Guatemala V – Quetzaltenango

Lots of Guatemalan town and city names end in “tenango”, which means “the land of”… so, after surviving yet another crazy chicken bus ride, we arrived to the land of the quetzales (the national bird of Guatemala).

The Minerva Bus Terminal is an attraction in itself, nestled in the biggest and busiest market in the city, it’s a non-stop arrival and departure of chicken buses – no marked bus stop of course – each one of them competing for local and tourist travellers alike and to be the fanciest, most tuned-up and loudest vehicle in the country.

Quetzaltenango sits even higher than Lake Atitlan at 2,333m. and is the 2nd largest city in Guatemala with around 250,000 people. This worried us at first, after hearing about the violence and insecurity in Guatemala City, but after 3 days there, we came to love the place and its people. Probably, the fact that there are 6 universities in town, lots of Spanish language students from around the world and more volcanoes in the surroundings, gives the city this feeling of being full of culture, energy and people just having a great time.

Historical buildings in Parque Central

We didn’t have many days to stay so we got into the city highlights first, like El Parque Central, a central square surrounded by historical buildings and a great spot to sit and watch local life; El Teatro Nacional, where we managed to jump on stage and witness a photo exposition of Miss Guatemala…

Miss Quetzaltenango 1971!

The 3×3 blocks and surrounding streets that form El Mercado de la Democracia, selling everything from fruit and veggies to clothes and electronics.

Yuca Picante in a bag

Guatemalans love their chips!! That’s all this store sold!

A lovely lady from this local eatery in the market planted 2 kisses on our cheeks and convinced us to stay for lunch.

…and the cemetery, where we came to learn that Mayan tombs face west to be aligned with the sunset and witnessed, through the quality of the niches and mausoleums, the socioeconomic differences.

However, the main reason for us to travel to Quetzaltenango was its volcanoes. After all, the indigenous name of the city derived from “Xe laju’ noj” meaning “under ten mountains” and, in fact, most people refer to Quetzaltenango by the old shortened name Xela. Santiaguito volcano, while not too high (~ 2,500m) is supposed to be the most active volcano in Central America and the Santa María volcano (the 3rd in height at 3,772m), is a great vantage point to witness Santiaguito’s average 14 daily eruptions.

Red lava in mind, we went to bed at 7pm with an alarm set at 12.45am, at which time (and after 20mins on the street looking at the sky with our indecisive guide) we decided to postpone the hike to the night after due to a menacing storm approaching. For our peace of mind, it kept raining most of the night.

Luckier on the 2nd try, we started the strenuous 15km round trip to Sta María. The 3.5hr hike in the dark to get to the top for the sunrise was tough but rewarding when the clouds cleared up offering views of Quetzaltenango below and the stars above. On the way up we also crossed paths with locals, who climb the volcano for religious reasons and leave floral and incense offerings at the top.

Once we reached the summit it was freezing cold and we had to wait a shivering 40min for the sunrise, crossing fingers and toes for the clouds to clear up.

The Mayan Gods conceded 5 seconds of semi-clear sky that gave us a momentary view of the sun pushing through the clouds and the surrounding volcanoes and mountains, as far as the San Pedro volcano near Lake Atitlan.

Unfortunately, no view of Santiaguito, although we heard one eruption so, later on we took the license to reproduce our imagination on photoshop:

Lots more to see on the way back down

To make up for the disappointment, I made a trip to the local liquor store and got myself a late birthday present: a bottle of Ron Zacapa. At 1/3 of the price compared to Australia and Spain, I can only recommend this local produce of Guatemala, which has won the World’s Best Rum award for several years. Just don’t mix it with coke please, it’d awake all the Gods and set all the volcanoes in destruction mode!

We had a great time despite our bad luck with the weather, but it gives us a good excuse to come back to Quetzaltenango outside the raining season. After all, it was just our first volcano attempt in our trip of many more to come!

Coming next, colour explosion in the Chichicastenango markets!

Guatemala IV – Lago de Atitlan

After an adventure packed couple of weeks with hiking and caving, we felt due for a bit of a change of pace. I’m not one for believing in esoteric things, but I really do think Lake Atitlan has some sort of magnetic and calming quality. It’s a huge lake covering an area 12kms by 5kms, sitting at 1,563m above sea level, with mountains and three volcanoes (San Pedro, Atitlan and Toliman) surrounding it and Mayan villages of varying sizes nestled along the shores.

From left to right: Volcanoes Toliman, Atitlan and San Pedro – almost permanently covered by clouds!

Transport between the villages is most often by boat, although tuktuks go to neighbouring villages also.

We arrived first in San Pedro, the most “backpacker” of the towns, after a full day of transport from Semuc Champey. It seemed like a nice but fairly average town full of Spanish schools, restaurants, bars and hostels until we ventured up the steep hill to the area where the locals live.

There we found an awesome stall on the edge of the fruit/vege/meat market with local ladies selling hot cereal drinks called atoles (think rice & milk, oats, wheat, banana etc) and sandwiches or tortas (big crispy corn discs) with loads of veggie fillings/toppings for less than $0.50. For a week I think we were their best customers!!

Atoles served in old candle glasses

Xavi also found a local barbershop, which had a mix of pictures on the walls from soccer players with designs razored in to 70s styles for a $2 haircut (in case you were wondering, the beard was not harmed in the process).

Our favourite breakfast spot!

We wanted to get a good view of the whole lake so we signed up for a 4am hike to “The Indian Nose” for sunrise. We walked through corn and coffee plantations in the dark to arrive at the lookout to watch the sun peek through the clouds and light up the lake and volcanoes. Our guide Juan told us all about the Tz’utijil Mayan warrior tribe, who fought against the Spanish invasion with “submersible warriors” in the lake. The Spanish Armada was severely punished by skin-divers who teased their enemies with gold and then drowned them by holding them underwater for up to 5min. Obviously, this doesn’t come in the history books.

The Indian Nose

Sunrise over the lake

Another cool feature is the old town submerged in the middle of the lake at a depth of  80m. It was built when the Mayans arrived, before the lake had formed. Unfortunately it’s too deep to dive there unless you have technical training and equipment.

Lake and volcanoes Toliman & Atitlan from the Indian Nose

On the way back from the Indian Nose, we got a tuktuk to San Marcos, a chilled out place which has made it’s name as a spiritual retreat, now full of yoga and meditation schools. The highlight for us was a visit to Cerro Tzankujil, a small natural park on the lake, with a lookout and a platform to jump into the lake. It used to be 12m high, but the rising level of the lake has reduced that to 8m in the last few years. Still, it’s been the best views while cliff jumping so far!

Local football league game in San Marcos

Santiago is the largest of the towns on the lake and had a much more commercial tourism feel, with lots of typical souvenir shops and touts trying to get us to go to different places. After visiting the church, we were approached by several local men offering us (as if it were an underground secret) to visit Maximón, a local deity that is housed in a different brotherhood member’s house each year. Apparently locals visit with traditional offerings of cigarettes and rum to worship and ask it for blessings. It seemed like a rort to get tourists to donate entry fee, alcohol and cigarettes to the family so we gave it a miss.

However a local story that had taken our interest…El Paso Misterioso (the Mysterious Pass), several people in different villages had mentioned to us the existence of a strange road where you can stop a car going up the hill, turn off the engine and the car goes up by itself! So we set off to find the road with its own laws of gravity in a chicken bus. The bus dropped us off on the road in the middle of nowhere indicating we were there and zoomed off on its way. We walked along the road a little, trying to figure out which way the slope was going and then tried placing the water bottle down to see which way it would roll.

El Paso Misterioso

Just as we were getting a bit frustrated by our stationary bottle (to be fair it had been a but dinged up so wasn’t perfect for rolling), a ute with locals driving by saw us and our disbelief and stopped. The driver, annoyed at how sceptical we were, turned off his engine and his car did in fact roll backwards up the very slight slope. He also got us to pour water on the road to see which way it ran…success even if it was just an optical illusion!!

He then offered us a ride back to town in the back of the ute. During a short stop at a local coffee plantation on the way, we learnt that they were agronomists working with the coffee farmers to try and solve issues with “la roya” (rust), a fungus affecting much of Central America’s coffee crop.

Lake from Panajachel

The last of the lake towns we visited were Panajachel and Sta. Cruz. Panajachel was the most touristy of them all, in both the quantity of tourist restaurants, souvenir shops and the prices for everything, but it was nice for a change; and Sta Cruz, was the opposite, with just locals around but some of the best lake views from the steep road going up to the residential area.

Bat-Tuktuk

PE lessons in Santa Cruz

Before we even noticed it, 6 days were gone, so we made our way to the first city in our trip. Coming soon, Quetzaltenango!