Well we had a three hours very interesting drive through the hilly countryside of Guatemala with the countrysiide varying from semi arid to fertile green fields of vegetables (this area produces much of the vegetables for all Guatemala and elsewhere), deep ravines, pine forests and high hills. They have very winding roads with amazing hairpin bends! Panajachel is a small town on the edge of Lake Atitlan...quite back-packerish but interesting all the same. Today (Saturday) we did an all day excursion by boat visiting various other lakeside Mayan villages, wandering through colourful markets, visiting a place where they process the local coffee beans and a women's textile co-operative where they use natural vegetable dyes and weave all sorts of cloths. The coffee beans are brought in from the neighbouring co-operative organic farms and put through a process to remove the outer part of the berry, leaving the kernel which is then washed and dried in the sun for ten days before being bagged and exported. The outer fruit is then composted for fertilising the coffee bushes. Very labour intensive and eco friendly. The three villages we visited are much less touristy than Panajachel and reminded us of the Greek Islands (as they were). Today we also heard about the 8.8 earthquake in Chile - dreadful! Hopefully by the time we fly to Santiago airport en route to Easter Island the airport will be open again. Anyway we're back to Antigua (in Guatemala not the island - Alan) tomorrow. Lots of love to all Ann and Iain