Wharf at Panajachel
Karen looks happy but the boat had a top speed of 1km an hour
San pedro markets
Maximon, the mayan god
No taxis here only tuk tuk rides
San Antonio as the clouds started to close in
7 September 2009
After a chicken bus and a stop over in Antigua for the night we made it to Panajachel yesterday a small tourist town on the edge of Lake Atitlan surrounded by hills and volcanoes. Today we did a lake tour by boat which stopped a 3 villages. The village of San Pedro was the first stop at the base of Volcan de San Pedro, a cool mayan town full of life and mayan woman in traditional clothes.
Next was San Atitlan at the base of Volcan Toliman. We were overwhelmed by school kids, and taxi drivers as soon as we left the boat who wanted to take us to Maximon. After a quick peek in the lonely planet were found Maximon was a mayan god. Our curiously took over and we found ourself in a taxi 3kms down the road at some random shanty house with a paper mache man covered with mayan scarfs. The room was full of thick smoke from incense, walls of streamers and flashing lights with two men praying loudly. The funniest thing was the guards sitting either side of him who lighted a cigarette for the manican god as an offering.
Like usual the afternoon cloud closed in and we had rain for our last stop at village San Antonio, a steep village where every house had an amazing view of the lake. Here everyone wanted to sell us a mayan scarf and show us there weaving machines which were at every corner.
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