unfettered

Saturday morning the shuttle bus picked up Arnauld and me to go to Lake Atitlan. The road was wind-y almost the entire way and fortunately I had brought along my ipod to distract me from the occasional waves of motion sickness. Guatemalan driving is crazy. Down the center of the road, there are dotted lines or straight lines, but it doesn’t really matter. They all mean pass whenever you feel like it. I can’t understand how there are not more accidents here, but I suppose everyone’s a defensive driver at the same time they are offensive, if that’s even possible. The route took about 2.5 hours and we arrived to beautiful, breezy and sunny weather that stayed with us for the entire weekend. We had lunch in Panahatchel, the main town at Lake Atitlan were all the shuttle transports drop off, and afterwards we made our way to the hotel, Villa Sumaya located in the next town over.





The main and most efficient mode of transport is by boat and since the towns are located one next to the other, you can do a tour of the lake with stops at all the villages in about 6 hours. Our hotel was less than 10 minutes away by boat and when we were dropped off at the dock, we realized just how tucked away we were. I got the hotel recommendation through a friend of Lucy’s and didn’t realize just how isolated it was until I actually saw it. I didn’t mind because I really just wanted a weekend to relax and enjoy the lake view. The hotel also had a fully equipped yoga studio and I had been looking forward to doing some early morning Pilates workouts. Fortunately, Arnauld is very laid-back and didn’t care where we stayed. He had entrusted me to arrange accommodations, so he just went along with it. The hotel was a 20-minute walk into the village (which I never visited) and a 10 minute boat ride to the main village when you can flag down a passing boat, which passes by about once an hour. You just stand on the dock, wave your arms and when it goes by you hope they see you. As soon as I had an opportunity to check out the 8 room hotel and walk around the grounds, I didn’t care if I saw any of the lake villages. It was the most beautiful and peaceful setting with uninterrupted views of the lake and surrounding volcanoes. All the rooms had patio seating and even had reading lamps outside since you would spend more time outside than inside the room, anyway. The yoga studio was so perfect; I thought I was going to start crying. Honestly, it was so serene that it was an emotional experience. The pictures here don’t do it justice because the light comes in from the skylight above and the sliding doors open so you can feel the breeze and hear the sound of the waves. It was fully equipped with mats, bricks and also included a pile of large colorfully embroidered pillows on which to sit and mediate. As far as I can tell, no one uses this space, other than a hotel guest who may have interest - keeping in mind that there are only 8 rooms. I think the hotel is relatively new and once word of mouth gets around, they are going to be booked year round. I think they need to find a yoga instructor to build a good program and they should aim to become the yoga destination for entire area. There are enough new age-y people and expats around the Lake who would make a trip to study yoga in such a special place.
Aside from the hotel and the beautiful views, the trips to the villages were nice. The markets had the same stuff that I saw last week in Chichi and after a while it all starts to look the same. The last boat back to the hotel is at 7:30, so if you miss that, you have to call the hotel to come pick you up for a $20 fee. It took us so long to get from town to town by boat on Sunday, that Arnauld missed his 4pm bus and had to stay an extra night. I had already planned to stay for 2 nights anyway, so he got a little more peace and quiet this weekend than I think he had anticipated. Besides, he’s French and as long as he can get a good bottle of wine, he’s happy.

So, although I didn’t do the full lake tour and visit all the surrounding villages, I got to experience the most beautiful lake views, which would not be available if I had stayed in a more centrally located hotel. I couldn’t be more pleased with my Lake Atitlan experience, so it anyone is planning to trip to Guatemala, you have to make sure it includes at least 3 days at Villa Sumaya.

I got back to Antigua on Monday night and I spend all day Tuesday, packing my things and getting ready to take off at 9am on Wednesday morning. I made a last minute visit to some convent ruins near the school and enjoyed one last look at Antigua. Now it's Wednesday morning and I just said goodbye to everyone, including little Ana, who does all the cooking and cleaning in the house and who has been very sweet to all of us during our time here. Now, I’m waiting for my shuttle to Rio Dulce to kick off my next 2 weeks of travel before I come back to NY on Aug 4. I am sure I’ll have internet access at various points, so I can probably post a few updates from Belize and Honduras, but may not be able to include photos. I’ll keep you posted:)

posted by Angie @ 6:57 AM