Lake Atitlan - Blatts in Guatemala!

Arriving in San Pedro, Guatemala was a bit of planes, trains and automobiles--but for us it was an airplane, then a taxi to Antigua, a shuttle to Panajachel and finally the boat to San Pedro.

Our first night was spent in Antigua in a hole of a hotel with balls of newspaper filling the pillows and obnoxious gringas staying up outside of our room at 3 a.m. laughing and screaming at their own hilarity.

But finally we got to the lovely Lake Atitlan the next morning, where we planned a homestay with the familia Gonzales.   It ended up being a hotel, where the owner cooked us some eggs for dinner that night with a hot dog slice.  Did I mention I'm allergic to eggs?  The next day, we told her we'd prefer to 'eat out'.
So we were happy to find Indian, Thai and Mexican food on Atitlan (and plenty of Israeli felafel).  It had been a while since we'd had ethnic food!

To do in San Pedro:

• Walk 20 minutes to the village of San Juan and check out the art galleries.  We were so impressed with the town's style of 'birds-eye view' oil paintings of the marketplace that we decided at once to buy a large painting, and then got very indecisive about which one we should buy.  In the end, we left without it, and traveled all the way back to San Juan from Antigua the next week to buy one of those darn paintings (well, we ended up with two...we had come all that way....)
• Climb the San Pedro Volcano.  You don't need a guide, just follow the trail once you take a tuk-tuk to the trail head.  (See Benji's post on the experience)
• Climb La Nariz  (the Nose)----Take the public bus to Santa Clara (about an hour) and make sure you go to the official entrance (or you can go to "the chin" for half the price, if you prefer...same view, but cheaper.)
• Kayak on Lake Atitlan from San Pedro.  Just head right down to the water for about a buck an hour....their sit-on-tops-so prepare to sit in a puddle of water.  Great views of the volcanoes!