Early morning trek to Mayan Face Mountain for a stunning sunrise over Lake Atitlán, followed by exploring San Marcos and hitting food milestones with a baby.
Hiking Mayan Face, AKA Indian Nose
This morning (night, actually), we got up at 3am to head up to Mayan Face, also known as Indian Nose Mountain. The shuttle took us pretty far up the mountain, and then we walked about 30 minutes to get to the top. The whole way up, our Mayan guide told us the history of Lake Atitlán and surrounding towns, constellations, volcanoes, and languages, and we got to watch the sun rise over the giant lake. We learned the lake is a massive crater about 1,200 ft deep!
From our perch at the peak, we could see 4 volcanoes and watched Fuego erupting in the distance. So beautiful! We had coffee and Mayan sweet bread and then saw the scenery by daylight on our way back down. Our guide was Henry (+502 5836 71721 on WhatsApp), he was so entertaining (His catchphrases were “I don’t know anybody, everybody know me” and also “ugh, holy Henry”) and was the best price we were able to find! It was 225Q each, even though most of our searches said it would cost 80-100Q. We just weren’t able to find that price anywhere, let us know if you do!
Exploring San Marcos la Laguna
We got back to our hotel by 7:30am, had some breakfast, and put baby down for a nap while we had a little siesta as well.
Checkout was at noon, so we packed our bags and had lunch right around the corner from our hotel, and then we caught a lancha boat to San Marcos which the locals call “hippiecastenango” (and boy, is that accurate!).
We walked around the little Main Street, explored a couple of shops, and sat in the grass near the lake while baby played with a few girls–one local, two tourists. For dinner, we had Japanese food at Restaurante Japonés Allala. They gave us some free dessert as a random surprise!
Side note: baby had food #99 (Granadilla) and #100 (seaweed) today! Our goal was to hit 100 before age 1 and we did it with 2 weeks to spare!
Air Bnb in San Marcos: Sarnai, $76/night. It is beautiful! The walls all open up to the balconies that wrap around the flat, which is gorgeous! But the downside is these folding walls are the only source of ventilation and cooling for the space (no regular windows to open), the railings aren’t baby-safe, and we are on the third floor…yikes! We were on high alert anytime we had the doors cracked, making sure she didn’t crawl out of our sight or anywhere near the balconies. Waking hours are a bit difficult to keep her safe and the rooms cool, but we at least have the baby tent to keep her contained while we sleep.
Follow along for updates on our entire trip to Guatemala with our 11-month-old daughter!
If you’re like me and you read travel blogs wondering, “Should I use this itinerary?” – because how do you know if the blogger would do it the same way a second time? I’ll just say, I highly recommend this route! Our original plan included some beach time down on the Pacific Coast, but you’ll see we changed our plans mid-trip. I’m so glad we did!
