Lake Atitlan, Panajachel, Guatemala

Thursday, April 9, 2015

Hiking in the Hills of Guatemala

Many of the tourists who come to the Guatemalan Highlands are excited about hiking. Not too many of them are dressed up fancy. Instead you'll see people carrying heavy backpacks, and front packs too, and wearing sturdy shoes or boots for exploring jungle trails or trekking up the side of a volcano.

Since I'm a pansy, I like fairly short, scenic walks. One of the best of these is the walk along the road from Panajachel to Santa Catarina. It follows the road, takes about an hour or two or three, depending on how fast you go and how often you stop for photos.

My sister and I took two hours up, one hour back. The scenery was so beautiful we wanted to enjoy ourselves, and take plenty of pictures along the way, like closeups of ourselves, and of these flowers.


A shorter hike is to the nature preserve, just a twenty minute walk outside of town, yet with gorgeous views of the lake.

It's my favorite route when I want to get a few minutes out of town and take a short hike by myself.

19 comments:

  1. Those pictures look like you spent some time in a beautiful place, a little slice of heaven!

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  2. Oh I love to walk - how lovely it all looks! Getting more and more determined to get to your neck of the frangipani my dear! By zed I'll be booking my flights.

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  3. Beautiful pictures. And I don't think you're a pansy at all. My idea of taking a short scenic walk is much shorter than yours :)

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  4. Looks like a lovely place to walk. I would be tempted to do that every day.

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  5. What beautiful scenery - anyone would want to take their time! Thanks for sharing.

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  6. Such a gorgeous place.

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  7. Hi Karen .. I'd love both walks .. I couldn't do the hikes I don't think, even having had my hip done - but it is early days yet .. it looks stunning .. so happy you're sharing with us .. cheers Hilary

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  8. More lovely pictures. I'm definitely for walks where you can take it as it comes and don't have to get too loaded up.

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  9. Wow-how beautiful! Love the flowers and the hike up the hill looks like quite the exercise

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  10. Beautiful scenery. The hike would take me all day due to picture taking.

    Sunni
    http://sunni-survivinglife.blogspot.com/

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  11. Gorgeous scenery...I would need a relatively smooth and not too steep. How wonderfuly it must be to be surrounded with such lushness.

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  12. "Fairly short scenic hikes." Yes. Me too. And now I know how to describe them when people say, "Do you like to hike?"

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  13. Hello there.
    Oh what beautiful views and the flowers are gorgeous! I really like your header image too. Thanks for sharing.

    Entrepreneurial Goddess

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  14. The view looks spectacular! How nice to hike through such lovely scenery. Glad you shared such a special experience with your sister!

    Julie

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  15. Awesome flowers. When I visit my dad in Florida I take walks just to see all of the "exotic" vegetation and take pics of it.

    It must be nice to have all that bounty within walking distance.

    Bushman
    2015 A to Z Challenge Ambassador
    @jwb81074

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  16. That looks like a beautiful walk! The pictures are just lovely. :)

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  17. Greetings! I read your bio and it reminded me of when I recently re-read an essay I wrote a number of years ago. It was full of exclamation marks. I rewrote it with a more sedate tone, and just by taking out the exclamation marks it sounded so much better. (hehe. I reread this before posting and took out 2 exclamation marks.)

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