Lake Atitlan

We took a 3.5 hour bus journey to Panajachel, a small town on the edge of Lake Atitlan. The journey was eventful as they are using a recent massive mudslide as an excuse to widen the road and a Guatemalan traffic jam is chaos beyond belief. We spent much of the journey chatting to an American Methodist Pastor on her third mission in Guatemala, helping to build a Sunday school. She was a truly fascinating woman and someone we would never have met under normal circumstances. Talking of people, we are now regularly bumping into a number of different travellers following similar routes to ourselves. Among them a German girl called Sarah who crossed the border with us and a group of three Aussies, an English girl and their Guatemalan tour guide. It's a strange (but comforting) feeling when you're in the middle of a country as remote as Guatemala and you round a corner to be met by a familiar face.

Lake Atitlan is unquestionably one of the most incredible and beautiful places either of us have ever seen. It is surrounded by three volcanoes (one active and constantly "steaming") and is itself a huge collapsed volcanic cone. We took a boat trip over to San Pedro which is basically full of bong smoking hippies who forgot to go home. We liked it, but lack the mandatory dreadlocks and wispy beards to actually stay the night. Antigua tomorrow...