Photo Friday – View of the Panajachel Pier in Lake Atitlan, Guatemala

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This pier is the pulse of Lake Atitlan in Guatemala! Here all the wheeling and dealing is done for your trips to the remote and beautiful indigenous villages that are tucked away amongst the volcanoes surrounding the ancient volcanic crater filled lake.

The deal we made for a private boat ride, not tour, was $95 for the day. We went to 4 villages. If you do one village with public boat trip it will take 2 hours to get to – one way. Since we only had one day doing 4 is remarkable and since there were 4 of us, we really didn’t over pay at all.

However, this is how it worked. Some guy made all the arrangements, took the money, introduced us to the boat guy and left.

10 minutes into the trip the boat guy had absolutely no idea what the arrangement was, thought we’re only doing one village and wasn’t pleased at all to find out that we paid for the whole day and he had yet to see a dime of the money.

However, he did do a great job at the end, after a lot of negotiating, a lot of extra little pay offs to him for ‘docking the boat’ in certain villages.

But, we had the best day and worth every bargaining argument and sob story about how bored he is waiting for us while we explored!

For more great Photo Friday friends go to Delicious Baby.