07/14 Big smile on my face when I woke up to sunshine this morning. Easy ride into Panajachel where I tracked down Posada Don Carlos. Matthew, a member of warmshowers.org, told me about this place (he and his gf stayed here at some point). He’s also coordinating the shipping of my bike rack to one of the Spanish schools here in town. He was nice enough to offer to let me stay at their place for a couple days but the hotel had a great weekly rate so it’s easier for me to only unpack once. I’m invited over for dinner tomorrow night which I’m looking forward to.
Panajachel is sweet little town on the shores of Lake Atitlan. The views are amazing. The lake is surrounded by not one, but three volcanoes, the highest being 11,400 feet tall. Boats are available to take you to the the other villages that dot the lake. There are some older, weird-looking hippies wandering about but most of the tourists are regular backpacker types. I did get one offer to buy some coke from a guy who doubles as a tour guide. I passed (on both offers). On the way back from dinner another guy came up and wanted to sell me some smoke. So if you want to get high, Panajachel is the place to be. 
The road into town takes you down a nice, steep section that had me within .3 miles an hour of breaking my all-time high speed of 43 mph. The problem is when I’m going that fast I can’t look at my bike computer to check the speed so I don’t know to duck down a little lower for that extra boost (cliffs/potholes to blame).
I’ll be here for a week and hopefully not any more than that. I can’t be lollygagging around too much–my passport was only stamped for 90 days and that has to get me to Costa Rica.
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good to know you made it, enjoy there are some nice rides in the area. We “landed” in Puerto Barrilos, and tomorrow we are heading Panajachel.
Who knows we will meet again, but it is a long ride for us.
Say hi,to Nancy and Matthew
Hi Scott!
Looks like you’re having fun in Panajachel ….too bad you have to wait so long for that rack.
Here in MO it’s HOT, HOT, HOT….also very humid and gross.
Love the photos as always, I’d comment more but not too much new to say. Everything looks beautiful there….and seems like everyone is pretty tourist friendly, correct?Do you have any food photos as well? Do you have an online album where you store all of the photos?
Hey! Yeah, I’ve been hearing about the weather up there. Crazy. Hopefully it cools down soon for you. BTW, I ranted a little about the stray dog situation down here the other night…you’d be amazed how bad it is (except in the city I’m in now). Have you heard of any groups in the States that work on solutions to problems south of the border (or do we have enough of our own)? I read that dogs are even being bred in other countries (SE Asia mostly) for export into the States. That seemed messed up for a lot of reasons. Anyway, I think they need some serious help here and you’re the only pet expert I know.
People here are absolutely amazing but you really notice it more in the places that aren’t big tourist draws. Of course I might be a little biased because people wave, honk, whistle and cheer when I ride by on a daily basis.
I’ll take more food photos. The reason I don’t is because I feel kind of funny taking pictures like that when I’m sitting in a place eating by myself. I’ll try to get over it.
All my pictures are here: http://www.powercycle.net/gallery2/main.php
The halfway decent one (IMHO) are here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/scottfl/sets