An early rise & a shuttle. The driver picked me up first, then spent the next 30 minutes driving around not finding hotel addresses and not picking up the other people who had paid for the shuttle.
He was about 70 with deep lines on his forehead and face and he talked like a surfer. He hardly sleeps, works like crazy, and sits on a piece of cardboard when he drives.
In Panajachel we were dropped off and some of us joined a day tour which involved transportation to 4 of the villages lining Lago Atitlán's famed volcano-ringed lakeside.
Into the boat...
A short ride took us to San Marcos where we had an hour to wander around.
San Juan, which is famous for textiles.
San Pedro
Santiago
The villages are great for picking up souvenirs since there's variety and enough vendors to keep prices competitive, but when you just visit for the day it feels like you're at a shopping mall with pushy vendors and child beggars with puppy dog eyes.
You're about to get an earful.
Before we sailed off 2 young girls tried to sell me bracelets. One girl gave up when she realized I wouldn't buy one, and she started to ask me questions about my life. In contrast, the other girl would pretend to be involved in our conversation, then would suddenly jump in with another mini-sales pitch.
I had to get back onto my boat so I gave them some strawberry gum and both girls forgot about selling bracelets completely. I gave out some more pieces to other kids, then had to run to my boat. More kids came and asked for gum, even coming up to our boat and asking other people in the group for gum.
One woman had an embroidered table runner and made a desperate last minute sales attempt before our boat made its way back to Pana. "Seven dollars!…. Five dollars!!!"
We arrived back in Antigua quite late since our shuttle was stuck waiting well over an hour for other people to cram into our shuttle before heading back.
I've seen a lot of these signs around town, and there are others about murder and kidnapping.
In unrelated but important news - today I found out that I'm officially an aunt :)
