Sticking with my water theme, I am taking you from the Mediterranean to Central America for this #SundaySnapshots. Lake Atitlan is a large lake located in the Sierra Madre mountain range in Guatemala. It is surrounded by three volcanoes and has an average depth of a whopping 720 feet. San Juan La Laguna is a very small town located on the Lake Atitlan, one of many small towns and villages you can visit by boat depending on where you are staying on the lake. It makes a great day trip if you are staying anywhere on the lake, as long as you have access to a boat. While you can drive to these small towns, it will be much faster via boat (and less windy and bumpy!).
San Juan definitely has a lot of tourists crawling the small streets, but I didn’t mind too much. There are a lot of places to get souvenirs and support the local people. Art is a big deal in this community, as is textiles. Colorful patterns in shirt, scarf, and blanket forms line the stalls of shops as you step off the boat. Many of the clay buildings are decorated in beautiful murals and there is artwork to be found everywhere. We visited a textile museum where we watched local woman making the cotton into useable fabric, dying the cotton, and making scarves and articles of clothing. We also went to a chocolate museum to learn how the San Juan people make chocolate – it was delicious!
Overall, visiting San Juan and almost dying on Lake Atitlan (story for another day) was one of my favorite days. The sun was shining and the colors were beautiful, as you can see in the photo above. I learned more about Guatemala and the Mayan people on the lake and bought some amazing treasures for myself and family. What a fantastic day!
