Lago Atitlan, Guatemala

Aldous Huxley said Lake Atitlan was the most beautiful lake in the world, and it is! We absolutely loved this place and the people there. We spent about 5 days at the lake, exploring the various towns and villages like Santa Cruz (very traditional), San Marcus (hippy) and Panachel (main town). Transport is by taxi boat which was fun, or you can hike round the old trails from village to village which kept us fit!

Life is still very much traditional in small lake-side villages we walked through. Women wear traditional dress, coffee is the main trade (& tourism) and the lake is the center of life.

At 12 miles long and around 80 square miles, it's pretty impressive and diverse. From every town and village the views are just beautiful. We stayed in a little hostel in San Pedro Laguna for a couple of nights, its a buzzy little tourist town but we had fun hanging out with some fellow Londoners.

Then moved to Jabalito, a tiny village across the lake to stay in what is referred to as Guatamala's most beautiful hotel in all the books, Casa del Mundo. The place was a real treat!

It's the only hotel in the village and it's position gives it the most stunning views of the lake. From our bedroom (and lying in bed) you could look out at the expanse of stars, the whole lake and the mountains. Each night they held family style candle-lit dinners so you would have about 15 people round the table for a 5 course dinner. We met some brilliant people, especially a hilarious father and son, Gunther and Mateus, who were on hols from LA. Brilliant fun!

Here's some snaps: Enjoying the sunset before dinner, crossing the lake, Pete braving a dip, I fell in love with this boy who sold banana cake to us everyday and finally, the beautiful Casa del Mundo.

Chichicastenango, Guatemala

We made a day trip to Chichicastenango from Lake Atitlan where we are staying. This pretty highland town is famed for holding the biggest and best market in Guatemala where all the indigenous peoples come to sell their wears. Everything from cloths and clothes and maize and chickens.

Pete was kind enough to come with me and take on the crowds with an early start. It was worth it to see all the goods and the indigenous women in their colourful clothes. Stunning!

I also picked up a couple of gifts, including a beautiful peice of hand woven cloth for Lu Lu that I promised and a handbag for myself. Nice!

Antigua, Guatemala

We made Antigua our first stop in Guatemala. It is possibly the most pretty little town in the world. It's also surrounded by 3 volcanoes which make for an epic view.

Hit by an earthquake in the 17th century, the town was rebuilt to it's former glory but there are still ruins dotted around especially old churches that you can look around.

We enjoyed walking around the old cobbled streets, town square and eating some of the best food and wine we've had on our travels - quite a treat!

Volcano Pacaya, Guatemala

Climbing up an active volcano was something else!

4km up a bank of black sand and stones to the summit lava lake. It was so hot peoples shoes melted and we could roast marshmellows 'on the rocks'.

The sunset back down was stunning, but we forgot our headtorches and had to descend in darkness....

Copan Ruinas, Honduras

Copan is a beautiful cobbled street town 10 kms from the Guatemalan border. I loved the fact that horses were still the main form of transport.

We came to check out the ruins, Copan Ruinas. These Mayan ruins famous for their fine hieroglyphs and mesoamerican ballcourt. The ballcourt was serious stuff in Mayan times, the captain of the loosing team was sacrificed to the gods.

Since its's C19th discovery, it's continued to be the most popular Mayan site for excavations. Copan was our favourite too (we've seen a lot) and we loved seeing the Scarlet Macaws there.

Riding the Rollers

Leaving the Cayos Cochinos proved trickier than getting there. The kids didn't turn up to take us back and no one seemed to want to give us a ride. Once we got one, we wished we hadn't!

The stormy weather from the night before started up again and the rollers coming at us were huge. Here's some pics of our convoy landing back in Sambo Creek in calmer waters - we celebrated being back on dry land with a few swigs of rum from the bottle!

Happy New Year - Cayos Cochinos, Honduras

We saw in 2010 in Sambo Creek, a small Garifuna community along the coast of Hondruras. We stayed in a small hotel with a fab ocean view balcony. There weren't any celebrations going on, so we enjoyed a few yummy pina coladas and got an early night.

We ended up in Sambo on our way to Cayos Cochinos - a picture perfect group of 13 islands. We caught a ride there first thing on New Years Day with some local kids. It was a beautiful way to start the year. We stayed on Chacuatte, a small Garifuna island village of about 65 people. We stayed in a wooden shack on the sand! There was quite a spectacular storm at night, luckily our shack held up and kept us dry.

The islanders have always been fisherman and now supplement their income with tourism. We loved the kids who just came and chilled out with us on the sand.