It seems like the towns around lake Atitlan are still stuck in the seventies. Upon arrival at San Pedro de Lago Atitlan, we sson found out we had landed in Hippietwon. Hippies from all over the world decided to make the towns around the lake their home. In the hostels people openly smoke weed and on the streets hippies walk around to sell spacecookies.
We decided to stay at a hostel called Mr. Mullets, a hostel run by a Dutch couple in the center of town. After checking in we had some excellent seafood lasagne at the Italian restaurant next door, run by Italians from Bologna. During lunch we met two girls from Israel with whom we ate lunch.
After lunch we had a walk around town. It turned out to be a bit of a maze and we easily got lost due to the many allyways. We decided to check out the solar heated pools. oncce we found them it took over an hour to fill the pools, so meanwhile we sat down for a beer at a nearby bar.
The hot pools were nice, though more meant for romantic couples. Instead, we were sitting in it drinking beers. After the hot pools we went back to the hostel to freshen up. That night we had dinner at a popup restaurant, run by an English couple who travel around the world to run their popup restraurant for a few mmonths at a time. The food was really good.
That night we went out to explore the nightlife. The town has a few bars where everybody oes to. We had some drinks at some of the bars and then headed back to the hostel.
The next morning were told to move rooms because the cleaner found bedbugs in one of the other beds. We were assigned a room with a oublebed. We also had to put all of our clothes in a plastic bag in the sun, cause that apparently kills the potential bugs.
The next day we decided to grab a boat to one of the nearby towns on the other side of the lake. One of the other towns is known to be a true hippie town, with yoga retreats and massages. We checked out town, but there wasnt much to see. We had some lunch and then asked for the yago forrest which seemed cool to see. Apparently another tourist was robbed there a week before with a machete, so we decided not to go.
In twon we met two german girls fro the hostel. They todl us about this bar on the lake with a swimming pool, which was supposedly really nice. We decided to join them and grabbed a boat to the bar in one of the other towns. The bar turned out to be really cool and hip, maybe a bt too hip for Guatemalnn standards. It felt more as if we were at a fancy bar in Ibiza. Thankfully the cold cocktails were still fairly cheap.
Afterwards we grabbed a boat back to our hostel. While waiting for the boat we bumped into Sarah, a Belgian girl we had met before in Antigua. Later on Jannik met her again on top of the volcano, so it was funny to bump into her yet again. Later on we went to a bar where every friday they organize quiznight. The whole town comes to this one bar and everyone joins in on the quiz. The quiz was fun, but difficult since most questions were US and Australia related. Thankfully we had some Australians and Americans on our team. After the quiz we had some more drinks at the next door bar where a live band was playing some gypsie music.
The next day we relaxed a bit in the hostel and had our lazy day. I had a chat with the Dutch owner, who told me she was selling the hostel because she was done with iit. Later on I spoke to her which turned out be her ex. The real reason was that they had broken up and taht they didn’t want to run the hostel anymore because of that.
Later on in the afternoon, the power broke down. We decided to have some drinks at another hostel nearby with a few guys from the hostel. Afterwards we had some food and then went out for some more drinks. There we met an Isrealean girl who was on our volcano trour too.
The next morning we had to get up very early, at 4.30 as we were catching a bus to our next destination, Semuc Champey. Jannik and I were still hugover and we hadn’t slept much either. The bus left around 5 in the mornning. We then had to drive for 2 hours on windy mountain roads to get back on the main road. The shuttle was very uncomfortable and it was quite hard to sleep on it too.
We changed shuttle in Antigua and thankfully we got onto a more comfortable shuttle. We were able to sleep for a few hours which helped, yet we were still feeling rough all day. Especiallly when it turned out that the last hour and a half was going to be on another windy, wobbly moutain dirt road. About 12 hours later, we finally arrived in Semuc Champey
Jan 22nd 2015 – Jan 25th 2015
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