San Pedro La Laguna travel guide

San Pedro is a small town set on a tiny promontory with coffee bushes threaded around tracks lined with hostels and restaurants on the lakeside fringes. The tourists and long-term gringos have colonized the lakeside while the Tz’utujil Maya dominate the main part of the town up a very steep hill behind. San Pedro is now the favourite spot to hang out in for a couple of days or longer. It’s a place to relax, to soak in hot baths, learn a bit of Spanish, horse ride and trek up Nariz de Maya. Some of the semi-permanent gringo inhabitants now run bars and cafés or sell home-made jewellery and the like. The cobbled road from the dock facing Panajachel (known as the muelle) climbs up to the centre and another goes down, more or less at right angles, to the other dock (known as the playa – beach) facing Santiago with the town arranged around. There’s a mazy network of callejones and paths that fringe the shoreline between the two ferries. Market days are Thursday and Sunday (better) and there’s a fiesta 27-30 June with traditional dances.

The town lies at the foot of the Volcán San Pedro (3020 m), which can be climbed in four to five hours, three hours down. It is now in the Parque Ecológico Volcán San Pedro, and the US$15 entrances includes a guide. Politur also work in the park and there have been no incidents of robbery since the park’s inauguration. Camping is possible. Go early (0530) for the view, because after 1000 the top is usually smothered in cloud; also you will be in the shade all the way up and part of the way down.

Descubre San Pedro has set up a museum of local culture and coffee, with natural medicine and Maya cosmovision tours.

For general local information ask at Bigfoot, page , who will advise you on horse riding to neighbouring villages, guides for climbing Volcán San Pedro and whatever else you have in mind. Canoes are made in San Pedro and hire is possible.