We had trouble finding a place to stay before leaving the US for our Guatemala leg of the trip, because to book anything online, they asked for your credit-card details, as well as your signature faxed to them, which, quite frankly, I just didn’t feel comfortable with. I have since learned that this is quite normal for that country, but still, in this case we decided to just wing it and show up.
Right on the edge of town, we found the VILLA DEL LAGO, which, from the ground about halfway up, looked wonderful. The exterior walls were bright red, with two white columns on either side of the doorway. Look any higher and you would notice that the whole top floor was missing or still under completion (we never found out which). Our room was the most expensive in the hotel, as we had to have air-conditioning this time.
The room ended up being $35 for a night, and with a fan, TV, A/C, private bathroom, and balcony overlooking the lake, we were more than happy. The room was clean, the bed was a little creaky, the A/C was really loud, and the ceiling fan scary as hell, wobbling all over the place, but we really liked our little oasis from the heat.
The staff was really nice and friendly, even though any conversation was limited due to them not speaking any English and the Spanish dialect they spoke being nothing like the Spanish you get from a book, so there was just lots of miming, waving, and smiling, but we got by fine.
On our first night we had rather an odd experience. At around 3am, we heard a loud speaker saying, "Attension. Attension." and then lots more muffled words. I got up, looked out the window, and saw a truck going by with about 10 armed guards and this one guy with the loud speaker. I told Karl that it was just nothing and went back to sleep, a little more nervous this time. We never did find out what the truck was all about, so that is just another mystery.