19th August - 23rd August 2009

We arrived by chicken bus (well four chicken buses actually) from Sipicate to Lake Atitlan. The bus dropped us off in one of the lake towns called 'Santiago' which was a pleasant surprise as it was a nice Maya town with some great little market stalls to look through. After grabbing a quick bite, one of the best sandwiches and cakes of our lives, we headed off by boat to San Pedro where we were to spend a couple of nights.

San Pedro was definitely the best backpacker haunt of the whole lake and a great place to hang out. We found a nice hostel right in the middle of the cool back streets which had a good restaurant and was close to everything we needed. One day we decided to take a long walk to some of the other towns close by. It took a while and we didn't find a whole lot but it was still nice to do and we even got to hitch a ride in the back of someone's ute which was pretty cool.

We spent a few nights out which culminated in Sammy dancing in the DJ box at one club and falling down three stairs only to knock a large TV screen off the set. Needless to say he quickly put it back in place grabbed my hand and we ran out (Sammy not wearing any thongs). I was a bit confused as I'd been in the bathroom when it all happened but Sam assured me that it wasn't good so I stealthily snuck back in to retrieve his thongs and we headed back to the hostel to sleep the night off.

We got up the next day with surprisingly no hangovers and headed to Panajachel, the main town on the island and where we needed to catch the bus from to our next destination. We caught the boat across the lake and got a cheap room (half price) at a nice hotel. It was definitely a lot busier than any of the other towns we'd been to but we were pretty tired so after a short walk around the market stalls and some dinner we headed to bed, the next day we were off to Coban and Lanquin.