8: Lago de Atitlán and Xela, Guatemala

After Antigua, we visited a lake called Lago de Atitlán, which was formed out of the crater of a volcano a very long time ago (about 84 000 years). There are a few towns and villages on the edge of the lake, and we stayed in a village called Santa Cruz, one of the smaller and quieter ones. We stayed in a hostel called La Iguana Perdida, which was recommended to us by a Kiwi couple we had met in El Salvador. The hostel was great, very relaxing and pretty quiet. Meals are a bit different there, as they are served as one big "family" meal in the evening, everyone eating together (both staff, and guests).


The lake was great, but unfortunately there had been an algae bloom the week before, which meant that swimming was out of the question and anything else, like kayaking, wouldn't have been very pleasant. During our one full day at the lake, however, we went on a walk to another village round the edge, which was great but pretty hot!

View of Lago de Atitlán from our walk (you can see the algae)

After spending an awesome and very relaxing time at La Iguana Perdida, we (sadly) had to move on, and came to a city called Xela (pronounced Shey-la), which is sort of our next step up to Mexico. We arrived here yesterday, but personally I am missing the lake as the hostel we're staying in now isn't half as nice (called La Casa Argentina).

We did have some fun today though, as we went to a couple of great places. First we went to a village outside Xela (open air in the back of a truck which was fun) called Almolonga, where it was market day. It seemed to be a big vegetable exchange, as I gather quite a lot of fruit and veg is produced nearby. All the women were dressed in their local typical dress, as you can see below:

Market at Almolonga

 After the market, we headed up to Las Fuentes Georginas, which are some amazing hot springs. We spent quite a while there bathing in the hot water, it was really incredible! One of the pools was too hot though, and it was only possible to go in for a few seconds, but I was too much of a coward to even do that!

Las Fuentes Georginas

 So that's all for now, folks. I'll hopefully be updating this soon, but you might have to wait until we get to Mexico!!