We had 1.50pm flight to Guatemala City so it was a leisurely start to the day. It was another stress free flight with minimal effort. I was a bit nervous about flying Volaris Airlines, Mexico’s biggest budget airline, but it was fine – I guess people with something to moan about tend to post. We grabbed a 6 Gig Guatemalan Tigo SIM card for $50 and was at our B&B Oh Espana within 20 minutes. It was located in a Johannesburg like restricted gated residential zone where you had to enter through a boom gate. The B&B was lovely with the owner going out of her way to help us. Suddenly I was excited about traveling again.
A few days earlier in Costa Rica I had started to feel like I was getting over all the traveling. After 135 days on the road I was finding it a bit of a chore and wasn’t getting excited about the journey ahead. After a bit of a discussion Dits suggested we slow our travels down – spend a min of 3 nights in desired locations and not head up through Belize to give us more time in Guatemala. A great idea. I am writing this a week later in San Pedro on Lake Atitlan in our lovely AirB&B, its a sunny day and the views across the lake are stunning, set off nicely by some lovey tunes that Jake Casella has loaded on Spotify for me. I am just loving being on the road again and really excited about the travels ahead. Guatemala really is special. Anyway, back to the journey to here.
We asked our hostess to recommend a dinner spot. She recommended Ciudad Cyala. We had to wait for the traffic to ease before grabbing a 40 min Uber ride to what turned out to be an upmarket shopping/dining area. We felt like we were back in Costa Rica!! We grabbed an expensive, but good, Mexican meal before heading home. It was an early(ish) start the next day so we could get a 10.30am bus to Quetzaltenango, more commonly referred to as Xela (pronounced Shay-la). We got to the bus station around 9.15 and after a slight language battle managed to booked out tickets. We had an hour to kill so headed off for a wander. We found a farmacia so grabbed some sleeping pills and then headed into McDonalds for some coffee. Even though we had days of breakfast at our B&B, I could not help myself and grabbed an egg McMuffin and hash brown.
After a 3 hour pleasant bus journey we arrived in Xela and grabbed a taxi to our hotel Lar Antiqua Hotel. The location was great but the hotel appeared as if it was in the middle of a renovation. We chose a room on the third floor for the view which meant plenty of stairs – get us in shape for our next trek! We headed out to explore Zona 1 of Xela and, as Deryn described it, “felt like we were back home”. It was so nice being in a town that oozed indigenous culture. We walked to the Quetzaltrekkers office to pay for our trek, Xela to Lake Atitlan Their office was in a run down hostel full of animals but the people were lovely. Quetzaltrekkers support a charity that educates village, and sometimes homeless, children – I think they said about 170. It was A$300 total for a 3 day / 2 night trek. The weather was a bit miserable so we grabbed a lovely Indian at Sabor de la India and headed back to the hotel to watch a movie.
Deryn’s research found us a decent place for breakfast called Mandarina. Turns out its run by a Melbourne lass called Alice who has been living in Xela for nearly 5 years. The restaurant helped fund her charity called The Dox Project which took stray dogs off the street, nourished them, neutered them and then found them a home. The place was full of dogs (clean and nourished) but we had a genuine Aussie breakfast including 2 fantastic lattes! A seed has been planted in Deryn where she is going to come back for 3 or 4 weeks, learn Spanish and volunteer with the charity.
After breakfast we grabbed a local chicken bus to Zunil village (5 Quetzel each – $A1) and then a tiny car (30Q) up the hill to Las Fuentes Georginas – hot springs. The road was steep and windy – I was glad we did not get a tuktuk up although Dits was adamant our car was a tuktuk in disguise – it also got very foggy near the top. It was 60Q for each of us to get into the baths plus another 15Q for a locker key – not a cheap outing. However the baths were lovely, especially when the place was shrouded in thick fog. We managed to hitch a ride in a tuktuk back down – there was 6 of us crammed into it – and got dropped off in a different spot to grab a bus back to Xela. We should have realised that the bus would be going to a different part of Xela so after a few conversations with the bus driver, they dropped us off at a petro station and then flagged down another chicken bus which took us into Zone 1. It was an unintended and not particularly interesting tour of Xela.
We grabbed a tapas meal before heading back to the Quetzaltrekkers office for our 6 pm briefing. We met our guides – Will and Jamie, both Australian. Will was from Melbourne and Jamie from Cronulla. There were 6 other trekkers – Blake and Teal from Portland Oregon, Riley and Ellen from Vancouver, Oded from Israel and Katrin from Germany. At the briefing we found out we had to carry all the food and were allocated our share. We also grabbed our sleeping bags and mats. Packing was going to be a real problem so we decided to take my large backpack and Deryn’s smaller one. Even then it was tight. We had to be back at the office by 6am the next morning so it was back to our hotel to sort out the bags, grab some booze (it is so cheap – $6 for a 375m of 5 year old rum and the same for a bottle of red) and try get some sleep. Neither of us slept well – I was awake most of the night, not helped by following the second Bledisloe on the NZ Herald web site. Glad to see normality restored on that front.
It was a bit of an effort hiking through Xela at 6am with all our bags but we got there. Breakfast was great which helped offset the annoyance of being told that we had even more food to carry. The weight of my bag was getting ridiculous. Around 7am we left and walked across town to grab a chicken bus from the Lo Rotunda bus stop. It was then a 25min ride to the start of our trek at Xecam. We immediately started climbing out of the Xela valley and for the next 2 hours it was basically up. Deryn and I both struggled, partly due to the weight of our bags but also because of the poor night’s sleep. We reached the highest point Alaska (3069m) at 10.30 and then spent the next couple of hours in a slow descent through the beautiful lush cloud forest. We stopped in a clearing for lunch – thick crunchy taco shells, fresh tomatoes, guacamole, peppers, spices, beans and lovely sauces. Delicious. The speed of the group was quite fast paced so we reached our first day destination, the village of Antigua Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan by 3.15pm.
The last hour or so was really tough so Deryn and I were pleased to collapse onto our straw mats, on concrete, in the village hall. After a coffee we headed to the wonderful session in the village temescal– basically a sweat bath/sauna that is the earliest of its kind in the world. It was housed in a tiny shed, inside were hot coals, a heated urn of hot water, a bucket of cold water and a bucket to mix the hot and cold water. You had to duck down to enter the temescal, quickly close the wooden door and once inside remove your clothes in a near pitch black environment. It was also very smoky. You mixed the waters, washed and then poured it over yourself. It was magic. Deryn lasted 13 minutes, I did 15. All the aches and pains of the trek vanished. We walked 16km and climbed 911m over 7 hours. Throughout the afternoon it was fascinating watching the clouds rolling into the village. By 6pm it was completely engulfed in cloud which gave it a very eerie feel. We were asleep by 745 after a fantastic meal of pasta and lunch leftovers.
Sleep was OK – my pillow was the sleeping bag cover stuffed with clothes and the ground was damn hard – but we were that exhausted that nothing would keep us awake for too long. We were awoken by Will at 6.15 am to the sound to cheesy classic greatest hits before waking across to breakfast at a local comedor (restaurant). The coffee, beans, rice, and veggies were really good. We were on the road by 8 for a gentle walk through the village before reaching Record Hill just before 10am. It’s called Record Hill because its basically a time trial to see how quickly you can climb the 600m (200m height) distance. The quickest time (a local – we did not not know whether he was carrying any gear) was below 7 minutes. Anyone getting sub 10 minutes was treated to a free ice cream at the upcoming “ice cream village.“ Will had seen a guest do it in 9.45 but anything below 15 mins was regarded as impressive. I came a respectable second in a time of 13.40 behind Blake who did an impressive 11.25. Dits did 16. It was a brutal climb but at least it made a challenging hill a bit of an adventure. At the top our guide Jamie gave us an impressive and fascinating summary of Guatemalan history and politics while we all got our breath back. We kept on gradually climbing until we reached Ice Cream Village (Tzucubal) for a well earned ice cream (no freebies).
We noticed most houses were not quite finished – turns out it’s how to avoid paying tax. You need to pay when the house is finished. It started raining soon after leaving the village so bag covers and raincoats were rapidly engaged. Next on the route was the “Corn field of Death” so named because it was a slippery downhill followed by a steep uphill. We were planning on having some lunch but decided to keep moving in the hope the rain eased at a suitable location. After a couple of river crossings the rain stopped so we found a nice spot by the river for lunch. The rain started up soon after lunch, but we weren’t too concerned as our home for the night, Don Pedro’s casa allegedly had hot showers and a fire to dry our clothes. We arrived at Xiprian at 3.15 and Don Pedro’s soon after. Today we walked 17.6km, climbed 833m over 7.35 hours.
The fire was certainly welcome but unfortunately the shower was freezing. Not to worry, it was still nice to wash off the mud and sit in front of the fire. Will had phoned ahead and ordered us either strawberry or pineapple drinks which went down very well with my rum. The rest of the group headed to the local shop to grab beers (no wine) while Dits and I got stuck into our carried booze. Deryn ended up sharing a lot of her much appreciated wine with those in the group that missed out on buying some. Don Pedro’s dinner hit the spot and once again everyone was in bed by 830. The roosters crowing, dogs barking all night and our impending 3.15 am wake up made sleep difficult – I have no idea why the Latino roosters find it so difficult to crow at dawn??’!!
It rained hard during the night so for a while the 3.15am awakening looked less likely. But no, 3.15am and Will was in there rousing the troops. Normal routine – toilet, teeth and pack up, ahead of climbing to the mirador for breakfast and hopefully some volcanic eruptions. We had a 45 minute walk up to the mirador, mostly along a well lit the road. The last 300m was through thick woods, before arriving at a paddock with apparently great views of Lake Atitlan. It was pitch black with loads of cloud when we arrived so we all grabbed our sleeping mats and lay on the grass waiting for dawn or an eruption. Unfortunately the clouds remained and the rain got us first – you could hear it working it’s way through the forest. Thankfully we had a small covered area which we all cuddled under for breakfast. When the sun rose and the clouds dispersed the view was stunning- we could see most of the lake, the villages of San Pedro, San Juan and San Marcos to name a few. Blake took the chance to fly his drone for some photos.
A couple of armed security guards appeared. They had in fact been there the whole time keep an eye on us and escort us down to the village of San Juan, 90 minutes away. They are hired by Quetzaltrekkers for every trek as it could be a bit tempting for some to know that there were, pre dawn, a dozen or so tourists every Monday and Friday huddling in the bush 3km out of San Pedro. Fair call I thought. The walk down was quite difficult as it was steep, but the views were amazing. We arrived at a little look out just above San Juan just before 10 and so had to kill an hour before the coffee cafe opened in the town. We lulled around the mirador before slowly strolling into town and the El Fondeadero cafe and coffee store.The coffee was great, as was the carrot cake and pineapple. A short walk today of 6.4km, climbed 142m over 5 hours.
Afterwards we all piled into a Ute for the journey over the hill to San Perdo and lunch at a local cafe. The restaurant was perched 8 or so metres above the lake with a gate you opened to then jump into the lake. I loved it and had to show the crowd my full repertoire. Lunch was a chicken sandwich for me and fish for Dits with a side of guacamole, rice, vegetables and chips. Once the rums came out it was bliss. Will took me on a wee tour of the town before we all said our sad goodbyes. It was so nice spending some quality time with a lovely, diverse bunch of people. I often saw Deryn chuckling away to herself as i regale these poor captives with my enthralling stories. Thanks Quetzaltrekkers! We grabbed a tuktuk for the 120m trip to our lakeside, 2 bedroom lake side apartment. Luxury!!
While writing this I heard another very loud cracker (I assume) explode, a lot closer than normal. We have been hearing them a lot in Central America but today we must have heard 9mor 10. However the latest few are really close. We must find out what they are about.
And to finish with some dogs. This pack suddenly appeared in Xela, in a real hurry to get somewhere.
