Moving Day – Our New Airbnb in San Pablo La Laguna

Our time in San Pedro La Laguna has finally come to an end! We had a fantastic time taking classes at the Community Spanish School, doing our homestay at the Casa de Rosa, exploring the pueblo of San Pedro, and making many new friends. But now it is time to relocate to our new place in San Pablo La Laguna and start living our lives in a way more indicative of what the next 11 months will really be like.

The Story Thus Far…

We’ve had it pretty cushy.

For the last month, we lived with a loving Guatemalan family and had almost all our meals prepared for us. We had a housemother that we could always go to for advice. We attended a Spanish language school that occupied our time for 7 – 9 hours, 5 days per week, and provided free cultural activities 3 days per week. We had a group of international students that we could hang out with at a moment’s notice.

It felt like we were attending university all over again, in a way.

But now our real travel lives have begun, where we have become international renters for the next 11 months. And as such we will have to deal with all of the usual day-to-day issues that any renter needs to overcome.

Plus a few additional international travel-specific issues, of course.

But the first thing that any person heading out on their own for the first time needs to do is to move into their new home!

Or in this case our Airbnb bungalow in San Pablo La Laguna.

Onward to San Pablo La Laguna

From our homestay house in San Pedro, we hopped into a tuk-tuk with our luggage and were dropped off at the embarcadero (i.e., boat launch), where we picked up a public water taxi to San Pablo La Laguna. After about a 10-minute cruise across the lake, we landed at the San Pablo embarcadero, where we picked up another tuk-tuk to take us to our final destination…the Pizza Pablo pizzeria!

That is not a typo.

Our Airbnb host Stewart runs several businesses out of his property, which is a compound of sorts. Although he works primarily as a carpenter, he runs a small-scale bakery that supplies baked goods to local businesses, runs a pizzeria, grows his own coffee for sale, and rents out an Airbnb bungalow.

The 2-story bungalow is a separate property from his family’s main residence, which is uphill from our location. It is on the outskirts of San Pablo, on the side of town facing San Marcos La Laguna.

San Marcos is a popular tourist destination, as it has a reputation as a new-age hippie enclave with *everything* that goes along with that. But it is also a great place to resupply items that are hard to find in San Pablo, and is about a 20-minute walk from our location (or 5 minutes as the tuk-tuk drives).

Welcome To Our Airbnb in San Pablo la Laguna

So here is a quick tour of our Airbnb bungalow for the next 28 nights!

As usual, we found our long-stay Airbnb following the detailed methods we describe in our post: A TTT Guide to Long-Term Airbnb Stays – How to Get a Cheap Apartment that Doesn’t Drive You Crazy.

The bungalow is surrounded by greenery, and there are several areas outside that we can use.

There is a wrap-around ground-level deck…

With a view of the yard and herb garden.

Inside the first level of the bungalow, there is a fully appointed kitchen with everything a couple really needs…

A nice surprise left by the Airbnb hosts was a loaf of homemade bread and 1/4 pound of their own coffee!

Turning away from the kitchen is a living area with a futon couch, bookshelf, and dining room table…

With your back to the futon, there are stairs that lead upstairs…

Going up the stairs you enter the bedroom…

That has a door that leads out to a terrace with chairs…

A hammock…

And a KILLER view!

I suspect we will spend 90% of our free time on this terrace when we are not exploring!

For additional positional perspective, this is what the terrace looks like from the yard.

And the rental comes with free potable water (in large carboys), includes all utilities, and has good wifi.

For $19 USD/night with the discounted monthly Airbnb rate, we are super pleased!

But What’s the Catch?

For people like us, none really.

But this place isn’t for everyone. The pueblo of San Pablo La Laguna has almost zero tourism. So if you need a vibrant bar life, dance clubs, souvenir shops, many restaurants, and grocery stores with specialty items immediately at hand, this place may not be for you.

Also, with the lack of tourism comes fewer income opportunities for the locals.

This means there is greater income disparity here than in more touristy areas like San Pedro La Laguna, Panajachel, or San Marcos La Laguna. So like any area like this, it isn’t the best idea to overtly display wealth or go into secluded areas that you aren’t 100% familiar with.

So really, it is like many areas of the world if you think about it.

But this will be a great base of operations to explore the Lake Atitlan area! When we aren’t working on projects at home, we’ll be exploring both near and far. And if we ever feel unsure about going into some of the more secluded natural areas by ourselves, we’ll use a local guide.

Upcoming Posts

Now that we aren’t in classes or studying all day, I’ll be catching up on some of my writing now that I have the time! I plan on giving a detailed account of our Community Spanish School experiences, our time at la Casa de Rosa, and an August budget update!

But it’s dinner time now, and we have Pizza Pablo pizza to eat!

Until next time…

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