We spotted the ocean at the head of the trail...

I was fortunate enough to have Shannon visit me over two weekends, from Chicago (yay for visitors and yay for travel!!) We spent the first weekend at Lake Atitlan and decided to brave heading to the beaches of El Salvador, to visit one of the sleepy, little surf towns the second weekend. It was quite an adventure.

Armed with crappy maps, a guidebook, translation dictionary and detailed driving directions, we set out. We hadn't gotten that far when we realized we were both unsure about my car's capability to make it all the way to El Salvador and back. Not to be deterred, we pressed onward. Although our driving directions were very specific, they were not helpful once we realized we had missed the first turn (it was easy to miss, trust me). So we began to refer to our sh**y map and many locals to guide us along the way. I had been told that Guatemalans are helpful, to a fault. They will tell you what you want to hear, even if it's wrong, just so they can be "helpful." We found this to be very true through our drive. We stopped at many different points to ask directions and were often times led in circles (one woman told us to just follow the bus, which we did, until it dead ended us into a street in Nowheresville).

Parts of the drive were very beautiful.



And, eventually, we made it to El Salvador.

OH THE JOY!


Here was the town we stayed in: Tunco, ES.


We quickly checked in to our AWESOME, CHEAP hotel (thank you Jean Ah Lee) and went down to the beach. It was beautiful, warm and full of life.




We ended our evening with dinner at an awesome beach restaurant, D'Roco's.

Next morning, we were up bright and early to sun ourselves. We hadn't driven 7.5 hours (normal drive = 4), to waste it sleeping! We took some pics of the hotel (again, highly recommended) and then hit the beach.


Ahh, beach, I miss you and will return soon!

You and me go fishing in the dark...

Thanksgiving Weekend - Shannon and I spent the first evening of break in Chichi and then got dropped off at Los Encuentros to catch rides to Santiago at Lago Atitlan. Our route went like this...chicken bus,

chicken bus with actual chicken (price 50q)

pickup truck,

and two boats.

It was well worth the trip (and it cost around $5 total) because the lake is beautiful!!

This is a photo of Hotel Atitlan in Panajachel (probably the largest tourist town on the lake).

We stayed in Santiago, a smaller town on the lake. Our hotel was the Posada de Santiago and it was gorgeous. It had beautiful lodging, restaurant and great pool right by the water.








Our cool sky, during the day.


Shannon and I took a tuk tuk into Santiago and had dinner at Pescador (great restaurant, oddly empty for a Friday night).


The next evening was David's 30th birthday. His dad treated us to yummy carrot cake and we all hung poolside to celebrate.

To market to market to buy a fat pig...

Even though Guatemalans don't celebrate Thanksgiving, CAG does! So we had Thursday and Friday off from school for the holidays. Shannon came into town from Chicago and we took off toward the west. Our first stop was Chichicastenango with Juan Carlos and Ashleigh.

Shot of the Western highlands

We had been recommended this great place, Posada de Arcos to stay, in Chichi, within walking distance of the market.

Our rooms were great and very cheap!


Chichi is known for it's market, definitely the most famed in Guatemala. It's only open on Thursdays and Sundays and we were ready to barter and bargain.


Scenes from the market...








After shopping the market, we hit a late lunch at a great restaurant.

The night was really cold, so we were thankful to have a fireplace in our room. We may have smelled like campfire the rest of the weekend but we were warm.