Lake Atitlan in the Guatemalan highlands is another of this country's highlights and well worth a visit. The lake sits at around 1500m above sea level and is for the most part a relatively clean body of water, as long as you can ignore the ton of litter washed up on it's shores.... There is even a scuba diving outfit here, testament to what the water clarity used to be. Diving at altitude, something different.
I'm staying in a small village called San Marcos La Laguna which is one of the prettiest villages that hug the shores of the lake. There are 3 volcanos that flank the lake and they are all over 3000m high. The highest is Volcano Atitlan which is over 3500m high. At certain times of the year, the sunsets are sublime, unfortunately the rainy season is not one of those times but the sunrises are quite cool too, we worth getting up at 05:45 for.
This village is one of the alternate therapy hotspots in Central America and boy, are some of the dudes here strange. I thought that Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica had hippies but they can't touch this place. Woodstock, eat your heart out. Every possible type of healing, therapy, mind expansion, thought processing etc can be found here. If you want to get in touch with your inner self, this is the place!
The lady who owns the place that I'm staying is from the USA and has been here for almost 21 years and lives in a tree house, go figure.... Different strokes for different folks I guess.
One cool thing you can do here is to rent a kayak and hit the lake. I prefer a canoe as they are more stable but only kayaks are available so what the heck, let's give it a bash. My plan is to paddle out for a while into the lake, grab some shots for the bog and then cruise the inlets for a while. It's been a few years since I was in a canoe/kayak but it's like riding a bike so should be fine. So off I go, dry bag and flip-flops stored under the small elastic mesh, life vest donned, shades and hat, looking cool.
After about 35 minutes I'm quite far into the lake so decide to grab the selfie for the blog. So stop, turn the kayak, take off the life jacket, open the dry bag, grab my mobile phone, take a photo and promptly capsize the kayak. Now the thing about dry bags, they only float when they are closed, life jackets only work when hey are worn. So as I go over, I barely manage to keep the phone above the water with one hand, there are 3,red images so it did get a bit wet! That hand holds the edge of the upside down kayak and is the only part of me above the water. The rest of me goes under trying to grab the water filled dry bag disappearing into the depths. I just managed to grab the bag fully submerged and stretching like crazy, my dive watch went into dive mode, I was so deep.
So now I'm back on the surface being dragged down by the dry bag stupidly clutching the phone. I get some of the water out of the bag, chuck in the phone, close the bag and take stock of the situation. Paddle and life vest have floated away, shades still on, hat gone, kayak upside down. Flip the kayak, put the dry bag back in the mesh, pull the kayak and swim to the paddle and life vest. Put the life vest back on, oh look, it does not work n the water, no strap so it gets stuck below my ears, cool! I can't get back onto the kayak so I decide to swim back to the shore, 100m away lugging the canoe and oar.
One thing I did not notice is how much deep water weed there is in the lake, it grows in about 5m depth and comes up to the surface. I get to the first large growth and stupidly thing that I can stand on it, well no my feet sink through into it, get tangled and I'm pulled back under the kayak, tangled in weed, only one hand above the water, sound familiar?
The only option here is to stop panicking, reverse my course and get untangled which somehow I manage. Not ready to drown just yet! The fisherman on the lakeside near me was getting ready to jump in. Eventually I get to shore, drenched, covered in green water weed and pissed off at my stupidity, stupid kayak!!!
I get back to the hiring office about 30 minutes late so should pay for another hour but the dude in the office takes one look at the bedraggled, weed covered creature from the swamp standing in front of him, laughs and waves me away. One small consolation for almost drowning.....
Well that will be enough water sports for me for now. I think I'll stick to land sports for a while.
Hasta Luego
Andrew
Local fisherman
View over the lake
I'm staying in a small village called San Marcos La Laguna which is one of the prettiest villages that hug the shores of the lake. There are 3 volcanos that flank the lake and they are all over 3000m high. The highest is Volcano Atitlan which is over 3500m high. At certain times of the year, the sunsets are sublime, unfortunately the rainy season is not one of those times but the sunrises are quite cool too, we worth getting up at 05:45 for.
This village is one of the alternate therapy hotspots in Central America and boy, are some of the dudes here strange. I thought that Puerto Viejo in Costa Rica had hippies but they can't touch this place. Woodstock, eat your heart out. Every possible type of healing, therapy, mind expansion, thought processing etc can be found here. If you want to get in touch with your inner self, this is the place!
The smile center
One cool thing you can do here is to rent a kayak and hit the lake. I prefer a canoe as they are more stable but only kayaks are available so what the heck, let's give it a bash. My plan is to paddle out for a while into the lake, grab some shots for the bog and then cruise the inlets for a while. It's been a few years since I was in a canoe/kayak but it's like riding a bike so should be fine. So off I go, dry bag and flip-flops stored under the small elastic mesh, life vest donned, shades and hat, looking cool.
After about 35 minutes I'm quite far into the lake so decide to grab the selfie for the blog. So stop, turn the kayak, take off the life jacket, open the dry bag, grab my mobile phone, take a photo and promptly capsize the kayak. Now the thing about dry bags, they only float when they are closed, life jackets only work when hey are worn. So as I go over, I barely manage to keep the phone above the water with one hand, there are 3,red images so it did get a bit wet! That hand holds the edge of the upside down kayak and is the only part of me above the water. The rest of me goes under trying to grab the water filled dry bag disappearing into the depths. I just managed to grab the bag fully submerged and stretching like crazy, my dive watch went into dive mode, I was so deep.
Seconds before I flip
As I go over
One thing I did not notice is how much deep water weed there is in the lake, it grows in about 5m depth and comes up to the surface. I get to the first large growth and stupidly thing that I can stand on it, well no my feet sink through into it, get tangled and I'm pulled back under the kayak, tangled in weed, only one hand above the water, sound familiar?
The only option here is to stop panicking, reverse my course and get untangled which somehow I manage. Not ready to drown just yet! The fisherman on the lakeside near me was getting ready to jump in. Eventually I get to shore, drenched, covered in green water weed and pissed off at my stupidity, stupid kayak!!!
I get back to the hiring office about 30 minutes late so should pay for another hour but the dude in the office takes one look at the bedraggled, weed covered creature from the swamp standing in front of him, laughs and waves me away. One small consolation for almost drowning.....
Well that will be enough water sports for me for now. I think I'll stick to land sports for a while.
Hasta Luego
Andrew
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