Kathleen: About a month ago, half of my post on Lago Atitlan mysteriously disappeared. The trauma of that happening has worn off, and I´m uploading the pictures again... with brief descriptions.
First, here is a picture of the bed bug or flea attack that happened to me my last week in Xela. OMG. It was horrible. Luckily, since Xela, I have not been plagued by these miserable creatures!
We arrived in San Pedro de Laguna, on the shores of Lago Atitlan, the day before Tait´s 30th birthday, and found a great hotel for $6 a night, including a private bathroom (although you could literally sit on the toilet and shower at the same time). Here is a picture of Tait on his 30th... notice the interesting decorative decisions made by the hotel owners... Also, a picture of the view from our hotel room.
To celebrate, we took a boat around the lake. Here are some pictures...
I´ve written about the Guatemalan enchiladas before, but San Pedro had the most amazing EVER... the first layer was half beans, half guacamole; a layer of beet salad and pasta salad on top of that; then a layor of carrot salad; then a slice of hard boiled egg, some onion, some tomato salsa, some cheese, and hot sauce to taste. A vegetarian delight!!
We took a long walk out to a beach near San Pedro every day... here are pictures of two things I had never seen before... coffee beans on the tree, and orange bouganvilla (I had only seen the pink kind).
Finally, two nights at Lake Atitlan we splurged and stayed at this absolutely lovely hotel, with amazing views of the lake and its volcanos. They had a family style meal for all the guests each night, with meat and vegetarian options, hot showers with wonderful water pressure, and peace and quiet. Here are some shots of the hotel and its views.
Unfortunately... the lake was plagued by disgusting algae when we were there. It´s actually quite a tragedy... they think that the algae is caused by all the raw sewage going into the lake
SO... That´s the rest of the Lago Atitlan story.
Oh man, I stayed 3 weeks in San Pedro, renting a house with a group of other travelers. I had my own bedroom and my share of rent was $1 a day! Unbelievable. We were close to the lake and we used to swim in it just about every day. That's a bummer about that algae, is that all over the lake or just in parts? I don't remember it being there in 2005.
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