Jason laughed when he saw this was the map for the hike I planned for us to go on over the weekend.
We'd been hearing from people that there was a hike from the mountain village of Godinez down to the edge of the water in Santa Catarina, but couldn't find any really specific directions for how to find the trail head. Our landlord lives in Godinez, so I asked him about it. He said the trail was easy to find and actually would take us to San Antonio which is the lakeside village just beyond Santa Catarina. He drew this map for us and gave me a few instructions.
Sunday morning, we hopped into a micro-shuttle van for the steep & windy, 8-mile ride to Godinez. Luckily, we found room inside the van, unlike some passengers who simply stood on the bumper, clinging to the roof rack.
From Godinez, we wandered down the road a short ways until we came to this pedestrian/tuk-tuk path that wound through a small village. These boys in rain boots and cowboy hats were adorable!
The landscape changed several times, from corn fields, to pine forests and finally to an amazing view of Tolimán & Atitlán volcanoes (@ 10,360 & 11,604 feet tall!).
The breathtaking views stayed with us for the rest of the hike -- awesome!
Some interesting things along the way --
- a rather major water line supported by sticks
- thistles grow some of the prettiest flowers
- beetle with a very cool exoskeleton
The village of San Antonio --
Coming through the onion terraces into San Antonio.
All-in-all, a very successful and easy day-hike. Especially since we started at the top and just went down :) There were orange, spray-painted arrows along the trail nearly the whole way, so we didn't ever get lost. Once in San Antonio, the path ended just behind the church which made it easy to hop into the back of one of the pick-up shuttles and enjoy the gorgeous, lakeview drive back to Pana. Total cost for transportation for both of us was 22 Q, less than $3.00. Right on our budget :)
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