Guatemala, Day 2: Antigua & travel

In our last morning in Antigua before spending most of the week at Lake Atitlan, we hit a few more of the spots on our book's walking tour. We had to meet our friends at 10:30 to catch the van for the three-hour drive, so we had to get up early and fit it in!

First stop was Cerro de la Cruz, the hill with a cross on it. It was a 20-minute walk from almost anywhere in Antigua and we ran into a lot of locals doing their workouts. (It's really not possible to run in Antigua due to the heavy traffic and cobblestones!)

The view was totally worth it!

View from Cerro de la Cruz

The volcano makes everything pretty, but that really is a cool view.

Most of the rest of the spots were church ruins, destroyed by earthquakes over the years. First up, Iglesia de la Candelaria, which overlooks a fun soccer field.

Iglesia de la Candelaria

Next up was Templo de Santa Rosa de Lima - a beautiful temple on private property, but we got the best view we could. The facade was so intricate and beautiful. 

It probably won't happen in Latin America, but some of these beautiful church ruins should be made into bars, like Budapest's ruin bar culture. They are gorgeous and should be enjoyed!

We walked up a lovely shaded boulevard (it's very easy to avoid the sun in Antigua - just go on the shady side of the street!) to the Convento de Capuchinas (which we didn't have time to go in, but my book recommends it), then up to the Iglesia el Carmen, whose facade reminds me of Petra.

Iglesia el Carmen

We walked by one more church ruin that used to be a prison, and then we grabbed our bags and caught the van to Lake Atitlan.

The ride over was not too bad, but I'm glad I took motion sickness meds because it was curvy at times. It took about three hours to get to the hotels, but it was worth it for the striking views!

There are a few towns on Lake Atitlan, and our group elected to stay at Panajachel, one of the bigger villages that is well set up for tourists. The main town is a typical grid set-up with some boat launches to get to other villages. We stayed at an airbnb & some hotels just up the road from town.

Sunset on Lake Atitlan

We checked into our hotel, then visited the Panajachel mercado for very cheap and delicious fruit (mango, tiny bananas, mandarins, and pineapple) and the supermercado for local beers. We took our beers back to our friends' airbnb rental house and watched the sunset with our beers.

Re: beer, Guatemala is like many other Latin American countries in that they have a few national brands that make mostly easy-drinking lagers; Gallo and Cabro were ever-present. Our favorite in the end was El Zapote, which had a very nice lager and some other brews. Strangely, we kept running into a lot of Brooklyn Brewery beers throughout the trip; I guess Brooklyn must have made a special deal with the Guatemalan market?

We went for a very delicious dinner at Guajimbo's in Panajachel; they were equipped to handle a large reservation (there were 16 of us, I believe) and they had options for vegetarians, vegans, and meat-eaters alike. I wanted to go back there on the trip, but Dave wanted to try new things. I believe the food was Paraguayan, which had almost an Italian flavor.

Was very excited to be in Atitlan after looking forward to the trip, and we made plans for the next few days of touring.