¡Update!

Wow - it's been way too long since our last blog post.  I'll blame "the holidays" and leave it at that.  We all know how hectic "the holidays" can be...

So...  After the last post we spent several days on both sides of Lago de Atitlan, one of the most gorgeous lakes in the world.  I got a chuckle from the way Aldus Huxley described Atitlan -

"Lake Como, it seems to me, touches on the limit of permissibly picturesque, but Atitlán is Como with additional embellishments of several immense volcanoes. It really is too much of a good thing."


We stayed our first few nights in Panajachel, the biggest town on the lake, at an edge of town hotel owned by a Japanese family - most of whom seemed to be living in the hotel rooms.  They treated us to amazing Japanese meals and fresh sashimi every night we were there.  We toyed with the idea of eating something other than their sashimi each night and just couldn't bring ourselves to do it.  It was amazingly good and straight from the lake.  Across the street from the hotel was the best moto mechanic in town, so we got some work done on my (Davis) bike.  The BMW turned out to have a blown fork seal, which we fixed, a dirty air filter, which we cleaned and it needed brake fluid, which we added.  Then we discovered a massive leak of synthetic Mobil 1 oil in my right pannier bag which was the most difficult thing I have ever had to clean in my life.  Synthetic motor oil turns to some sort of strange, green solid if you attempt to clean it with soap and hot water.  I learned this the hard way.  Finally I was successful after several hours of work and a concoction of home-made degreaser that involved lots of dry laundry detergent and bottles of white vinegar.  My cold weather gloves smell like a deli, but they were salvaged.  We used the remaining oil to do an oil change and Marion won't let me carry oil in the luggage any more!  I tried to buy some oil today and was told, "No.  Buy it in Managua."  I was able to purchase huge zip lock bags and I'll make liberal use of those in the future...

We rode around the north side of the lake, well inland, and stayed in the popular village of San Pedro la Laguna for a couple days with a delightful German gay couple, Wolfgang and Fritz.  Two of their bungalows have been submerged by the rising water of the lake, whose only watershed is through little cracks in the rocks that lead to Pacific coast springs.  Rain water and especially hurricanes in recent years have caused the lake to rise several vertical meters, flooding many of the foreigners' homes while the elderly Guatemalan folks seemed to expect it.  This results in a strange situation where many gringos are "hoping" for an earthquake, since that's the only thing that can open up some cracks to allow drainage.

Atitlan is gorgeous and one of the deepest lakes in the world, around 1200 feet deep.  It was formed by a huge eruption some 84,000 years ago and I guess it's technically a "caldera" like the one at Santorini, Greece.  Here are some pictures from Lago de Atitlan, Guatemala -

View from our hike around the North side of the lake shore.

A few of the Volcanoes

Rising water levels covered the public path around the lake, so elaborate walkways have been built to preserve public access around the lake on foot.

Part of the public path gets very high from the shore and rugged.  M looking stylish hiking in a black dress and jeans!

Huge, quick altitude changes to get to the towns on the shore lead to fantastic roads to ride motorcycles on!  The GPS says this road to San Pedro is going to be a blast!!!  (~2000 ft elevation change seen here)