Day 8 – Mayan Village of Panajachel

This morning we did not have to get up so early, since we do not leave until 9:00 am, but since we went to bed early last night, I’m awake early this morning, before the sun even comes up.  This is the view this morning from the balcony, there is still plenty of haze and smoke in the atmosphere, but you can still see the two volcanoes across the lake.

While I was standing on the balcony looking out over the gardens, I spied some movement in the flowers below.  Looking to see what was moving I see this hummingbird.  Not sure but this may be a white-eared hummingbird.

Then, just beyond the hummingbird, I see other movement and see this bird.  I think this is an oriole, maybe.  Now as I mentioned before, I have no idea what these birds are and if you know the bird, please let me know by adding a comment to the blog page.

Another hummingbird come flying in, so fast I was only able to get one picture, before it flew away.  This one seems white in color with a purplish head, so my guess would be a Violet-crowned hummingbird. 

Wow, I have been seeing many fantastic birds here at Hotel Atitlan at Lake Atitlan.  I found this bird, which I think is a Painted Bunting.  Look at the colors on this bird!  I’m actually excited I got to take a picture of such a colorful bird.

But wait, Just as I pull the camera from my eyes, does another bird come and land on the branch right next to the Painted Bunting.  Now my guess would be a female Painted bunting, but who knows?  Do you?  Let me know.

Then there was the emerald Toucan bird.  Not the usual Toucan bird I was expecting to see, but it is a Toucan.

Out in the gardens in the front of the hotel rooms was this rainbow Macaw; great colors.  At night, they move the bird into a cage, and then bring it out in the morning. 

Now that the birds have stopped flying in front of me, I am back to taking pictures of the beautiful flowers that are on the property, including this beauty. 

No sooner that I think about no more birds, this bird shows up on a branch in front of me.  It I interesting that we have seen more birds here on this property than the rest of Guatemala combined.

Walking around the property, we appreciate the work the people have put into these gardens.  While here, workers have been out watering, pruning, and sprucing up the flowerbeds.  As much as Carmen works on her flowerbeds, we understand the amount of work, these acres take.

I simply cannot bypass a flowerbed like this.  A sea of flowers blanketing the bushes and fills the whole picture. 

We are waiting to get on the bus and have close to 45-minutes remaining and decide to check out the gardens on the opposite side of the parking lot, away from the hotel.  There was a large birdcage in this section, which included this bird.  I found out that this is a Silver Pheasant.

Also in the large birdcage, were three Toucan birds. 

In this section of the gardens was a small garden water pond for the ducks. 

The goose in the little garden seemed to want to stay near the island for safety.

It is getting close to the time for us to meet the bus, so we begin our trek back to the front of the hotel.  On the way, I still have to stop and smell the roses.

Or, look at a few really nice Irises.  If you look closely you can see a bee coming in from the right, I was maybe ½ second too soon to have it all in the picture.

There are paths, marked with stones, that will take us around this section of the gardens and all of them share beautiful sights.  Flowers abound along with the vegetation. 

This path leads to a stone building, maybe at one time the grounds keeper or gate guard house. 

As we get onto the bus for our ride to Panajchel, we can see a waterfall high up in the mountains that surround the lake and hotel.  A road runs just below the waterfall and we drove by the waterfall when we came in last night.  However, this morning we are continuing down and around the mountain road to get to Panajachel.

In town, we leave the motor coach where there is a bus drop that will fit our sized coach.  Our walk begins and around the corner, we come to the Atlantis restaurant and bar where there is a bathroom that we will be able to use today.  Across the street is this chocolate store.  We will meet back here for our pickup back to the hotel.

Heading north along Avenue of the Trees, a narrow one-way street heading in our direction, we walk towards the San Francisco Church.  Though called avenue of trees, there are no trees, only telephone poles.

Check out this pharmacy.  Counter right there at the building open to any and all customers.  We have seen many convenience stores with bars and we were just wondering why the pharmacy does not have bars separating the customer from the operator.

Check out this truck loaded with people, some hanging off the back bumper.  Women ride inside the truck bed and men outside of the bed hanging on to whatever they can.

Next, we come to the Church of San Francisco, a colonial-era church in the heart of the old town center.  This has a very broad exterior and 4-stories of windows covering the front.

Outside in the big courtyard, we have women, outside the church, waiting for us to sell us their blankets and table coverings.

Surrounding the courtyard are these magnificent street lamps.  This has some nice handiwork having berries, flowers, and angels with halos throughout the lamp fixture.

Carmen and I move into the church and there is a room just to the right of the entrance.  Inside is this scene.  More statues are around the walls of the room. 

Looking towards the dais, this is the main room of the church.  They have the ceiling covered in cloth and look how ornate the ceiling fixtures are.

I step outside of a side door into a narrow, but deep courtyard.  In the yard are several flowering bushes, including this one. 

We now head towards the market where we find all of these eggs in an early stall.  You can buy them individually, by tray, of by the bag.  Not sure if the eggs in the bag are cooked or not, but in the heat I would be suspect of the eggs in the bags since they looked to be sweating.

In the covered farmers market, one of the first stalls we pass have these chickens sitting out on a counter.  Not sure how long they have been there today, or for that matter how many days, but I would be suspect of eating either of them.  No more chicken on this trip.

We move along a couple of the rows working our way to the opposite end of the market to an exit.  As you can see, there are quite a few fruits and vegetables for sale.  There is pineapple, carrots, onions, peppers, bananas, and much more for sale.

Along our route, we see a number of shops with meat hanging from the ceiling and sometimes with chicken underneath the meat.  Besides the meat and chicken some of the booths have chicken feet, cow hooves and other parts for sale. 

At this booth, you can get strawberries, avocado, onion, peppers, tomatoes, eggplant, and much more.  Check out the cabbages in the sack under the table.

Before we move into the next section of the building, I see these sausages hanging from the ceiling of this shop.  The links are shorter than we normally see here in the States and I cannot really tell you the contents of the sausage. 

So, you do not feel like having beef, chicken, or sausage for dinner then how about fish.  Here is a nice bass or maybe some of the tilapia in the bags.  They also had crabs, mussels and shrimp for sale. 

Finally, we are through the indoor market area and move back outside.  Still, there are shops here with much the same stuff for sale.  However, there were a couple of shops, which had different items for sale, like these stainless steel buckets.  Any size you want; there were even larger one just outside of the camera range.

We are heading down Christmas Alley, yes that is the name of the alley we are in when we came out of the indoor market, and begin making our way back to the Atlantis Restauraunt.  Guess what we see, someone actually working on the electrical/telephone/internet lines.  He pulled a piece of equipment out of the opened box and passed it on to someone who was getting a replacement.  Can you imagine working on that rat’s nest of wires? 

Passing places like the Bohemia Bar, the Circus Bar, and the Atlantis Bar, we begin heading down Santander Street, where many more street vendors are.  A couple of those in our group grab a Tut-Tut like these back to the hotel since they no longer want to walk.  I forgot to mention, many people travel around town, here and elsewhere, on 125cc motorcycles.  Once we saw a father driving, carrying a small child in a front loading pack, mother behind a 1-2 year old between the parents.  Four on the bike, and we have seen this often.  Wow!!

Taking a stroll on Santander Street we work our way down to the lake then back up for the bus.  This is our view of the street as we walk along.

There are so many shops on this street and if that wasn’t enough, there are alleyways like this one we are moving along.  Just look at all of the colors, shirts, capes, blankets, cloths, and bags. 

I stopped at one of the shops to look at all of the carved statues they had.  There are angels, priests, crucifixes, and the dead, all hand carved. 

There are many great looking things to buy; we just do not have any place to put them either in the bags or at home.  Carmen sees this abstract of a lion that she just loved, but no room and beside it is not very Guatemalan.  But whoever did the original painting has a really good eye.  We later see another one and think they may be reproductions.

Having walked down to the lake and back again, Carmen and I head to where the motor coach will pick us.  While waiting one of the transportation buses goes by.  Check it out, they named it after Carmen! 

While waiting for the motor coach, many of us congregate near an area that has shade.  Nearby, a couple of women are making corn tortillas and frying them on the griddle.  They put a small amount of batter into a press, person on left is using the press, to flatten it then transfer the tortilla to the griddle to finish the process.

Back at the hotel, we have a little time before dinner, so we walk around the hotel grounds again.  We come by this small field of Daises; at least I think these are a daisy.  But just look at the flowers, very calming.

Also on the grounds, we can hear a parrot squawking, so we begin looking in the trees where the sound is coming from.  Come to find out what we hear are a couple of caged parrots. 

The elevation from the hotel to the lake is about 20 feet or so.  Creating terraces on the grounds allows for a couple of man made waterfalls, like this one.  There were two such waterfalls, this one anchoring a nice small terrace for weddings.  In addition, a large jasmine arch nearby is in bloom and it smells great.

Heading back to the hotel room to unload my pictures and grab a shower before dinner, I see these flowers.  Like I said, the grounds here at Hotel Atitlan are some of the best we have ever seen and we could spend another day here just looking around the ground.  Unfortunately, tomorrow we leave, but not until after a boat ride around Late Atitlan.