Lake Savvy
Regularly scheduled passenger ferries ply the route between Panajachel and Santiago Atitlán during daylight hours. Boats depart from the dock at the foot of Calle Rancho Grande in Panajachel at 6:30, 9, 9:30, and 10:30 am, and 1, 3, 4:30, and 5 pm, with return trips from Santiago at 6, 7, 11:45 am, and 12:30, 1:30, and 4:30 pm. You'll pay Q20, and the journey takes just under an hour. Private boat taxis supplement service on this route—they slice the Pana–Santiago ferry time in half. Other boat taxis fill in the gaps to and between other lake towns, departing from the foot of Panajachel's Calle del Embarcadero, two blocks from the ferry dock. Taxi service is collective: the driver departs after the boat fills up—the wait is never more than 30 minutes—and makes stops at towns along the shore. If you wish to hire a boat for yourself, expect to pay Q200 for the ride. During the slower tourist seasons of Easter–June and September–November, you may need to do just that if you are traveling to less popular towns outside the Panajachel–Santiago–San Pedro circuit. You can negotiate the price of the entire boat for very short distances, say Panajachel to Santa Cruz La Laguna.
If you are prone to motion sickness, make your cross-lake jaunt in the morning, when the water surface is usually calm. By early afternoon, a wind that locals call the xocomil picks up, making for a choppy ride. Sitting near the back of the boat will be a bit less bumpy. In any case, try to be on the final boat of the day heading back to Panajachel by 4 pm, after which selection thins out as drivers make plans to be back home before dark.
In theory, you can circumnavigate the lake's perimeter on land, although most of your trip takes you inland, rather than hugging the lakeshore. In practice, you'll find a gap between Santiago Atitlán and San Pedro La Laguna. Only 4x4 vehicles can navigate that rough sector. More crucial, land travel between those two towns is crime-ridden and dangerous, and should not be attempted. Even public transportation avoids that road segment. (Fill in that gap by boat.) Networks of chicken buses and pickup trucks (peek-oops) ply the rest of the loop. If you're game, sure-footed, adventurous, and don't mind sharing the back of a truck with several other people, the latter is a dirt-cheap way to get from town to town.
