Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
On weekends and holidays young textile vendors line the path to the lakeside at Santa
Catarina Palopó with their wares, and on any day you can step into wooden storefronts
hung thick with bright cloth.
In stark contrast to its humble surroundings stands
Villa Santa Catarina
( 7762-1291;
www.villasdeguatemala.com
;
r/ste Q975/1430; )
, a luxury spread with an elegant restaurant,
pool fringed by palm trees and sumptuous gardens. The 38 spacious and simply furnished
rooms sport tasteful weavings and cool adobe walls. The two suites (and rooms 23 to 27,
partly) face across the lake to Volcán San Pedro.
San Antonio Palopó
POP 4035 / ELEV 1773M
San Antonio Palopó is a remote and captivating hillside village where entire families tend
their terraced fields in traditional garb - women in indigo-striped
huipiles
(embroidered
tunics), dark blue
cortes
(long skirts) and sparkly headbands, men in traditional wool
skirts. At the top, a gleaming white church forms the center of activity. About 150m down
the path to the right, the
Tienda Candelaria
houses a weaving cooperative where women pro-
duce shawls,
huipiles
and
tocoyales
(headdresses) on backstrap looms and get a fair price
for them.
magical and affordable retreat, 15 attractive stone-walled rooms climb the hillside, with
small terraces and hammocks. Good inexpensive meals (Q45 to Q75) are served on the
lakefront deck with views straight across to Volcán Tolimán.
San Lucas Tolimán
POP 21,109 / ELEV 1962M
Further around the lake from San Antonio Palopó, but reached by a different, higher-level
road, San Lucas Tolimán is busier and more commercial than most lakeside villages. Set
at the foot of the dramatic Volcán Tolimán, it's a coffee-growing town and a transportation
point on a route between the Interamericana and the Carretera al Pacífico (Hwy 2). Market
days are Sunday, Tuesday and Friday. Atypically not standing on the town's plaza but
along the street to the lakefront is the 16th-century
Parroquia de San Lucas
parish church. The
parish, aided by Catholic missionaries from Minnesota and volunteers from North Amer-
ica and Europe, has been active in redistributing coffee-plantation land, setting up a fair-
trade coffee cooperative and founding a women's center, a clinic and a reforestation pro-
