Lake Atitlan Stories

Last month (Jan 07), the banks were in bad shape in Guatemala and had been for a month or more already, several banks/financial institutions had already fallen and/or gone out of business.

Around Lake Atitlan the atm’s hardly ever worked so most gringo’s were having to go into the banks and get cash withdrawals and most were only giving Q500 - Q1000 at a time which is about $65 - $130 but at least we could get money most of the time.

But, when I looked at my bank records online it turns out the two different banks in the same month had charged me double for my cash withdrawals basically robbing me. Banco Agromercantil and Banco Industrial. One stole $65 from me and the other stole $130, luckily I had looked at me records. I proceeded to dispute the charges to my card and am now in mid-dispute process.

So now I am much more careful and only use the atm machines when the do work which is not often. The banks here in Guatemala are quite unstable right now and many are falling and failing, messy… many Guatemalans are removing all their money which is making the situation even worse…

more later…

When I left lake Atitlan and went to Antigua it turns out that my friend knows the main dude in the Buena Vista Social Club (project2) so we went to the show to check it out. Ignacio(in front) is pretty cool, he is the son of one of the original members.

This tree was down in the Jungle, They are rare and protected, not sure the what name of this tree is.

This is the trunk of the same tree.

Here is a cool picture of a cactus on top of the hill by my house.

Check out this mushroom…

These trees are all around Lake Atitlan. They have the cool shedding thing going on and from what I hear are the trees that copal comes from.

More later…peace…