It was a little clearer than the previous two days when we got up today, so Justin went straight downstairs to get some photos before any clouds rolled in. We had nothing on the itinerary for today, and - for once - we intended to have a lazy day. Then the music started at 8am, at what seemed literally next door to the hotel. The first song...Hells Bells. This was an interesting choice, particularly on Easter weekend, but whatever. At breakfast, there weren't that many people, but seemingly everyone was in line for omelettes. Did they arrange the line so that people trying to get the other buffet items could actually get to them? No. So it was difficult to get much food until the omelette line shortened. Accordingly we got food in phases, looking up every so often to see if we could get to the remaining items. We sat inside, in the southeast corner of the restaurant, next to a giant enclosure for parakeets. There were a couple of peanuts that they were all fighting over. One parakeet would get the peanut, but needed to find some space to sit down and try to open the peanut. When that happened, the other parakeets would come by and steal the peanut, and then the process would repeat. We watched this intently for a bit, seeing how it would end. We also watched what appeared to be a couple, with two parakeets standing next to each other and grooming one another whilst all the craziness transpired all around them.

After breakfast we discussed what to do with our lazy day. Justin wanted to go into town to see what all was going on, and Crystal said yes, but her heart was not in it. So Justin said he'd go scope it out, and we could go together if it was good. Crystal was just generally lazy and stayed in the room reading.

Meanwhile, Justin took a 15 minute walk into town (Panajachel). On the walk out, he saw the concert location was in fact literally next door to hotel, which must have been the second location making the noise on Thursday night. The first part of the walk was past the concert venue and a couple small shops, and then he got on the last little bit of highway (right where we turned off when coming to the hotel). The cars were going no faster than walkers, and one walker was play fighting with a passenger in the front passenger seat of a car as they both worked their way down the hill. Once in town, Justin generally walked as close to shore as possible, trying to maintain his sense of direction and not get lost. He more or less heading south along the shore. After about five minutes he got to a street where some of the ferrys were, and there were lots of people on this main drag. It was a bit like the streets we'd seen in Santiago and San Juan, but far more crowded. He saw signs advertising 2x cocktails for 25Q for happy hour at a couple places on the street.

At the ferry location, he could see even more to the south, and kept heading south, and more and more stuff appeared. There were people with ice cream carts, chicken carts, papas fritas carts, sausage carts, amongst other food items. There were also people selling trinkets everywhere, t-shirt stores, and random stuff spread out on tarps on the ground. There were also lots of people frolicking in the water, enjoying the nice day. Unsurprisingly, there were also lots of people taking selfies, and Justin helped one group by taking their photo. [It really is 10x better than selfies.] Heading even more south, there were even more people, as there was a (semi) organized area that resembled Lahaina or Kona's Ali'i drive, but on steroids. There were numerous restaurants, but also all sorts of pop-up shops, and people everywhere. Anyone with a boat was trying to get customers to go elsewhere on the lake. In the lake, the party boats and tourist boats were already packed, even at 10am.

Then a bit more south, there were even more people, as there was a carnival of sorts, with ferris wheels and whatnot. In this area there was no organization whatsoever, as parked cars were amongst people standing, people sitting, people walking, people eating, people taking selfies, kids crying, moms breastfeeding, men hawking boat trips - everything. It was a sort of beautiful chaos. Every sight, every sound, every smell, all mixed together, but in a way that it all drowned out everything else, almost like white noise. At what appeared to be the southern edge of the madness [basically right at the Rio Panajachel], Justin started to head back. He stopped at one of the restaurants (Restaurante Catamaran) on "Ali'i Drive" to get a Cuba Libre. They had a second story covered deck that looked nice and peaceful in an amongst the chaos.

Since it was only around 11am, only one table out of 40 was occupied. He grabbed a seat in the northeast corner, with a great view of lake, volcanoes, and the madness below. There was a constant stream of boats coming and going. There were also lots of kayakers, and some close calls between the kayaks and the larger boats. One can't fathom what the kayakers were thinking. Taking it all in, Justin queried whether he had achieved "fjaka" - close, but no. He got a second Cuba Libre, but this time sin hielo. He remembered how he got sick in Indonesia a few years back, likely from ice in a diet coke, and he didn't want to repeat that. He also got some agua pura and some papas fritas. He uttered not one word of English the whole time at the restaurant, probably a first for him, since his Spanish isn't nearly as good as Crystal's. After chilling for a bit, he headed back the way he came. There were way more people than earlier, and he couldn't even imagine how much busier it would get later in the day. Surprisingly, the cars moving at a decent pace on the highway. But when he rounded a corner, when Justin could see up the hill to the north, he could see it was stop and go further up, so he surmised that someone had either stalled or there had been an accident somewhere in between.

Justin got back to our room a little before noon, and had to do a little bit of work whilst Crystal continued to read. Then we went down to the bar for drinks and a later lunch. We got nachos again, this time with chicken. We spent most of the afternoon at bar, going outside every so often to enjoy the view, which wasn't as good as in the morning. We attempted to re-create one of our favorite bar moments, Mango daquiris in Cambodia, but they didn't live up to what to we remembered. Looking outside, there were boats going by constantly. In the late afternoon, we went back to our room, and got cleaned up for dinner. We almost never turn on the TV on our travels, but Justin wanted to see what was going on with March Madness, so he turned it on for a minute. Loyola fell apart on about five possessions in a row, and Justin knew it was over, so we left the room and went back to the bar for reading, catching up on the trip log, and drinks.

There was a nice sunset with good coloration. We tried to guess the original artist of the muzak that was playing, that was our entertainment. As far as the loud music, we could hear the thumping bass from the concert next door, but that was about it. We cringed thinking what it would be like when we went back to the room. We were curious whether we could just sleep on one of the couches in the bar, all of which were unoccupied. It was hard to fall asleep in our room, but we managed. We woke up occasionally, and noted that the music didn't stop until 1am.