Guatemala (Pictures)

Finally, here are some pictures from our trip to Guatemala last month. Like the majority of tourists arriving by air, we headed straight for Antigua after landing in Guatemala City. Antigua, a 16th century colonial city, lies below the inactive Volcan de Agua (above). We were lucky to get that shot: The volcano was obscured by clouds for most of our stay.

Here is a shot of the Santa Catalina arch:


After going for a swim, we walked up a mountain and had some nice views of the city below:


The Museum of Santo Domingo had a moving exhibition about the disappeared during the Argentine Dirty War. This piece shows the artist's disappeared father from our point of view:


The image gradually fades to blankness as one walks around to the back of the sculpture.

After staying a couple of days in Antigua, we headed to Panajachel, on Lake Atitlan.
This is the view from our hotel the first night:


This place was about a 20-minute walk outside of town, and we heard from the locals that the road wasn't safe at night, so we moved down into town for the next two nights. Here's a typical shot of Calle de Santander:





We headed to nature reserve later. See if you can spot the monkey:


A day later we took some boat trips to other towns on the lake,


and saw San Pedro and Santiago, both more impoverished and less touristic than Panajachel.

The cathedral in San Pedro:


In Santiago we visited an effigy of the local saint Maximón. Unfortunately, the camera ran out of batteries at this point, but there's a picture at the link.

The next day we said goodbye to Lake Atitlan and its volcanoes,


and headed stopped back in Antigua for one more night on our way back to Mexico.