Extreme sports Guatemalan style

James Stone

Dubbed by dystopian sci-fi writer Aldous Huxley "the most beautiful lake the world", Guatemala Lake Atitlan has something of the deep about it.

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Situated just 150km to the west of the popular tourist haunt of Antigua, the lake takes around five hours to get to as it is situated in the mist-covered highlands in an ancient volcanic crater. And for most tourists, the only way up is on the back of a ram-packed 'chicken' bus.

Once you arrive, the scale of the lake a bewildering. In front of you is a breathtaking mass of dark blue water 26km long and 18km wide set against the backdrop of three 10,000 ft volcanoes towering into the southern sky.

Dotted around the lake are around a dozen picturesque native Indian villages that have barely changed over the centuries and it was in San Pedro that we decided to make home for the next week.

Sid and I grabbed our backpacks of the bus with haste as the darkness set over the lake and its surrounding towns and managed to jump on the back of a pick-up truck which happened to be headed over to the north side of the island, where San Pedro lay.

The ride was as rough as it was slow, motoring up and down the crevices and potholes of the Guatemalan roads is not exactly ideal after a caged animal-style bus journey. Nevertheless, the experience was as authentic as it gets.

Once we finally arrived, the whole town was in darkness; the driver dropped us off for the princely sum of five quetzales, about 80 pence, and assured us there was a town here. He sped off and we were left with nothing to see and just the lapping of the water at the lake's shore.

After five minutes or so of feeling like we were set up for a classic Latin American-style mugging, the town was ablaze with light - as is common around the lake, the entire region's electricity supply just conks out every so often. We were relieved, but the fear of the lake's unknown quantities remained.

We were accosted, or should that be welcomed, by a bearded American dressed in native Guatemalan attire who showed us to a delightful little hostel, which became our humble abode for the next week, and we settled in for the night. Sleep wouldn't come so easy on the forthcoming nights.

When we awoke the following morning, we were greeted by a tarantula. Sid, being a bit of a fairy when it comes to these type of things, sprung up with shock but I just calmly picked him up and threw him out of the crumbling window hole. I knew that there were more pressing challenges ahead.

[To be continued…]