We took a shuttle bus to Lake Atitlán arriving to our hotel, Jardines del Lago, at around 5PM after a 4 hour trip. Known for its impressive views and said to be one of the most beautiful lakes in the world, Lake Atitlan rests in a caldera formed by volcanic explosions and now surrounded by 3 volcanoes: Volcán Atitlán on the southern rim of the caldera, Volcán San Pedro and Volcán Tolimán which are within the caldera. It is these volcanoes that make the lake very majestic and almost hunting. They have not been active in historic times but it's believed that Volcán Tolimán is probably active as well as Volcán Atitlán. However, on 1976 a massive earthquake (magnitude 7.5) struck Guatemala killing more than 26,000 people. The earthquake fractured the lake bed causing subsurface drainage from the lake, allowing the water level to drop two meters within one month.
Lake Atitlan is an endorheic lake because it does not flow to the sea. It is said to be the deepest lake in Central America. However, its bottom has not been completely sounded and estimates of its maximum depth range up to 340 meters. The lake was very important to the Mayan and it continues to have several towns and villages of Mayan people.

We were had high expectations for what we were going to see and experience. Writers, musicians, thinkers, plain travelers had reported feelings of peace, of being in a place so unlike others they had experience. But as we know experiences are very personal and they depend very much on what we encounter and what we are able to see. Unfortunately we were sort of disappointed for many factors. For one, the lake surroundings have become extremely commercialized. Towns like Panajachel had streets of stores and shops. We did take advantage of this and did our "Guatemala shopping" there.

The lake itself and its surrounding volcanoes were extremely foggy so visibility was so low we could hardly make out the rising volcanoes. We took a boat across the lake to the town of San Juan la Laguna and expected to see more of a traditional Maya town. Indeed it was, not as commercial and with beautiful grass filled with wildlife as we approached it. But it was mid day and the heat was intense and we think this is why we hardly saw anyone on the streets. We then took a 45 minute walk to the next town, San Pedro la Laguna, stopping by the San Juan's colorful cemetery first, and ended up in a foreign-own restaurant for lunch. San Pedro is also a very commercial town like Panajachel. So we returned to our hotel, spent the next day walking around Panajachel and viewing the lake that was void of wildlife on this side - just filled with businesses. We then left Atitlán wishing we had seen it before all of the commercialization had occurred and with better weather to at least see the breathtaking views we had so expected to see.

Pictures of Lake Atitlán can be found in the Photo Gallery under the same name.