After four weeks of spanish school, I decided to add to my cultural intake, while also getting some exercise, by taking part in a five-day trek through the mountain of western Guatemala. I wasn't really sure what I was getting myself into, but I figured that if I could climb Santa Maria then I could hold out for four days of similar hiking. The tour is offered by Quetzaltrekkers, a non-profit based out of Xela that supports several local children's causes. All of the guides are volunteers, which makes for a team composed of people of different backgrounds and from around the world which is pretty neat.
We met the afternoon before leaving to brief on the hike, and receive "group gear". I figured that I would be able to pack pretty light on this hike, just wearing the same stinky clothes every day to go along with my untamed semi-mane of a beard. Plus, I knew that we would be sleeping inside every night, so we wouldn't have to carry tents and stuff. Little did I know... One poncho, sleeping mat, sleeping bag, huge bag of pasta, bag of tomatoes and cucumbers, and various other warm clothes later, my bag was bulging to the seams. And to make things even better, I was chosen at random to be the guy that carries the bag with everything you need to poo on a mountain. Toilet paper, hand rake, hand sanitizer. From that point on, I was dubbed "Captain Shit Kit". Perfection.
The next morning we met at 7am and were served a hearty breakfast of wonderful banana pancakes. Little did we know that this was a morale booster, which we would soon be needing. In terms of logistics, the hike itself would cover nearly 60km, boiling down to just over 10km a day, which wouldn't be so bad if it wasn't nearly straight up and down rocky mountains. Five hours later, after taking a chicken bus and microbus to our destination, we reached the starting point of Nebaj, where we would stay at a hostel which supports a local mayan special needs school. With an early morning ahead, and four days of hiking, we called it an early evening and began mentally preparing for what lay ahead.
Within five minutes of the start of our hike, I was out of breath. The altitude really gets to you, and I had never hiked with such a heavy pack before. Luckily, things slowly got easier, and I put my brain into automatic and told my burning muscles to quite their whining. Immediately, I knew we were in for several days of beautiful views. From the top of the first ascent we could see all of Nebaj sitting below us, speckled across the lust mountainside. The clouds rolled in and out, and for the first of what would be many times in the next few days, I felt as if I were on top of the world.
On the way down the first mountain, the small town of Acul came into view. This town was particularly interesting because of its historical background during the Guatemalan civil war. Essentially, the guerillas were highly conentrated in the mountains around these areas, which led to the army also having a strong presence here. In either case, the locals ended up with the short end of the stick. If they didn't help out or harbor guerillas they faced death, and if they did, the army would come in and torture anyone they thought was siding with the guerillas. During the civil war, the whole town of Acul was essentially burnt to the ground. People were herded into a group, which was split into two and sent to different buildings, with one group ultimately being forced at gunpoint to stomp the other group to death. People were lynched and burned to death while tied to the main tree at the center of the town, and when everything was said and done, the only thing left in Acul was the church, which still stands to this day. Acul has now been totally rebuilt, under a government program which funds "model town" - essentially trying to show that the country has made progress from the war and is now healing wounds. You might have to ask some of the locals that are slowly making their way back into town after hiding in the mountains for year how healed their wounds are though...
After a pretty grim history talk, there was only one thing that could get people's spirits back up and ready for the next ascent - cheese. We stopped at a local cheese farm, which had no signs or mention anywhere of being such, and picked up some cheese for lunch. This stuff might have been the best cheese I have ever tasted, and if we weren't strictly rationed, I probably could have eaten the whole wheel to myself. But then I would have puked. Probably not a good tradeoff. We braked for lunch by a river, heavily reminiscent of my younger days hiking in Switzerland with the Ruetz's, and dined on sandwiches that, on any other day, would have sent me looking for something else - refried beans, lettuce, tomato, and cheese. But on this day, I ate two, and that was only because there was no more bread left for a third.
This cow may have made the cheese I ate. Yum.
After lunch we made the last stretch of the day to the town where we would be staying in for the night. As we had been told, the rain in the mountains is like clockwork, coming down heavily every afternoon around 2:30pm, or 2:00pm if the big guy was feeling sneaky. Sure enough, at 2:30pm, about 15 minutes from our destination, the clouds opened up and the rain came down. Luckily we hustled to get ponchos on, and slid the remainder of the way to the empty schoolhouse where we would be sleeping. We ate with a local family, a tasty meal of rice and beans with the mountainer's favorite "coffee tea" (imagine coffee so watered down that it tastes like tea), and were treated to a warm temescal, a traditional Mayan steam sauna, before calling it a night.
The next morning was pretty brutal, as we woke up sore from the first full day of hiking, and at 3:30am to boot. We had to be up early in order to get up the first ascent before sunrise, so we could see it from the top of the peak. Luckily it was dark, so by headlamp it was hard to see how many switchbacks we had to take in order to get all the way to the top - although one of the guides took pleasure in informing me that it was somewhere around 85... Once again, the brain went into automatic and we were at the top before long. The view from the top was worth it, and although it was somewhat cloudy, it was still beautiful. We stopped for breakfast, which was aptly called "mush" by the guides. Essentially it consists of the following: get a plate and scoop some dry oatmeal onto it. Then, pour boiling water on top and mix it up. Next, sprinkle granola all over it. To finish, add a huge dollop of peanut butter, another of jelly, and stir it all up. Looks disgusting, tastes wonderful (sort of).
After breakfast we hiked on, and eventually reached one of the coolest parts of the trek itself, the Altiplano. Essentially, its a huge plateau running across the top of the mountain, inaccessible by car or truck, and inhabited by several small villages of local people. The plateau is peppered with huge limestone boulders that originated from the seafloor, through means by which I can't remember, but think involve Poseidon or something. Again, we stopped to take in the tremendous view, and snag a few facebook-worthy profile pictures, including "Derek Triumphantly Overlooks the World", and "Derek Ponders the Meaning of Life".
Making our way down from the Altiplano, the town which we would be staying in came into view, and we could make out the beautiful geometric structure of the plots below. I actually learned what this agricultural division style is called in highschool, but can no longer remember. Once again, we slept on the floor of a local schoolhouse, but were lucky enough to get the one with a real floor and door that closes, instead of the one with no door and a bumpy dirt floor. As for the toilet facilities, let's just say that I never want to see a pit toilet again. Ever.
The next morning we started with a treacherous descent down slippery slopes, before arriving at an ice cold set of beautiful waterfalls. We hung out for awhile, but soon began what would be, unbeknownst to us, the most horrible part of the four day excursion. What we were told would be a 30 minute trek up from the bottom of the valley turned out to be an hour and a half of muddy hell. Water and muck up to your ankles, and knees in some parts, soaked everyone's boots. Most were lucky not to get stuck in the mud and eaten by local grazing donkeys. The worst part was that the mud and water mixed with the equestrian feces to create a wonderfully stinky mixture of mud-water-feces, covering our boots and clothes. Rob, if you are reading this, there was ZERO feces.
After finally having conquered the muddy hell, albeit almost losing a guide who got stuck waist deep in a sinkhole and had to be pulled out, no joke, we made it to the second Altiplano, where we got the mind-numbingly walk for hours of end. Brain off, muscles on. Long story short, we made it into to district of Todos Santos, although not the town itself which we would reach the next day, and once again stayed with a local family that made us a wonderful dinner and let us use the temescal to clean up in.
The final day of trekking, after breakfast, we were led by one of the sons of the man whose house we stayed in across the last leg of the hike. We ascented to La Torre, which is the highest non-volcanic peak in Guatemala, where we stopped for a second breakfast. By noon, we had spent more time eating than hiking, and I was a happy camper (pun intended). A few more facebook profile pictures later, and we were off down the mountain to the road which was lead us to the promised land of Todos Santos. As we began our descent, the mist started rolling in, making for a pretty surreal experience, and some incredible views.
By late afternoon, after grabbing a local bus down the last leg of highway, we had reached Todos Santos. The town is famous for the fact that the locals still wear traditional garb, and unlike many other indigenous communities in Guatemala, most of the men do as well. They have really cool hats, awesome denim jackets with traditional embroidery, and great red striped pants. I tried to buy some, but only found a jacket that fit, and ultimately decided that not even I, the guy that owns purple shorts with Jimi Hendrix on them, could pull it off back home. Unfortunately, I didn't take many pictures in the town, because the locals are pretty uptight about it. There was an incident awhile back involving a Japanese tourist that died after being attacked by a mob of people that thought he was trying to abduct a child after they found him taking pictures. Accounts differ as to whether he had picked the child up or not, but after four days of hiking I wasn't interested in finding out what it would take to get a mob of guys in denim jackets running after me, especially since most of them carry machetes for work. We chilled out in the town, looked around, and had dinner at the local spanish school were we slept. The next morning we hopped on a bus back to Xela, and just like that, after being treated to a chocolate-covered frozen banana, the trek was over.
Although there were parts of the trek where I wanted to throw myself off one of the ledges we were walking past, it will definitely be a treasured memory of my trip. We had the amazing opportunity to see local villages that may only be visited by a handful of foreigners every year, simply based on the fact that there would be no reason for anyone to go there - in the mountains in the middle of nowhere, with no tiendas in sight, let alone hotels. I felt like a tourist attraction myself in some of these places, because it was as if the kids there had never seen white people. It was actually pretty cool. Without getting all deep and introspective, and was really just quite amazing to see these villages scattered through the mountains of Guatemala, especially given the incredible history and suffering that their people have been through due to the civil war. Taken that into consideration, it was amazing to see the hospitality and warmth of many of the communities, especially towards such obvious outsiders. Overall, it was a great experience, and while I don't plan on strapping on my backpack in a similar manner for awhile now (unless I convince Dad to come out for a seven day trek to El Mirador...), it was without a doubt worth it.
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