yesterday, and pretty much rained off and on all night. but, we awoke to an amazing day, and the views from our window are just stunning -a great hotel to which the backpackers here say is expensive. it only costs 25$. its got amazing views of the lake and mountains and has the best little restaurant next door. you literally walk down a path and sit at tables right on the edge of the lake. have´nt had breakfast with such a view in as long as i can remember. and the weather was abolutely pefect. not too hot in the sun, crisp in the shade.

we´´ve had great food here, too, and have finally found some authentic guatemalan food. man, took a while. there is a lot of not-that-great stuff we´ve eaten, but not here. i had a great guatemalan red curry last night that was outstanding. and our other two meals today have been great, and prob about 10$ each for both of us. Beers last night were about 1.25 each. cheap!

the ecosystem is interesting here. still tropical, but pine trees are around, too, and it gets pretty cool at night. we were in pants, shoes and sweatshirt last night. Great sleeping weather. oh, and it´s sunny in the am, cloudy in the afternoon.

all in all, liking this town a good bit. we´ll head off to maybe climb one of the volcanoes around the town or to hike to another town to explore tomorrow. should be fun. we plan to hang here another night or two, then check out santa cruz, then we´re either doing our last night in panajachel or, if there´s no aiport shuttle, heading to antigua for one more night (its only 45 mins from the airport with no traffic). we had planned on going down to a surf camp for the last couple nights, but we´re totally beat from all the traveling around. it´d be another 5 hour trek and then back to the airport from there in a few days. so far we´ve spent about 3 or 4 days on the road on this trip, and we´re gonna just chill and make the most of the rest of our time.