Day 10 - Lake Atitlan – June 17th

We left our hotel at 8:00 a.m. and drove to 3 ½ hours over the beautiful mountain passes to Lake Atitlan. I enjoyed the drive up. The sun was shinning and the scenery was gorgeous and John Lund was instructing and making us laugh. The lake is gorgeous as we see it down in the valley, with the volcanoes surrounding it. When we got down to the lake it was starting to get cloudy, so we couldn’t see the tops of the volcanoes. We boarded our boat and had an enjoyable ride on the lake. When we were about 20 minutes away from our destination on the other side of the lake, it started raining. Not really hard, like we’ve seen a few times here, thank goodness, but a good steady rain. We boarded our boat in a little town called Panache, and we ended at a little town called Santiago. They gave us 2 hours to shop and walk around. We walked through some of the shops. I got some shirts for the family at home, plus a couple bracelets for me. We spent the last 30 minutes at a little eating area with the Gilmore’s. They had ordered some lunch, so Mike got a coke and we chatted with them. We really like them. I’ve enjoyed everyone on our tour with us. We especially like the Gilmore’s. There were also some cats there. The only other cat I saw on this trip was at our hotel in Honduras, hanging around the pool. There was a really skinny, haggard looking orange cat that kept begging the Gilmore’s for some chicken. They like cats, like me , and he gave it a few pieces and then the bone when they were done. He ran off with it, and 2 other cats chased after him. We then got back on the boat and went back to Panache where our buses were. Then we had another 3 ½ hour ride back to Guatemala City. It was still raining, so we were wet and cold and the windows were all fogged up, and John was on the other bus, so it wasn’t as pleasant getting back as it was for the drive this morning. It was 7:30 p.m. when we were back at the hotel. The food court closes at 8:00 so we just went straight there for dinner. Mike got some Taco Bell, and I ordered us a pizza from pizza hut. While the pizza was cooking, we went to the ice cream place and ate some more ice cream. We had to smuggle our foot into our room, since they don’t like outside food or drink brought in. We ate our pizza and burritos, and then went down to the lobby so we could video chat with Dave on Father’s Day. All the family was over for dinner, so we got to talk to mom and Mark and the whole gang.