Thursday, February 14, 2019
Antigua to Panajachel
Today we're traveling to Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan. After anther good desayuno, we decided to do nothing this morning and just relax on the balcony looking at volcanoes until the scheduled shuttle time of 12:30. Then we waited in the lobby another 40 minutes before the shuttle finally arrived. Sometimes the drivers are early; sometimes they're late. They pick people up all over town, so you just never know when they'll get to you. After us, they continued making the rounds to pick up passengers and finally headed out of town at 1:30.
The trip from Antigua to Panajachel, on the shore of Lago de Atitlan, takes about three hours. The lake is huge, 18 km by 12 km at its widest points and over 1,000 feet deep, and surrounded by volcanoes. About 10 km outside of Pana, we passed through the Mayan village of Solola, where we turned toward the lake and began a steep descent. Tom had been telling me how stunning it was here since I met him. He was right!
The shuttle left us near the top of Calle Santander, the main drag in Panajachel. Our hotel, PanaHouse, was a little hard to find. Luckily, a French couple from our shuttle was going to the same place, and between the four of us, we quickly found our way. First you have to walk down a super-skinny street, really just an alley, Callejon Los Quenun, then walk about a block and turn down a second, nameless, even skinnier alley, which was news to me, but the hotel had sent the French couple detailed directions (I had no such directions), so they knew to ask a local at which skinny alley to turn.
Path to PanaHouse, Callejon Los Quenum
Then turn at the Pooh, down a narrower alley
Then -- and this is the weirdest part -- when we reached the dead-end of this second alley, there was a door with a small laminated sign on it that said “Casa Bonita.” We knocked on that door, and they let us in. Please note that “Casa Bonita” is NOT the name of the hotel, but in their directions, the French couple was informed of this odd detail. Why not make a second handwritten sign with the correct name, or at least put a sticky note on the door that says “PanaHouse,” for crying out loud? It was very odd, like being admitted into a secret society or something. The password was “We have a reservation.” LOL
Anyway, PanaHouse was perfectly acceptable once we found it. It's a 17-room backpacker-style hotel/hostel where you can rent either a private room or a bunk bed. Each room has a private bath, and there are several common areas and a shared kitchen. No breakfast here, but you have the facilities to make your own. Filtered water is available in the kitchen (more on that later). Our room, number 5 again, was small and basic, but clean. We didn't make our reservation very far in advance and wound up with a room with twin beds instead of a double bed, but that will work for a couple of nights.
Tiny twin
PanaHouse
Tom in the common kitchen
We got oriented to the hotel, then walked a few short blocks to the promenade along the lake for a hazy but lovely sunset. It seems we often travel during crop-burning season. Here they were burning sugarcane. There's also a lot of smoke around the lake due to wood-burning cooking fires. So the pollution isn't from industry but rather from the lack thereof.
Mural by the beach
Hazy, beautiful dusk
This is Valentine's Day, and we ate our dinner at Valentino's, where they had appropriately decorated with heart-shaped balloons on each table. Good fajitas, but they tried to overcharge us 5Q per beer. Tom brought that to their attention, and the waiter acted like it was an error and quickly changed our bill. Yeah, right.
Happy VD from Panajachel!
Back at the hotel, the internet was excruciatingly slow. It took over an HOUR to send one email, with one reduced-quality photo. What is this, 1996? I had stubbornly resisted getting a local SIM card for my phone for this vacation, so I couldn't just use my data because I didn't have any. Anyway, an update email for friends and family was eventually sent.
We washed some clothes in the sink and hung them on the clothesline on the terrace upstairs to dry overnight. Gonna be feeling fresh tomorrow!
Tom
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