Guatemala II. New Years in Lake Atitlan

In my mid 20’s I spent copious amounts of time daydreaming of travel. As a graduate music student in Miami I traveled when I could, but I wondered how I could do more following graduation. To a surprising extent it was the pandemic that allowed me to really get out there. Covid left the music industry on pause, but I still had family flight benefits and money saved from a cruise ship job. So in late 2020 I traveled to Turkey, then Mexico, and finally to Colombia. Between these trips I frequently browsed Hostelworld.com and treated it like Zillow – I’d pull up random places and see what kinds of hostels I could find. That’s when I happened upon Lake Atitlan. I had a certain inkling that I’d travel here for New Years one day.

Flash forward three years and I was partway through a whirlwind Guatemala itinerary, all set around bringing in the new year at Lake Atitlan. Months before my trip I booked a three day/two night hiking tour with the company Quetzaltrekkers, departing from Xela and arriving to Lake Atitlan for New Years Eve. I had never done a hiking tour this long, and it sounded like a memorable and unique way to end the year before spending six nights on the lake.

When tourists imagine Guatemala they probably picture the beautiful architecture of Antigua, the endless volcanos, and perhaps the ruins of Tikal. But what they don’t often experience is the spaces in between – poor villages with the most basic of infrastructure, and communities that are kept afloat by family living and working in the USA illegally. These are the exact places that this tour took us en route to Lake Atitlan. The migrant crisis in America is a major issue, and as an American myself I found it very enlightening and important to understand the motivations behind migration and the impact it has on these small communities. The cost of our tour directly went to children’s schools in these villages.

Early in the morning on the last day of our tour we arrived to a point overlooking the lake. We had plenty of time to get all cozy in our sleeping bags with a cup of hot chocolate before taking in the last sunrise of 2023. Here there are three volcanoes in the immediate vicinity including San Pedro, Tolimán, and Atitlán. Further afield are the Acatenango, Fuego, and Agua volcanos that surround Antigua. We were lucky to have a completely clear sky, and we even bore witness to the distant Fuego volcano erupting dramatically in the darkness. I have to say, other than the Mt. Bromo viewpoint in Java this was the most spectacular volcano(s) view I’ve ever seen.

Taking a three day hike before arriving to the lake was the best thing I could have done for myself socially. I essentially had a built in group of friends. The tour ended in the village of San Pedro La Laguna, where I’d stay through New Years Day. This is the place on the lake for those looking to party, but I had a chill night over dinner with my hiking friends. I watched the fireworks from the balcony of my waterfront hotel – they could be seen going off in all of the nearby villages across the water.

The thing about being mostly sober is that you have no issue getting up at 7 AM on New Years Day. San Pedro is a fairly large village set on a hill below the volcano, but most of what there is to do can be found on one long road down by the water. There is a large selection of cute restaurants, including a nice bakery cafe overlooking the water.

Following a quiet breakfast at the only place that was open I met up with some hiking friends and rented kayaks. I’ve only kayaked one other time in my travels, in 2022 while in Vietnam’s Ha Long Bay. However I enjoyed it so much in Lake Atitlan that I wound up kayaking again a couple days later in another village.

As I’ve mentioned, it was amazing to not have to put in the effort to make new friends in Lake Atitlan. San Pedro was a bit too touristy for me to enjoy by myself, so experiencing it with the people I knew kept it fun. I’m not sure how the weather in Lake Atitlan differs between rainy and dry seasons, but there was supposedly an abnormal amount of haze during my stay. The skies were completely clear in the mornings, whereas the late afternoons were often murky – showcasing a completely different character. One evening the lake had little visibility and bubblegum clouds.

Besides the dramatic scenery, the thing that originally intrigued me about Lake Atitlan was that one could “lake hop” from village to village, hostel to hostel. It is a unique place in this regard, and you are constantly shown different views of the towering cliffs and ominous volcanos. My second stop on the lake was the village of Panajachel. This is often the first stop if you are coming from Antigua. While San Pedro is somewhat tucked away, from Panajachel you can fully take in the panoramic volcano views.

Panajachel was the village I enjoyed most in Lake Atitlan. It’s the place to be if you are looking to shop. There’s a main tourist street full of artisan markets and more upscale boutiques, but there’s also a sizable local market along the shore with ample street food. Like with San Pedro there is also an excellent restaurant scene – here I ate delicious Indian food, some ok pupusas (they’re rarely great outside of El Salvador), and even decent Mexican food. It was also here in Panajachel where I had the best coffee of my time in Guatemalan at Cafe Loco.

In the mornings here I woke up before sunrise to go down to the water and experiment with long exposure photography. I bought a new tripod just before the trip, however I also realized that I needed my other small tripod so that I could set up among low rocks like in the image below. This shot actually turned out well, and I particularly enjoy the motion blur of the fisherman’s hand. This photo is a calm and mellow view of local life in Lake Atitlan, contrasting the crashing waves of boats that fill the daylight hours.

My last stop on the lake was the village of Santa Cruz. If San Pedro was the party spot and Panajachel was the main transport hub, then Santa Cruz was the place to relax. If you’re coming to the lake with a bigger budget then there are plenty of upscale Airbnb’s and such dispersed around the lake. Even though the majority of the area is comprised of poor villages, there is still a major gentrification that has occurred here. And with little restriction on where you can and cannot built (i.e. a mansion on the edge of a questionably steep cliff) you can find some surprising properties.

Santa Cruz is set up an extremely steep hill above the port, and my hostel La Iguana Perdida occupies a good chunk of lakefront space. This was the one spot in Lake Atitlan where I didn’t cross paths with any of my hiking friends, so it was a good opportunity to just vibe out on my own. This hostel had a considerably large property, with small cabins spread across a forested and lush area. In my photography here I tried to take advantage of how busy the port was, and it made for some interesting long exposure shots.

Santa Cruz has many known hiking trails, however they have a reputation for muggings, and so guides are highly recommended. I’d hiked plenty so far on my trip, so I stuck around the village. Santa Cruz itself felt so peaceful and removed from the tourism found elsewhere in the lake. Tuk-tuks raced up and down the dramatic hill, carrying locals up to their homes above. School children, both boys and girls played basketball or fútbol up in the square. I bought some trail mix from a small tienda and sat for a while just taking in the space, appreciating how far removed it felt from the complexity of my own culture.

La Iguana Perdida is somewhat famous in Lake Atitlan for hosting its “family dinner” – you can pay around $8 to join in on a three course meal, which most of the hostel partook in. Even if I didn’t have a particularly special social experience here, the dinner was still a really nice concept that I hadn’t had at other hostels. On my last morning I took the ferry back to Panajachel in order to catch the chicken buses to Antigua. It was difficult to leave the lake behind, it’s the type of place that casts a bit of a spell over you – and hopefully after reading this post you can see why! In Panajachel I made sure to buy a bag of beans from my favorite coffee shop before I bid farewell.