After finishing up at Semuc Champey, we endured another 8+
hour bus ride in another old van to head down to Antigua. We had originally
planned to stay in Antigua for a little while, but after meeting some fellow
travellers who highly recommended we do a three-day trek through the Guatemalan
highlands, we had to cut this section of our trip short, and only really got to
stay in the town for a day and a half. The town itself is stunning, the word ‘antigua’
in Spanish means ‘old’ and the town lives up to its name. All the architecture
is very colonial, there are no new structures putting a blight on the
landscape. The cobblestone streets are lined with large coloured building
walls, and its only when doors are opened you can see another world inside each
one; courtyards, fountains, restaurants and shops. I can definitely see why
many expats set up home in this neighbourhood.
Onwards and upwards we had to organise transport to Xela
(pronounced Shay-la) to begin our trek. Our shuttle picked us up at 5am, (this
time in a nicer van), and we were on our way for another 5 hour trip. Slightly
disconcerting, our driver swapped over with another at a random petrol station,
some other travellers got out and swapped into a car at another stop, and by
now our minimal Spanish wasn’t helping us work out what was going on! When we
were relatively close to our destination and the bus driver said this was our
last stop for another 4 hours, we started to get worried! Trying to convey
where we were going, they then kicked us out and into a waiting car to take us
the rest of the journey, which thankfully actually worked. If we didn’t speak
up I’ve no idea where we would have ended up.
Our trek was organise through a company called
Quetzaltrekkers (Quetzal is the Guatemalan currency and national bird), which
started running treks about 15 years to fund a school and shelter for street
kids. To this day, there are no permanent workers or volunteers who run the
company and all the profit from the cost of the trek goes directly to funding
their work with street kids. We were stunned to realise the volunteers just
pass on information to new volunteers about running the finances, recruiting
more volunteers, running the website, running all the treks etc, and there is
no one there to facilitate the whole thing to ensure it actually continues. It’s
like a giant game of Chinese-whispers where the end result was still the same
as it was at the beginning.
Being the first multi-day trek either of us had attempted,
we may have been a tad over optimistic about our personal fitness levels and
the difficulty of the trek! We started with about a 1500m climb to reach our
highest peak of 3600m, and were told this was the most difficult part of the
trek. They were lying! We walked through little villages where all the kids
came out, hiding behind doors and fences to look and wave at the crazy gringos
walking through their town. When one of the group stopped to take a photo of a
puppy, a little boy proudly appeared holding about 4 more to show off the rest
of his ‘toys’. Most of the people who live in these remote villages don’t have
jobs per-say, just sustaining their household. We watched little kids going
into and out of the jungle with their families collected wood, carrying loads
on their heads while wearing run down old shoes. Put my complaining about a
heavy pack into perspective.
Our first night we camped out in a little village town hall,
Dave put his glow-in-the-dark Frisbee to good use and somehow managed to stay
outside playing with the locals for a couple of hours, while I was struggling
to move at this point! Our guides organised for us to have a traditional Mayan
sauna while we were there, which basically involved crawling into a little hut
with hot stones, a bucket of hot water and a bucket of cold water and you just
sit in there and sweat it all out. The cold water was a good substitute for the
lack of showers and we felt surprisingly refreshed by the end. Our last little
surprise of the evening was a group of locals put on a show for us, with music
and dancing depicting a Mayan story about the beginnings of the world (well at
least I think that is what it was!). It reminded me a lot of the Aboriginal
dream time stories.
Our second day of trekking began with ‘record hill’ a steep
incline which fit people somehow manage to race up. I certainly wasn’t one of
the fit ones! For me, this was the absolute hardest part of the trek, because
even after record hill, we still kept inclining.
it took every ounce of my being to look up while dave took this photo!
Lunch was a well needed chance to recover, and the afternoon
wasn’t nearly as bad. We spend the second evening at a local’s house, where we
were all pretty much out-to-it by about 8pm. Probably a good thing considering
we had to be off by 4am the next morning to complete our trek; eating breakfast
while watching the sunrise over lake Atitlan. This was my favourite part of the
trek, we got to watch day break over the volcanos and lake, with the clouds
dancing on the horizon.
After our decline back down the mountain, we finally
finished up our trek with lunch at a local restaurant and made our way to our accommodation
on the lake. I don’t remember ever being so sore and the next couple of days
were spent doing very little and enjoying our slice of heaven, with a real bed,
right on the lake.
Next stop – flight to Santiago, Chile, to meet up with Pauly
and Sergio for Christmas, New Years and some well needed R&R and home
cooked food!
