Travelblog LA#13: Hike from Xela to Lake Atitlan (With Quetzaltrekkers) – Guatemala

25th – 29th June, 2023

 

This hike was not part of my original itinerary – or even something that I knew was a thing, as I don’t recall previously reading about it in places such as the Lonely Planet – but a last-minute decision inspired by a leaflet I saw in the hostel I was staying at in Antigua, advertising a three-day hike from Quetzaltenango to Lake Atitlan. When I did some reading online, I discovered that ‘Quetzaltrekkers’ – the lovely outfit running this venture – not only had glowing reviews but were also a non-profit organisation run by volunteers raising money to fund a school and a children’s home in Guatemala.

After paying my deposit online, I caught a bus to Quetzaltenango, a city also known as ‘Xela’, which is an abbreviation of the name of the original Quiché settlement. It was somewhere on my radar as a potential place to visit when I first read about Guatemala but crossed it off when making the final draft of my itinerary. Now, I had found myself here and had a day to explore before the trek began.

It is admittedly not the prettiest place in the world. The plaza is a pleasant place to go for a little stroll and is home to a cathedral with a sixteenth-century façade, but other than that, it is a city that tourists primarily use as a launching pad for day trips to nearby volcanoes, hot springs, and Quiché villages. You don’t see many foreigners here, and most of the ones you do encounter are volunteers, researchers, or NGOs working on various projects to help enrich the area. I think it is always good to visit a few places such as this if you are a long-term traveller – who wants to properly ‘know’ a country by the end of your time somewhere at least – as if you only hop between tourist hotspots and notable attractions during your time in a country, you will leave with a very warped and sanitised idea of what it is like.

That evening the other trekkers and I attended a meeting at the Quetzaltrekkers office so that we could go through the itinerary and those who needed it could borrow from their cache of communal equipment. This wasn’t something I required, but if you happen to be reading this and are a traveller that lacks gear: it is possible to borrow just about everything needed for this trek. I would still recommend you bring some of your own if you do possess it though, as some of it is – whilst fully functional – a bit old. This is not meant as a criticism of Quetzaltrekkers – as their trek is more than reasonably priced, and they offer their communal equipment to hikers for free – but I want those who can feasibly bring their gear to know that you might be more comfortable using it. My equipment is modern and compact, so I was carrying a lighter load than most other hikers.

The following morning, I woke up at 5:30 am. By strange coincidence (or perhaps just a lack of foreigners visiting in Xela), one of my fellow hikers was staying in the same dormitory as me in Kasa Kiwi Hostel, so we caught an Uber to Quetzaltrekkers together. The other hikers consisted of a French family of four, two Guatemalan boys from the school that Quetzaltrekkers help to fund, and our guides: Jackie and Mathieu.

We started by walking to one of Xela’s bus stations to catch a chicken bus to a village called Xecam, and within minutes, we were climbing up a steep trail into a cloud forest.

We were blessed with clear enough skies to get a good view of the surrounding area at one of the viewpoints during the ascent. From there, we could see Xela and many of the volcanoes surrounding it, including the infamous Santa María whose 1902 eruption devastated the area and killed thousands of people. It is still erupting to this day in the form of a lava dome complex that needs monitoring.

After that, we continued climbing up the mountain, and a dense fog descended upon us. In one way, this was fortunate, as the lack of direct sunlight made for comfortable hiking, but it also meant that once we reached the summit of the highest point of our trek – a place where on a clear day one can see even as far as Lake Atitlan – the fog was all we could see.

The sun did briefly appear again when we reached Nuevo Xetinamit – a village surrounded by very scenic farmlands.

After that, we descended into a cloud forest again, and the mist returned. We hiked to Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan, where we stayed our first night.

After setting up our sleeping mats and bags on the floor of a homestay, we each got to get inside a temescal in pairs to wash. Within was a small fire burning and two vats of water – one scalding hot and the other cold – and a small bucket on the floor where one can mix the two kinds of water (using a pail) until you get the right temperature. There wasn’t much space, so I sat on a bench as my companion washed himself, and the wait was similar to being in a sauna. By the time my turn came, I was covered in sweat, and I washed and rinsed myself quickly before going outside to dry myself off.

It rained all night, but I slept well and woke up feeling refreshed. After breakfast, we were back on the road again.

This day was better than the first, not just because of the weather but also the scenery. I did enjoy the cloud forests on the first day, but I have hiked through plenty of those before, and what made this trek stand out from all the others I have done over the years is that you get to see rural life in the Quiché region of Guatemala. During the morning, the landscape was quite dramatic, and we passed through a series of rocky karsts dotted with farmlands.

Before lunchtime, we reached the village of Tzucubal which – like most of the places we visited on this trek – is not listed on Google Maps but was surprisingly big.

We stopped for a while and ate ice cream whilst our guides told us about its people and how many families in this area resort to sending members to the United States to work so that they can send money back to them.

This is a significant investment that will often take several years to save up for and comes at high risk, not just in terms of safety but also because the ‘coyotes’ – the people who smuggle immigrants across the Mexican border – do not give refunds if they fail. It goes to show just how desperate these people are if they are willing to work so hard and take such a gamble for a mere chance to better themselves. Our guides also informed us about some of the larger contexts by telling us about Guatemala’s socio-economic history and why its people are so poor. I do not have the space to go into the details here, but I will say that neo-colonialism from the United States and other first-world countries has played a huge part, and we should all educate ourselves on it. In my last blog, I made some criticisms about Guatemala’s government being weak and not doing enough to help better the circumstances of its population, and this is true, but I should also clarify now one of the reasons for this. US-based corporations such as the United Fruit Company appropriated much of Guatemala’s lands and infrastructure in the early 20th century, and establishments such as the CIA have had a history of orchestrating coups whenever someone has tried to correct this and return Guatemalan lands back to its people.

After we left Tzucubal, we passed through more hills of gorgeous farmlands before plunging into a valley where we had to make several river crossings by either removing our shoes or skipping between stones. As we did so, we began to hear thunder roiling in the distance, and clouds appeared, so we quickened our pace, climbing up a steep hill and eventually seeing something that we had not glimpsed for quite some time; a concrete road.

It was only a ten-minute walk from there to our next homestay, Casa Don Pedro, in the hamlet of Xiprian, just outside of Santa Clara. Just as we arrived, the storm reached us, so we hurried inside. We were now just a stone’s throw away from Lake Atitlan.

Pedro and his family cooked a fantastic meal for us that included tamales, and we sat around a fire afterwards. I didn’t stay up too late as we were due to rise at 3:30 am to reach Nariz Del Indio in time for sunrise.

Despite the early hour, this walk was surprisingly easy as we were already close to the top of the mountain. The only gruelling things about it were the early hour and all the dogs that came out to bark at us as we made our way down country lanes.

The spot that Quetzaltrekkers use to watch the sunrise is a different place to most people, located on some private land a little to the west of the summit.

And as the sun gradually rose, Jackie and Mathieu prepared a little breakfast picnic for us, including hot water for drinks.

Those of you who have heard about the safety issues around this part of Lake Atitlan will also be interested to hear that we had a pair of policemen present. For those who don’t know: there has been an ongoing issue during the last few years concerning gringos being mugged on this hill and the nearby San Pedro Volcano. I can’t help but suspect that the locals weren’t in too much of a rush to resolve the issue because it forced people to hire guides for safety reasons (for trails that frankly shouldn’t need them). There has also been an ongoing problem on the Nariz Del Indio because the communities on both sides were trying to charge foreigners conflicting ‘entry fees’ from each side. If I am honest, when I read about all of this stuff online, it almost put me off coming – not just because of safety reasons but also out of principle – but it seems that they are starting to make efforts to turn this into a more welcoming place for foreigners.

We stayed there for a couple of hours, as the sun gradually rose and the lake brightened and then began to make our way down to the town of San Juan down a steep trail. The police escorted us during this too.

Once we reached San Juan, we stopped at a café called Alma De Colors for a quick drink. It is run by disabled people who would otherwise have few opportunities or much social support in Guatemala. For us, it was just a flying visit, but I did see some tasty food going out to some of the other tables, it had a lovely atmosphere, and there is also a craft shop, so it is somewhere to check out if you happen to be passing through.

And then after that, we finally caught a ride to San Pedro on the back of a truck before having our final meal at a restaurant overlooking the lake.

Overall I am very pleased with my experience with Quetzaltrekkers and would encourage others to consider them. Another company does offer a similar hike and does so at a slightly lower price. I obviously can’t judge theirs having not done it myself, but I do know that they are profit-based, their reviews aren’t as good, and their itinerary takes a different route and doesn’t involve some of the things such as the temescal, which made this experience more special to me. When it comes to investing in something as long as a three-day trek, paying that bit extra to ensure that everything is a bit more rewarding is worth it for me, and with Quetzaltrekkers you also know that much of your money will be going to a good cause. Click here for more information about them.

 

Also, click here for more photos from this amazing hike.