Vacation: Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala

After a few days in Antigua we arranged a shuttle to take us to Xela, specifically to hike some volcanoes in the area. We had some problems with the shuttle though. We were originally supposed to get picked up from our hostel at 5 am, so we got up at 4:15 am and waited... and waited... and no shuttle came. We went down to the shuttle operator and complained - they tried to insist that they had come and knocked on the door, but no way that happened. Thank goodness for my dictionary so I could piece together how to tell them that and demand they still take us. Anyway, we got on the 2 pm shuttle, but the 5 hour drive turned into 7 hours because of an accident on the road (coupled with road construction).

We got into Xela around 9 pm, well after dark. We got dropped of at Posada Don Carlos and quickly headed out to find something to eat... only to find out that nearly everything in the downtown area of Xela was closed. We did find a restaurant though and then headed back to bed. The bed here was comfortable, shared bathrooms were in a chilly courtyard though (Xela is high enough in the mountains that it gets chilly at night), and the open courtyard also meant lots of noise infiltrating.Views of Xela:

View of the Central Park (every town is built around a central park). Tom and I were hanging out on a relaxing balcony - so much quieter above street level.

In the morning we headed off to a tour operator to arrange some activities. At this point Tom was suffering from a head cold and both of us were having some tummy trouble so we lined up a ruin tour for the afternoon and then a hike to Tajumulco for the following day. We thought about doing more but figured we'd see how we were recovering.

We were picked up by a taxi and taken north of town... this was a view from the road. It's really neat to look out over the area because it looks like a giant quilt - we were constantly amazed by the slopes these people farm on. Yes, it is as steep as it looks... check out the profile below of Tajumulco too (they were farming on the slopes of the old volcano).

The first stop was a town that was destroyed by a nearby volcano approximately 30 years ago. Nobody lives here anymore but people from the surrounding area still travel everyday to work the farms.

This bridge was one of two that crossed the gorge cut by the lahar (pyroclastic mudflow). There was a continuous line of people crossing the bridge carrying these massive bags on their backs (I wouldn't be surprised if they were about 100 lbs). This man is carrying pacayas.The gorge cut by the lahar - notice the houses perched on the edge.

The rickety bridge back across the river (and our driver Eddie).

Next it was off to check out some older ruins at Tak'alik A'baj - these ruins were originally inhabited by the Olmec, and then later by the Mayans. Our guide only spoke Spanish, so we understoon only about 60-70% of what was said. It was still really neat!

The sculptures were pretty interesting. There were basically four styles: Olmec, Mayan, Potbelly, and Zoomorph. These were set up around various altars that were aligned based on the position of the sun. The altar facing towards the East (rising sun) were devoted to symbols of life, while the one facing West (setting sun) was for death.

These are two potbelly scultpures. We were able to understand that there was some significance to the position of the arms (whether they went around the belly or hung at the side) but we're not really sure what that significance is.

This is one of the altars with a skull carved on the front, and you can just make out the relief of two human feet on the top right surface.

The zoomorphs are carvings of animals that were important to the Mayans. The toad and crocodile pictured below were our favourites.

This structure is all that remains of an early sauna - too bad it wasn't still functioning!

Tajumulco!!!

Tajumulco was one of the main reasons we came to Xela. It's the highest volcano in Central America, and therefore had to be climbed. It's peak reaches 4220 m, and the hike was about 12.5 km with about 1.2 km of elevation gain. The stats aren't much different than many of the hikes we do at home except the elevation is about 2 km higher (so we were feeling some altitude problems), lack of sleep, and of course Tom had a head cold. This hike is usually done as an over-night hike but we wanted to do it in one since we were short on time (in case we wanted to sneak in some others). Eddie (same cab driver) and our guide picked us up from our hostel at 3 am (so much for getting rested up) for the 2 hour drive towards the Mexican border.

We started hiking around 5:30 am using headlamps. This was the first view of Tajumulco (right blob) at first light: Sun creeps over the landscape:

As the sun got higher the temperature got pretty nice... and views were amazing! The volcanoes in the centre of the picture include San Pedro (climbed it, see the next post) and the series on the far left are the volcanoes around Antigua (Fuego, Acatenango, Pacaya). The far right of the shot should be the Pacific Ocean, but the clouds are obscuring it.

Here's Tom on the trail... the trail was open and well-packed the whole way.

Pan from about 1/2 way up:

The top few hundred metres were pretty barren in comparison with the rest of the hike, and the trail got rubbly.

Made it!!

This pan is from the top. Guatemala is on the left, Pacific Ocean centre, and Mexico on the right.On the way back down we came across some geckos... Tom can't resist an opportunity to harass critters.

Tajumulco from near the trailhead:

Unfortunately Tom's head cold was a bit too severe to do the other hikes we were planning so the next day we grabbed an afternoon shuttle to Panajachel on the edge of Lago Atitlan.