Lake Atitlan, San Pedro

This past weekend we finally got some time off!!! Our first free weekend and the crew decided to go to lake Atitlan and more specifically the town of San Pedro. To get there we all took what is so playfully known as a "chicken bus" these are, again former US school buses, but these have been tricked out like a car made for street racing. They paint them brilliant colors, put fancy grills on them and the whole nine yards. The bus station in Xela is a made house of people yelling their destination and literally herding you onto their bus. They don't really care if your actually trying to go where they are headed so you better watch out if you don't want to get swept onto the wrong bus. As the bus makes stops people get on who are trying to ride the bus and also people trying to sell you all types of snacks and beverages. They simply get on for a while walking up and down the isles with their goodies and then get off at the next stop. Mean while the other worker of the bus (besides the bus driver) goes up and down the isle collecting money. He gets off at each stop to herd more people on and help them with put their luggage on top. the front door never closes so sometimes the bus will take off (to stay on time i would guess) and you'll see him racing along side the bus to catch up. There is not such this as "to capacity" on these buses and by the 4th or 5th stop we were all sitting 3 to a seat with people crowding the isle as well. If the helper guy gets stuck at the back because the isle is full he simply opens the back door, climbs the ladder onto the roof and a few second later you see him hop in through the front door. All of this happens while the bus is headed full speed winding through the mountains of Guatemala. Since San Pedro is some what off the beaten path as far as major tourism goes we got to really see some rural Guatemalan country side taking the one lane highways. After about 2-2 1/2 hours we started making our decent from the mountains down to the lake. Atitlan is not quite the same as lake Michigan as far a size goes but it was sure a rival and possibly more magnificent because sharp peaking mountains jet up at all sides. Atitlan is a crater lake, once the site of a massive volcano. When we arrived in San Pedro we found a hotel right on the water that I think the majority of us would describe as a place we can envision heaven being similar to. The rooms all opened outdoors to a private law and each had its own hammock:) and for a price no motel 6 in the states could match. We rented kayaks on saturday and peacefully paddled around. Saturday night we spent a local solar panel heated hot spring. Every meal was taken at restaurants with patios jetting out over the water and some of the freshest fruit I've ever eaten. Walking along the cobble stone streets full of color and sunshine, San Pedro is truly a small slice of heaven. When we left on sunday we took a small boat to Panahachel which is the biggest tourist town on the lake and therefore has more direct buses back to Xela on sundays. The boat ride was about 20mins and well worth the view if we had to choose any way to leave our little paradise.