San Pedro - Lago Atitlan
Arriving from San Cristobal, Chiapas in Mexico to Lago Atitlan, I had heard such amazing things about the lake, I was surprised that by first impressions - I didn’t like it much. As Elizabeth Gilbert put it well “Plant an expectation, reap a disappointment”.
Lago Atitlan is a large lake in the central-western highlands of Guatemala surrounded by numerous Mayan villages and set amongst a backdrop of mountains and volcanoes. The entire area has a laid-back vibe (almost island like), but two communities in particular, San Marcos and San Pedro have become very popular with tourists.
With two friends I met in San Cristobal, we arrived in San Pedro, the second largest lakeside town after Panajachel (Pana), the main transfer hub in the lake.
San Pedro is known for a party scene, but we hadn’t quite realized it was also very quite heavy on the drugs. While the food was great, the actual town itself was rather uninteresting. We stayed for three nights, but after the second night we were dying to get out. Tourism in San Pedro has become extremely built up, and this makes interaction between visitors and those living there, beyond an exchange of cash for goods and services difficult. The highlight of my stay in San Pedro was a sunrise hike to Indian Nose (2863M), which was actually from a completely different town (Santa Clara).
For accommodations we first stayed at Yo Mama's, which was extremely basic, with a good number of long-term guests that somehow got stuck there for weeks (please read between the lines). Our last night we stayed at Pinocchio, a family run hotel, the prices were similar to the hostel (35-40Q/just over $5) for a bed) and the prices went down if you stayed more than one night.
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