Huehuetenango to Panajachel

Sat 24th & Sun 25th September

We left Huehuetenango without too many regrets and set off for the tourist area around Lake Atitlan.

We haven’t had any GPS maps for Central America as Garmin don’t appear to do any, however, when we met up with the Globebusters tour the other day, they told us about a company that produces some. We have downloaded these and apart from taking us straight through the chaos of the market in Huehuetenango they seem to be working fine. If anyone is contemplating a trip here, check out www.gpstravelmaps.com

She has rather a lot of bananas to sell and didn’t look too happy about it.

Once on the open road we rode through some stunning countryside on......

.....roads that were pretty much like this most of the way.

Bob & Terry deciding who was going to go in front!

Overlooking one of the many valleys.

Then suddenly our side of the road just disappears. There has been a lot of rain here and consequently lots of landslips. You may have heard on the news recently that there was a particulary bad one where a number of people were killed and many homes destroyed.

Bob riding through one of the villages.

Our first view of Lake Atitlan before we dropped down into Panajachel.

Our hotel just off the main street. None of us took advantage of the pool as the temperatures are pleasantly cool.

View of the Toliman & Atitlan volcanoes from the lake edge

On our second day here it had been our intention to take a boat trip to some of the villages around the lake and/or climb to the top of one of the volcanoes. Things never go according to plan as the day was mostly spent sorting out the bikes. My exhaust was blowing badly and we found that the gasket between the silencer and balance box had disintegrated. Secondly Bob lost his GPS lock key so he can't remove the unit from the bike to load the new maps.

The locksmith taking Bob's GPS bracket to bits.

Our luck is holding out. The hotel owners son (Paulo) appeared on a R100GS in the carpark where we were working. Within 10 minutes of telling him our problems, a locksmith appeared and picked Bob's lock and took it away to make a new key and a Mechanic (Oliver) appeared and looked at my bike. He rode off and returned a short while later with some gasket material for us to make a new seal. All this on a Sunday. Many thanks to all of you.

In between working on the bikes we were treated to a Children's Sunday school type procession providing a colourful interlude.

Getting ready for the start of the procession.

A couple of the younger ones in paper mache outfits!

In the evening we have been eating in a local open fronted shack type restaurant. The food has been exceptional and we have been treated to some good live music. A local, rather the worse for drink, suddenly appeared and tried to join in. He became the entertainment for a while before being taken off by local police.