ON GUATEMALA
Guatemala is the first place I ever traveled. I was 19 and evaluating destinations for a semester abroad. When I came across CGE’s “Social Change in Central America: Exploring Peace, Justice & Social Change” I knew the program was for me. The tuition was one fourth the cost of Colorado College and the financial aid department agreed to apply the same aid package, which meant I could visit three countries and net a profit. It was a no-brainer and acting like the 19 year old I was, I didn’t do a lick of research beyond this. I sent in my application and packed my bag.
Because Guatemala is the first place I ever traveled, for me, the country is synonymous with being abroad. All the images, smells, sounds and feelings my brain associates with traveling, originate from this trip to Guatemala, and each one elicits a specific memory.
Preposterously crowded, tricked out buses with no official stops? Pure Guatemala, baby.
Fumbling with change and never quite having the right amount? Every lancha I ever took on Lake Atitlan.
The ever present sound of roosters crowing and the unmistakable smell of the countryside (wet dirt mixed with the faint odor of gasoline, trash burning, and tortillas cooking). I learned this smell at The Mountain School.
Inherently knowing to nod, smile, and say “ Yes I’m married! Yes I want kids! Yes of course I go to church at home!” whenever anybody asks? Every homestay I’ve ever participated in….
I learned all of these things in Guatemala. 12 years and 41 countries later, it felt more than fitting to close the Radical Sabbatical ™ where my love for travel was born – Guatemala.
We spent 4 weeks in Guatemala and visited Antigua, Xela, Lake Atitlan, Chichicastenango, Flores, Tikal and Rio Dulce. Below are the highlights.
Antigua:
If you Google any iteration of “things to do in Guatemala” Antigua will be the first thing to pop up. Up until this point, I’d spent 9 weeks in Guatemala, but less than 24 hours in Antigua. As we touched down in Guatemala City, I was excited to see what all the fuss was about (and to see my dad, who joined us for this leg!).
While in Antigua we did a million and one things. We hiked the Picaya Volcano and steamed marshmallows over the lava, we ate heaps (HEAPS) of thick tortillas, we went on a “beginner” mountain bike ride that was decidedly not beginner, and we enjoyed the laid back ambiance of the town.
The crown jewel, however, was hiking the Acatenango Volcano. Acatenango itself is fine. What makes it special is the vantage point it provides to Fuego, a nearby active volcano. From the top of Acatenango, you have an uninterrupted view of Fuego, and as the sun sets, the dark plumes of smoke transform from gray brown to fire red.
Imagine. You’re sitting around the campfire, sipping on a Gallo, gorging yourself on spaghetti. Your guide has just trapped a rabbit, which is roasting over the fire. Behind you, the embers of an erupting volcano light up the night sky for just long enough for you to make out the shape of the surrounding volcanoes peeking up though the clouds. Pure drama.
Base camp is about 80% of the way up the volcano. To get to the top, you wake up at 4:00AM to summit before sunrise. The guides assure us they’ll wake us up, and we’re tenting with two people who are also getting up for the show. IMPOSSIBLY, BOTH QUINTIN AND I SLEEP THROUGH THE WAKE UP CALL AND THE PEOPLE IN THE SAME TENT FUMBLING AROUND TO GET DRESSED.
I wake up to the unmistakable sound of the guide herding cats with “okay, chicooooos, vamos!” and I was like “WTF QUINTIN GET UP, THEY’RE LEAVING” We shot out of our sleeping bags, bundled up and were racing up a pitch black, sandy path by 4:07AM to catch the group. Only my Garmin can verify my heart rate in that moment…
We catch the group and we make our way to the peak only to be caught in the most intense wind storm I’ve ever known or dreamed of knowing. It was the first and only time I was legitimately scared I would be swept off my feet by wind. To take a step forward I had to literally fight against air. My stabilizers were sore the next day simply from bracing against the wind (like muscles between my ribs were sore….). Usually when a guide offers me a hand, I daintaly take it like “ohhhhhh thank you so much, so kind, he he he.”
When our guide gave me his hand up there, I reacted with a two arm death grip around his entire torso and had to be literally guided off the peak because I could neither see, nor walk, without assistance. Once this kind man had deposited me out of harm's way, and I cleared the debris from my eyes, I was knocked straight back onto my ass by the view in front of me. Dazzling doesn’t begin to describe it.
The horizon was nothing but a ring of volcano peaks, rising up from a thick layer of clouds, with the soft pink of the sun giving new dimension to the volcanoes. The blue of the sky was hardly in focus yet. The literal only thing to see was clouds, volcanoes and the sun. Sensational.
Xela (Quetzaltenango)
Following our time in Antigua, we headed to Xela, the town where I lived for my collective 9 weeks in Guatemala. While the school I attended was fab, Xela isn’t really it from a tourists perspective. We went there so I could lay eyes on an old stomping ground, sure, but we mostly went because there’s a 3 day trek I wanted to do and it started in Xela. This trek was 10/10 AND was my highlight of our whole 4 weeks in the country.
We arrived at the designated meeting spot at 6:00AM, at which point we were informed we’d be walking down the highway for a bit before hopping on a chicken bus for a short transfer into the foothills. We were a group of 15 oversized gringas, with 15 oversized hiking backpacks and never in all my days have I been on a chicken bus where there is a single available seat. As we’re trudging down the highway I know without a shadow of doubt the most difficult part of this hike is going to be getting all of us on this bus. I should have known we were in for a magical 3 days when an empty bus pulled over to let us board. There ware seats enough for us AND our bags. Luck was on our side.
The next three days were pure joy. We hiked with an absolutely delightful group, with smart and informative guides. There were miles of stunningly bright flowers, with rolling corn fields everywhere we looked. I had three chocobanano’s in one day. The smells and sounds of the countryside were omnipresent. One of the villages had a temazcal that brought all of us back from the brink. On night one, we slept on some guy's concrete floor and on night two, the concrete floor of a community center that was also somebody's house. It felt familiar, and the whole experience was reminiscent of what made me love Guatemala 10 years ago.
The last morning of the trek, we were up at the ass crack of dawn to make it to an overlook before sunrise. At this point, Quintn and I been on the road for 54 weeks and we had just under 3 weeks left in the Radical Sabbatical . We’d had twenty thousand amazing moments, we’d met ten thousand interesting people, and we’d had countless early mornings where we were up before the sun in hopes of seeing something sensational. And there I was, curled up in somebody's busted sleeping bag, drinking instant coffee, eating banana bread smeared in peanut butter, listening to Quintin giggle with his new South African friends about rugby.
12.5 months into our trip, in a country I’d already visited twice before, I had the pleasure of one more moment where I found myself thinking “this is exactly what I signed up for”
The sunrise was, of course, breathtaking. Lake Atitlan at our feet and the moon shining directly above Fuego. We stayed as long as the security escorts would let us, and then we hiked down, had a huge brunch, a huge beer and then passed the rest of the morning swimming in the lake.
Lago de Atitlan
After our hike, we had about 5 days to spend on Lake Atitlan, an absolutely stunt-ing place. Basically, Atitlan is a lake (duh), ringed by volcanoes (woooowwww), with small towns dotting the exterior. All of the towns have their own little vibe, but the “thing to do” in all of them is enjoy the views, enjoy the water, and bink around the little towns. That’s precisely what we did.
In the past few years, Atitlan has become a haven for wellness hippies. Every service you’ve never needed, you can get in Atitlan, with a vegan, organic smoothie elixir on the side. Seeing as we had come all that way (three days hiking through Guatemalan forest is NO walk in the park, babes) we decided to indulge. Quintin had an Ayurvedic Consultation where the practitioner told him he had “too much fire” and thus needed to strip all spices from his diet. She then told him he would be happier if he didn’t “interact with his wife in the morning.” She is a hack and we definitely wasted our money on that one. My herbal massage was nice, though.
Rio Dulce
Following Atitlan, we went to Flores and Tikal, both of which were fine but not worth a rehash. I loved watching Quintin photograph the monkeys and get irate about mosquitos. After Tikal, we went to Rio Dulce, which is worth the rehash.
By the time we arrived to Rio Dulce, we were both ready for the trip to be over. Our energy was low. Our desire to get out and explore was virtually non-existent. I thought our bus ride was going to be 4 hours and it was 7. We arrived in town, called the hotel, and waited for a few minutes on the municipal dock for the hotel boat to come fetch us. As we were sitting on the dock really all I was thinking was “I can’t wait for these three days to be over. I’m so ready to be home”
As the next three days unfolded, I was reminded why I wanted to come to Rio Dulce in the first place, and am ultimately glad we visited. Río Dulce is located on Guatemala’s Caribbean Coast, meaning the area has more of a Caribbean vibe. At the mouth of the Río Dulce, where the river meets the Caribbean Sea, lies the town of Livingston. The town is accessible only by boat and is known for its blend of Afro-Caribbean and Mayan cultures. Livingston is the heart of Garífuna culture in Guatemala. The Garífuna are descendants of African slaves and indigenous Caribbeans. Because Livingston isn’t super accessible, Garífuna culture has been well preserved here, and while it’s not as dramatic as the internet would have you believe, Livingston does feel distinct. The buildings are splashed in pastels as opposed to jewel tones; murals are of African women, rather than Mayan woman; the soups are all fish and coconut curry, compared to chicken/pork/dried chilies/pepitas; people are ambling about shorts and tank tops, whereas the rest of the country feels colder (it is!) and more conservative. It was sort of a trip – I knew I was in Guatemala, but looking around, it felt totally different.
While we were in Rio Dulce, we stayed at a riverside lodge that was actually a marina, popular with sailors docking their boats for hurricane season. Previously unbeknownst to me, there are still people who choose to sail across oceans. There is a season for this (depending on where you’re going) and if you’re in the western and also northern hemisphere, Guatemala is a great place to park your boat for hurricane season. Who knew?!
Even though I was tired, I’m glad we visited Eastern Guatemala because the visit exposed yet another element of this fabulous country!
When I first visited Guatemala in 2012, I had nothing to compare it to; no other data points. I was also there to study the armed conflict, and the impact of US intervention across Central America. I left Nicaragua at the end of that semester feeling hopeless and guilty. Reflecting back, the program I went with led with hopelessness, poverty and trauma. Because I had no other experiences, I couldn’t see past these themes. I’m grateful to have returned with more perspective. Everything I learned in 2012 certainly reigns true, but now I’m able to distinguish other threads amongst these themes.
Guatemala was the last country we visited meaning this is my last post dedicated to a single country. It’s been nothing shy of extraordinary…thank you for following along!
