Pan-faced in San Pedro
As our bus drew closer to Lake Atitlan you could catch glimpses of the lake from across the hills, but it doesn’t prepare you for the full beauty of the setting (neither can my photos) when you round the corner onto the road down to Panajachel, the largest and oldest of the towns around the lake. This is the place that the big hotels and the package tourists stay, so we took a boat across the lake to San Pedro, hippy central.
San Pedro is split into two halves, the main town being located up a steep hill, while all the lazy stoner backpackers are located around the waters edge, unable to make it up the hill until an ATM is needed. This small town is regarded as one of the best producers of coffee in the region, with harvested beans spread out all over the place drying in the sun. The other main cash crop seems to be weed, of which there seems to be no shortage. This might account for the slow chilled-out pace of life here, which is friendly and welcoming. It takes very little time to realise why so many backpackers have come here and never left.
One final commodity that is ubiquitous in this town, is the ever present ‘pan.’ Pan simply means bread, but here it seems to come in more of a cake form, usually mixed with anything from coconut and carrot to chocolate or pineapple, and they’re all good. I should know, I tried most of them over the course of the week. Whilst anyone who knows my weakness for cake may not be surprised by this, I blame it all on the strong-arm tactics of the women selling the pan. They know we’re all at their mercy after a hard days’ ‘recreation’ so what can you do when they corner you with a basket of warm fresh pan, I ask you! If I lived here for any length of time I know that I would become a rather fat pan-based man, stuffing my face daily, so I’d better not let it happen.
The lake itself is surrounded by hills and volcanoes, with settlements dotted all around the huge lake. Whilst the water looks beautiful and inviting to swim in, it’s only upon closer inspection, or in fact while I had my toes dipping in the water sitting on the edge of a dock, that you come to realise it’s not all that. I was enjoying the view, the late setting sun and a cold drink when I noticed Mr Hanky the xmas poo float past, only to be followed by the rest of the family. My toes came out of the water again pretty quickly and I made a resolution to not swim here, though this didn’t seem to bother the locals as they bathed and washed their clothes in it. There’s no proper sewage system out here so inevitably it all flows down to the lake, which is nice. I think you really need to find somewhere around the lake with no settlement nearby, or take a boat out to the middle to find anything like clean water to swim in.
Many faces from Antigua and beyond have showed up in San Pedro, even one of the first people I met in Mexico City at the start of my trip, a girl from St Pauls in Bristol as it happens, working in a local bar – it really is one of those places that everyone turns up at sooner or later.
Tags: Central America, Guatemala, Guatemala, Lago de Atitlan, San Pedro, Travel
Ed
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