There’s plenty to do –including the great joy of doing absolutely NOTHING for a change—right on our property—swimming, kayaking, trying out our stand-up paddle board, taking a sauna, getting a massage or reading in the hammock.
But for retreat leaders and guests who’d like to explore more of the area and learn about Mayan culture, we can arrange a wide range of activities.
Tours & Activities
Cooking Lesson with Rosa
After a day or two of eating the incomparable meals prepared by Rosa, you may be tempted to learn a few of her recipes. Luckily, our retreat kitchen is spacious enough to allow for a cooking class.
Trained in Europe, but offering a wide selection of traditional Guatemalan and Mayan meals, incorporating local herbs and spices, Rosa will send you home ready to recreate some of your favorite dishes from the retreat.
Cacao Ceremony/Mayan Fire Ceremony
The Cacao Ceremony is an ancient tradition practiced by the Maya, using cacao pods from the Pacific coast of Guatemala, prepared as a drink. It’s definitely not hot chocolate. Some who partake experience mildly mind-altering properties of cacao.
On request, for an additional fee, we’ll hire a Mayan shaman to perform the ceremony for you and your group at Casa Paloma, or to conduct a Mayan Fire Ceremony. This experience requires a minimum of three hours.
For a less formal experience, our wonderful chef, Rosa, will prepare a simpler and shorter cacao ceremony for you and your guests.
Coffee Roastery Tour with Tim
Our friend, Tim Reher, buys locally grown beans from suppliers around the lake and roasts them in his world-class coffee roastery in Barrio 2.
Join Tim for a roughly hour-long tour of the roastery, where you can buy great local coffee beans roasted as you like.
One part of the tour our guests always enjoy is the tuk tuk ride to the roastery, located in Barrio 2, where the views are amazing, and you get to see where the local indigenous community make their homes.
Chichicastenango Market Day
This is a longer excursion, requiring a half-hour boat ride to the town of Panajachel, followed by an hour-long ride along winding mountain roads to the town of Chichicastanango (Chichi), where hundreds of artesans and farmers converge every Thursday and Sunday to ply their wares.
You’ll want to visit the famous church at the head of the market, where the steps are lined with candles and burning incense and flower petals.
Plan on two to three hours at the market and church, then stop at the Hotel Santo Tomas for a cup of coffee or lunch. Altogether, this trip takes around five to six hours. Market day is Thursday and Sunday.
Indian Nose & Elephant Rock Hikes
The most popular hike in our area is to go up to Indian Nose for Sunrise. you will be driven up to the trail head. The view is spectacular. It is an intermediate level hike of 30-45 minutes one way.
We also offer guided hikes up the San Marcos Valley to Elephant Rock (and beyond for the ambitious), hike up San Pedro Volcano and the hike along the lake shore from San Marcos L.L. to Santa Cruz. We strongly advise to not do any of these hikes without a guide.
Waterfall Hike to Tzununa
Our guide brings you along the road to the nearby town of Tzununa.
There’s much to see along the way, ending with a dramatic waterfall where—if you arrive at the right time of day—you’ll see thousands of bats emerge from the high rock cliffs on the side of the waterfall, darkening the sky. The hike —there and back—takes around three hours.
Visit to Panajachel
We’ll bring you to the twice-weekly (Tuesday and Friday) market of antique huipiles (embroidered blouses suitable for hanging on your wall or making into pillows or table coverings). Then comes a visit to the shopping mecca of Calle Santander and –if you’d like to spend more time—a visit to the nature reserve to see butterflies and monkeys and traverse a suspended bridge.
Or ride in the back of a pickup truck to the nearby town of San Antonio Palopo for a visit with a Mayan medicine woman. All or part of this day can be arranged. Depending on what you choose to include in your Panajachel experience, this trip can run from three to six or seven hours.
Visit to Santiago
A visit to Santiago, Atitlan—After traveling by boat to the other side of the lake, you’ll visit the shop of Humberto, the spoon carver, among other unique spots. But the highlight is a visit to a Mayan shaman, Juan who will invite your group into his home for your own private healing ceremony.
Bird Tour
Guatemala is the home to more species of birds than any place in the world. We can connect you with a fabulous bird watching tour where you’ve got a good chance of spotting at least one quetzal. Or just get up early and discover the bird life in our Casa Paloma gardens. A recent visitor identified 32 species without leaving the property.
Visit San Juan La Laguna
We’ll bring you by private boat to the charming town of San Juan, where you and your group will travel by tuk tuk to an apiary and sample the honey of Mayan bees, to a cacao making workshop where you can buy over a dozen different kinds of chocolate and cacao products, and to a women’s weaving collective to see hand spinning and dyeing from natural plants—then do some shopping. Along the way you’ll visit one of the prettiest streets on the lake, covered in umbrellas and sombreros.
Massage with Carmen
For over ten years, our guests have been telling us that the massage offered by our resident massage therapist, Carmen, is the best they’ve ever experienced. Carmen offers a wide range of massage options—shiatzu, deep tissue, more.
Depending on the weather, she can set her massage table up on a private dock, with curtains, right by the water. You’ll have the option of an hour-long or ninety- minute massage. Many of our guests love Carmen’s massage so much they ask her to come back for a second one. Our retreat coordinator, Manu, will book all massages for you.
