Firslty - shout going out to my Nanny - Hello Beryl - I have just found out she can have a look at this blog when she pops round to Uncle Roger and Auntie Anne's house. Hello to you all - I wasnt sure how internet friendly Nanny was so there is a postcard on the way.
Panajachel was worth the effort. A crater lake, surrounded by mountains and dormant volcanos. Weather is 25-30 degrees during the day and quite nippy at night - probably around 10-15 degrees. On our first day - we took it easy (easy you say!!) we walked the village, checked out the boat terminals. Nicola painted a view of the lake - with the travel paint set she got from her friends at Aquascutum and I tired to learn a few more key Spanish verbs. Dinner was for existance and then early to bed
The next morning we were up with the sparrows - they get everywhere - as we had signed up to climb the volcano opn the other side of the lake. First we had to take the first (commuter) boat from Panajachel for an hour across the lake (lots of men in Panama hats and women in traditional clothes going to work) to San Pedro. From there we were driven up to the start of the national park and we met our Spanish guide for the day (we had paid for an English one) and we started the hike. I learnt something new today - mountains you climb by going up and and along, then along and up. Volcanos or this one atleast you just go up. Up in the forest at 50 degrees for 3.5 hours in 25 degree heat, with no views and as we passed about 2600m a significant amount less oxygen! I found it very hard work, Nicola did very well. The views from the top were amazing, down to the lake and all the other surrounding volcanos - worth it but hard work.
One interesting thing that happened on the way up - was that after about an hour of walking a 50 odd year old swiss guy came running down, sweating profusely, with panic in his eyes. In broken English he explained that he was on a tour with 2 guides and just him - he got scared and tossed a coin to decide whether to stick with them or run! The coin said run. We let him join our group - which was a big mistake - he was a talker, a non stop talker - mostly about his near death experience for the next 2.5 hours! I could have throttled him. No real issue - he was jut an annoyance for the rest of the day.
