lake atlanta has been described by many as the most beautiful lake in the world
and as soon as you visit you're going to see why not only is the lake itself a magical place
but the surroundings with the volcanoes on the horizon and a series of different towns
and communities each with their own culture and history and story it's a special place
and today i'm going to be sharing everything i know about lake atibland
i got my notebook took a bunch of notes for this one uh very professional youtubing skills
anyway let's get right to it now first a bit of context i've actually visited the lake twice
the first time was on this group trip i was taking called fearless journeys so there was
a group of us and i was just following the flow of activities we did a lot we saw a lot
the second time i went there on my own just to slow down and just to sort of have a digital
detox like i left the camera and laptop and everything behind and i just went there just
to experience the beautiful nature of lake atitlan so i'm going to talk a bit about both
ways the sort of things you can do if you're on a strict itinerary and you want to see a lot quickly
and i'm going to talk a bit more about the natural side of the lake the first thing
you should know is a town called pana hatchell both times i visited i went through panahatchel
it's the town which geographically is closest to places like antigua which is the natural
route that people take to get to lake atitlan but pana hachel is a hub and so of all the communities
around the lake panna as people call it for short is definitely one you should know about
now the first time i visited we went straight from pana hotel to this place called hotel atlan which
is this beautiful expansive hotel with a hot tub and a pool and a great restaurant and i mean like
look at this place it was it was pretty incredible you do have some very sort of luxury if you're
looking for that sort of experience but my second time i actually stayed at a very affordable place
uh in the town of san marcos another community on the lake and so the second thing you should know
is that there's a huge range of accommodations for anyone's budget and the third thing you
should know is there are tons of towns too i mean i've mentioned two so far i mentioned san
marcos where i stayed on my second trip and i mentioned pana hachel which is the entry point
but what you should really know is there's over a dozen communities around the lake some of them
are more popular with tourists some of them are less popular but they're all accessible by boat
which brings me to point number four i highly recommend you to take at least one good boat
ride across the lake you know there are ways to just take a shuttle or just drive directly to
these communities but to be honest the countryside of guatemala is beautiful but the highways are not
in great condition there's a lot of bumps there's a lot of holes the traffic can be pretty crazy and
you're constantly going back and forth on these crazy turns so it's hard to enjoy the drive
but when you're on the boat and you're on the lake one of the most enjoyable experiences
i've had in guatemala is just being on that lake you can pay more money and rent a boat
like let's say you're in pana hotel and you want to get directly to a place like san juan you can
find a driver or rent a boat for the day and get directly there or you can just take the public
boats and the public boats leave every 30 minutes or you know maybe even every 15 minutes you just
show up at the docks and there's going to be like guatemalan people yelling out names of towns
and so wherever you're trying to get to you can just uh like hop in a boat it won't be as direct
because they're going to stop at all the little communities but it's going to be a fun experience
you also get to save some cash i mean i think it was 20 quetzalas maybe 25 it's very affordable
but where should you want to go what towns should you actually want to visit so i'm going
to name you up a few of the places that i've either been to or have heard good things about
the first one that we went to uh on that group trip i was in is a place called san juan
and san juan is famous for well first of all it's a beautiful town
i never thought i would see beautiful artwork like that with a face mask truly a sign of the
time we are living in but as i understand it they didn't get a lot of tourism until the
popularization of this place where it's actually a woman-owned indigenous clothing co-op okay that's
a mouthful let's break it down so it's a group of indigenous guatemalan women who are working
together to sell the textiles and the beautiful clothing that you see all across guatemala
and you can go there you can learn a bit about how it's made you can get a demonstration you can get
someone in your group to embarrass themselves by actually trying to do it themselves which which
we did how do you get to go down it doesn't go down after getting the thread you roll it down
no actually trevor did a pretty good job he didn't embarrass himself but
it definitely shows you how experienced these women are with their years and years well
actually generations and generations i should say of experience but yeah if you're trying to
engage with the mayan communities the indigenous past of guatemala this is a cool way to do it
all natural just incredible now another town i heard good things about was san pedro i never made
it to san pedro but what i hear is san pedro is the party spot so if you're looking for nightlife
if you're looking for that side of guatemala i heard that san pedro is a very popular place
and then there's san marcos which is the town that i referenced earlier that's where i went
on my second visit where i was being zen and i was just chilling out san marcos
is more known for spirituality and yoga i mean san marcos is the kind of place where
people are literally walking down the main street barefoot uh you you can't throw a rock without
like hitting a yoga studio or something like that if you are vegan or vegetarian i've never seen
so many options as i did in san marcos i mean like you'll know like based on what you do what
i just said you'll know if this spot is right for you or not but for me for someone who just wants
to slow down and experience the nature it was great i mean it was one of my favorite travel
experiences was just hanging out in san marcos and speaking of chilling out and connecting to nature
let's say you don't actually want to be in the town so let's say you want to get to the nature
well there's some good options around the lake too so right near panna there's a place it's a nature
reserve i think it's just called let me check good old google maps yeah it's reserva naturale atitlan
uh when i was on the group trip we actually went there and we did some ziplining which there's dan
okay like i ziplined when i was younger and i kind of thought ziplining like it'll
be whatever like it's just just zip lining but actually the zip lines here are huge danny boy
there is the new travel some of them are like hundreds of meters and you have this beautiful
view of the lake uh so it's actually like a bit more intense than you might uh expect it to be
now over at san marcos there was another nature reserve i believe it's called cerro zamkudil
yeah it's it's another place i think you pay like 20 catsalas to get in and then you have this
beautiful stretch of beach so you could literally go there and just treat it like a day at the beach
uh you could do some little hiking it's not as big as the other one i mentioned
but there's some hiking you could do in that area oh and there's also a cliff jumping spot
a few people in our group went cliff jumping
yeah use the excuse of oh yeah i'm the camera guy i'll just i'll just watch i'll film you
which was secretly my way of not wanting to do the cliff jump myself but yeah it was like it
was a pretty intense jump and you know it's a beautiful setting to do it if you're into that
kind of stuff so those are a few of the common spots you'll hear mentioned around lake atitlan
but the next thing to know is that if you check the map and you look around and you're seeing
these other towns i haven't mentioned they're all visible whether by a boat or just by a little bus
ride from pana hotel or whatever like you can visit any of these places and some of them are
living very traditional lifestyles i mean frankly even in san marcos there is the tourist crowd and
there's the yoga and there's the spiritual stuff going on but there's also the mayan communities
who are just living traditional lives as they have been for generation and generation and generation
the last thing i want you to remember is just to you know just to come with respect
for this beautiful lake and these communities that you're visiting
i think sometimes not all the time but sometimes tourists can be just concerned about their own
vacation and not really thinking about the impact that they're leaving behind
a useful way to think about it is when you visit a community are you giving something back to that
community are you just taking because if you are just seeing a spot as a chance to party
and just take some photos and you don't need to talk to any local guatemalans or whatever
because you're just like you're having your fun time and you're just leaving trash at the beast
beach or whatever like you might just be taking you might just be taking from that beautiful spot
but if you come with respect in your heart and you make an active effort to to acknowledge and
understand the community that you're visiting and to spread good vibes i guess for lack of a
better better way to say it like you know just understand that this is a beautiful lake that
we're visiting i think we can continue to enjoy it for a long long time there's more i could say
there's definitely more i could say you're going to learn more about lake out to land if you visit
it for yourself that lake has a magic to it and i hope you get a chance to experience that as well
let me just check my notes did i get everything i think so i'll see you next time peace
you