Around San Pedro you can hike in the mountains. The first walk I did was organised by the Cooperativa Spanish Language School, and we climbed the “Nariz del Indio”, or “Indian Nose” which is close to San Juan. It took us one and a half hour to reach the viewpoint on the top, and afterwards I was exhausted. The view was great with three volcanos on a row near lake Atitlan. Far away I could see clouds above the active Pacaya volcano. That morning there had been an erruption, and some tourists had to run for their lives.

I booked a second trip with a tour operator to climb the steep San Pedro volcano. It took me three hours to get to the top which is not bad for a guy who grew up below the sea level. Unfortunately the top of the volcano was covered in dense clouds so you can image I was not very happy. On a sunny day you can see the whole lake of Atitlan. I fell asleep at 19:00 o’clock and I had sore legs for 3 days afterwards.

The last 2 weeks we followed a homestay program with a local Maya family which included three meals a day and a nice room to sleep. The family members lived on the other side of the road, and we lived above their small shop or “tienda”. This homestay program cost us about 40€ per week per person and we can really recommend this if you want to practise your spanish. Apart from our bedroom we also had a television room which we could use to study.

After spending 2 months in San Pedro we thought it was time to start travelling again, and we really looked forwards to a nice sunny beach.

Paul de Boer