Today’s port is Puerto Quetzal in Guatemala. We did the excursion Lake Atitlan and the Mayan Highlands. Basically, we get off the ship (early), and take a bus an hour and a half or so to get on a boat to travel across Lake Atitlan. Several of us were really struck by the irony that we’d gotten off a big boat on a big body of water only to take a bus to get on a small boat on a smaller body of water. In all seriousness though, this was a pretty good, if fairly long, excursion. We took a bus up to the town of San Lucas Toliman where we had to run the gauntlet from the bus to the boat of the locals trying to sell things. 
Most of what the women were selling were the locally made textiles, which were actually pretty decent looking. The prices they’d ask for initially were a bit high. Cathy ended up buying two, one about two by three feet, the other probably more like two by five feet, for a total of $30. She probably paid a little more than she really needed to, but oh well, the $30 probably means a lot more for them than it does for us. If you don’t like aggressive vendors, you’re not going to like this area. We’ve experienced the Caribbean vendors, and quite honestly, these were even more pushy. They also use their kids to try to sell you little trinkets also, and you almost have to trample your way through to get through the mobs. After getting on the boat (complete with cheap plastic chairs on the top deck), we headed out along the shore of Lake Atitlan. Absolutely gorgeous, the weather was basically perfect, not too hot. Lake Atitlan was formed from an ancient caldera, so all around the lake you’re surrounded with peaks and a couple of volcanoes. 
We traveled along the shore for a ways across the lake, seeing a couple of the small towns that are situated on the shore. Eventually our destination was Panajachel, where once again you had to run the gauntlet of people selling stuff to get up to the hotel where our lunch for the day was being served.
Lunch was a buffet at the hotel in a covered patio area that had an excellent view of the water (although depending on where you were able to find a seat, you couldn’t necessarily see real well while you were sitting down). 
It was a bit crowded, since there were several buses of people from the ship here. After a while for lunch, it was run the gauntlet again to get back to the boat, then back across the lake for the long trip back to the ship.
Overall, while you did spend a fair amount of the time on the bus, I did feel that this excursion was pretty decent. Lake Atitlan itself is well worth the trip to see, and when you were up at the altitude of the lake, you were away from the very warm temperatures that we were getting back at the coast.