After Rio Dulce, we headed to Antigua for the night then to Panajachel for Christmas. Panajachel is a town on Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands. Fortunately we had good weather (after the pouring rain in Caye Caulker, San Ignacio and the first day in Rio Dulce). We had a yummy Christmas eve dinner then on Christmas day took a boat trip on the lake. We had breakfast at a place called Casa del Mundo, a hotel built right on the cliffs on the side of the lake which is completely isolate from any town and you have to catch a boat to get there. The food was amazing and the views even better! We visited a few other little towns on the lake before watching sunset from Pana.
We're back in Antigua now and did the volcano climb of Pacaya yesterday. It's apparently one of the only places in Central America where you can see flowing lava- which was cool but to be honest, I'm not sure it was worth the 2 hour drive then 2 hour hike on dust and volcanic rock where you seemed to slide backwards half the distance you moved forward with each step! I can tell you, our quads, calves and gluts got a massive workout! At the top, where the lava river was, we could toast marshmellows over it, but some of the excitement wore off and the anxiety set in when Sam's shoes started melting... She wasn't the only one to have had that problem, as the shoe soles scattered along the path would suggest.
Tomorrow we leave on a early, early bus to Copan in Honduras. Hopefully good weather awaits us there!
