The Journey to Our Lake Home

I awoke to sun streaming through the windows. Birds were chirping outside, and a dog was barking nearby. A familiar noise, from growing up in the jungle, roosters crowing and people chatting. Hurriedly I ran to look outside, and there was a mountain looming over the rooftops of the “Blue Mayan”. Panajachel, Guatemala served me fresh pineapple, bananas, and juicy papaya for breakfast.

After breakfast, Brady and I were on a mission to find the docks. We had a huge amount of luggage to carry and were hoping that the docks would be as close as, let’s say, 2 blocks. However, the lake was about 10 blocks away and I repeated to myself over and over, “Why did you bring all this luggage again?” as I rolled my luggage down the cobblestone street.

Our destination was a hop and a skip across “Lake Atitlan”. We caught a boat at the docks! But not before loading the luggage onto one boat, realizing I had forgotten something at the Blue Mayan and made Brady run all the way back to get it. While waiting, they had me reloading all our stuff (mostly mine) to the next boat, because “Guatemalan’s don’t like to be late”, the man told me. Finally we were racing over the waves of Lake Atitlan, in a taxi boat, full of many others, all going different places. We were unsure where to get off, but decided on the docks at Santa Cruz. So we unloaded and were left on the pier. Long story short, we were lost, but we found our way with the help of some locals. Next thing we knew we were all alone on a dock, surrounded by our piling heaps of baggage.

A man from France found us, and came out to greet us in his French accent. He had been watching for us, his new “renters” for the month. “Are you Australian?” he asked, laughing! “I thought so because of all the stuff you brought! You might want to leave it here at the bottom.” How bad could it be, both Brady and I stubbornly thought, as we gazed up a flight of stairs! 64 stairs (yes we counted them)…but we finally had made it to our little house by the lake.

The view is spectacular! We have a bay window that looks out over the water, and you can sit there and watch the water move and sparkle, and gaze at the mountains rising above you. Every day the hue is different. On some days you can barely make out the other side, where the Volcano stands, and you feel as if you are situated next to a vast ocean! But then on clear days, your perspective changes and the lake looks not as big as you made it out to be.

The best feature of this place so far, in my opinion, is the board walk that goes along parts of Lake Atitlan - pieces of planks, nailed together, and suspended in air. It’s such an adventure walking across the trail over the water, but a bit unstable feeling! Essentially you are walking through people’s front yards as you walk alone these walkways.