Lake Atitlan is renowned as one of the most beautiful lakes in the world; German explorer Alexander von Humboldt is the earliest prominent foreigner to be quoted as calling it "the most beautiful lake in the world" [2] and Aldous Huxley famously wrote of it: "Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing."