Aug 16 to 18 - Antigua, Guatemala

We spent our last evening near Playa de los Cabanos, El Salvador at small resort on the Pacific.  The place had four small swimming pools, beautiful grounds, bar/ restaurant and free breakfast.  However, our plans to stay the following morning and enjoy the water were shattered by two wonderful kids who only wanted to play video games.  So we did what most parents would have done, took the video games away, packed the truck and hit the road to Guatemala.

The border crossing from El Salvador to Guatemala thus far takes top marks for taking the longest.  Nothing complicated or overly taxing, just the slow wheels of bureaucracy at work.  One hour and forty-five minutes later we were back on the road, but this time towards Antigua, Guatemala.  The weather cooled off considerably as we climbed into the Guatemalan mountains, which was a nice change for all of us but it meant we were back into mountain driving. 

Antigua is one of those special places that seems to have found balance between old and new.  An old city sitting in the shadows of Volcano of Water (12,356 ft) was the perfect place to stay for a couple day's and explore.  We visited two hostels before stopping the Yellow House Hostel.  This is listed as Lonely Planet’s top choice for Antigua and it was a gem.  Beautifully decorated room with two double beds, a terrace on the roof with views of the surrounding mountains and a delicious, fresh breakfast.  We were lucky they had a room for us, because the place was filling up fast.  

The only thing that wasn’t going our way was the weather because as soon as we arrived it started to pour! The boys and I were happy to stay in the room, surf the net and watch TV, but that did not sit well with Marnie (understandably so).  Finally after a couple hours…maybe three, the rain had stopped and we went out in search of a restaurant.  

We came across a great Mexican restaurant (Frida's), had some tequila shots (helped relax the mood) and just kicked back, until the kids became bored.  :)

After two day's in Antigua we decided to drive to Atitlan Lake and spend a day or two.  We had heard it was a spectacular place and worth a visit.  As we were leaving Antigua, we decided to drive up a back road in search of a lookout overlooking the valley.  

However, we were given very vague directions to the "look out" and after a few minutes we realized that yet again we were well off the main road... now we were on some dirt road in the Mountains of Guatemala.

We pressed on, found a small mountain village and they told us to just keep going up and we would "eventually" reach the main highway.  One hour later, we were back on the Pan America.

We found Lake Atitlan without any issues and the views were stunning, but we didn't enjoy the city of Panajachel all that much.  The city was overly touristy, the restaurants and vendors were a bit to pushy and we ended up in another crappy restaurant.   All the hikes up to the Volcano San Pedro required a guide and were several hours long.  So the thought of hiking up volcanic rock, in 30 degree heat with kids, not this time around.  Instead, we decided to go on a small hike around Pana inside a Nature Reserve and leave for Mexico the following morning.