Lago Atitlan Trek - Day 2

We woke up to the sound of one of our guides alarm clock at about half past five, and immediately began wondering about the dogs howling cacophany we had all heard the night before. Our 2 guides, who do this trip every weekend said that they hadn't heard anything like that before either. Curiouser and curiouser!

Today was going to be a long day. We had 9 hours of hiking ahead of us. It started with a long hike on the road to the next village, where we were promised breakfast at a comedor (cafe). But when we got there, the comedor was closed, so we had to make do with cooking up some mosh (cinnamon-flavoured porridge), and moving on. Halfway through the morning we stopped at a gorgeous river and took a power shower. A small waterfall had carved out a seat, which you could manouvre yourself into and enjoy hundreds of litres of water pouring down onto you each second. Apart from almost losing my underwear downstream, much to the entertainment of the other trekkers, it was great. Refreshed, we lay in the sun and tried not to look at the enormous mountain we had yet to climb.

After a sweaty slog, during which we all feared C was going to have a heart attack, we arrived in a large village full of activity and children running everywhere. Clouds drifted around us above, and dust billowed up from below as we walked in between the houses, with colourfully dressed locals waving at us. It was great.

We finally stopped for lunch, and then descended to a river bank which we followed to our destination for the night. A small town just close to lake Atitlan. Here we slept in an enormous gym for the night. This time I put in my earplugs, and slept blissfully through the sound of killer dogs barking outside.