On the lake’s southwest corner and accessible by frequent boats or road, San Pedro is second in popularity only to Panajachel and has a hip international atmosphere. The town is a bit on the scruffy side and seems to have sprouted from the lakeshore almost overnight. If you’re not already feeling decidedly immersed in the Third World, you soon will as you walk along some of the side trails leading into the heart of the village from the main road through town.

The town flanks the northern slopes of San Pedro Volcano, a popular climb for which the town is ideally suited as a base. It has increasingly become home to a number of language schools, some of dubious quality, collectively offering some of Guatemala’s least expensive tuition rates. While it was originally a backpacker Shangri-La, there have been recent additions to the hotel infrastructure, making for suitable accommodations to house the nonbackpacker crowd.

The bulk of the tourist hotels and services are between two docks, on the southeast and northwest sides of town, and in the areas adjacent to them. The first one serves boats to/from Panajachel and the rest of the lake towns; the other is for boats to Santiago Atitlán. They are about one kilometer apart. The area between them is known as El Otro Lado (The Other Side). Street numbers and names are not generally in use here. From the Santiago dock, turn right to get to El Otro Lado and continue to the Panajachel boat dock. From the latter dock, turn left to get to the other side of town.

Getting There

There are hourly boats to Santiago (45 minutes, $1.50) from the dock at the northwest part of town 6 a.m.–2 p.m. Lanchas leave from the dock on the southeast side of town for the lakeshore villages of San Marcos, Jaibalito, Santa Cruz, and Panajachel. There are buses to Quetzaltenango ($3, 2.5 hours) leaving from in front of the church at 4:45, 6, and 7 a.m. There are also four daily buses to Guatemala City from here and frequent pickups to the villages as far as the road goes to San Marcos and in the other direction to Santiago.