On this day of our very full vacation, we went to Panajachel to see Lake Atitlan and the surrounding Mayan pueblos. On our way out of Antigua, we got stopped by some kind of local children’s parade. There were a few enthusiastic kids hamming it up for the camera:

After that, it was about 2½ hours by van to get to Panajachel. The pictures taken out the window of the van are very grainy because I had to set the camera to a high ISO setting to avoid motion blurriness. Snapping the photos at the right time turned out to be like playing some kind of video game:

Once in Panajachel, we rented a boat to take us to a few pueblos around the lake. Here we received a hard lesson in bargaining. We got suckered by a person who offered to “arrange” a private boat for us for US$35/person. The Lonely Planet guidebook we didn’t read said that a fare should be US$25/person, and Heidi had negotiated a fare of US$8/person for her large ferry boat. There were plenty of idle boats at the shore; we should have been able to cut out this middleman and directly negotiate a decent deal with a boatman. Hopefully we’ll be smarter next time.

The pueblos surrounding the lake are destitutely poor. At every boat landing, we were accosted by children trying to sell bracelets for Q5; when no bracelets sold, they reverted to simply begging for Q1. It was very sad. I didn’t take many pictures.

It rained again during this day; we got soaked on the boat, then got stuck in traffic on our way back to Antigua. At all the construction stops, there are people who make a living walking up and down the stopped cars selling fruit and drinks. It reminded me of one of my trips to New York City. My car had been towed, so I had to go to some DMV building. Outside were lots of people selling pens and pencils for a dollar.