The Trifecta of Quetzaltrekkers Hikes

I haven't gotten the chance to write in a little while. Partially because I don't want to waste time on the computer, and partially due to the lack of internet. Two weeks ago, Nico and I hooked up with an organization here called Quetzaltrekkers. We saw that they were running a 6 day trip from Nebaj to Todos Santos, and though it sounded really cool. As soon as we got to Xela, we made sure to sign up. Quetzaltrekkers (QT) is an organization that was started to raise money for a couple projects here in Guatemala. At first we were a little turned off that the guides were almost all foreigners. Seemed like it would be better to be guided by a local and have the local earn the money.

Turns out that all the guides are totally volunteers, so that they can raise as much money as possible for their main project, Escuela de la Calle, along with a few others, which get underprivileged kids off the streets and into school. The guides don't get paid at all... meaning they have to pay their own food and accommodations as well. They all speak Spanish and English and really know the areas. Even while on the treks, they do their best to make sure that money spent goes right to the locals as much as possible. On the treks, we sometimes stay with families in small villages. These are places that don't even have a store, let alone a hostel. It was really neat that they let us sleep in the school, and each time a trek comes through, they rotate what family gets to cook for us, and therefore a significant financial boost for a hard days work.

Steve entertaining all the kids

Anyway, back to the Nebaj trek. Day 1 was just a travel day to get there and then check out the town of Nebaj. Steve, a new guide, also plays ultimate and happened to have a disc with him. We start throwing around in their central plaza, and very soon we had a crowd of young boys looking curious. So we start throwing to them and before we knew it, everyone was looking on, and all the young kids were trying to get our attention to throw it to them. This eventually ended when a bunch of boys got into a dogpile all fighting for the disc. So we take it away, but they all follow us to where we sit down. Also turns out that Steve worked for an orphanage in the jungle for 8 months and was great with the kids. He starts doing this clown routine, and messing with them, and they were all mesmerized.

On the way up to the altiplano - early morning start

the altiplano

The next 4 days was the hiking. It reminded me a lot of the foothills of the Himalaya. Very steep rolling lush hills. It was quite green, even though the rainy season hasn't even started yet. Then on day 2 of hiking we got up to the first altiplano. It was totally unlike anything I've seen before. There were grassy rolling hills with large limestone boulders scattered all over, with pine forest all about. Even crazier is that these boulders were once on the bottom of the ocean! Amazing geologic forces pushed them all the way up to about 12,000ft above sea level.

The next few days brought us up over hills and across river valleys, in what was some very impressive scenery. It's crazy that almost no tourists make it to these areas of such great natural beauty. In some of the villages on the altiplanos, QT are the only foreigners that these people ever see. It is very strange to see people just stare at you, or even run away at the sight of a white person. Although based on their reactions it must be way weirder for them seeing us than it was for us to see them. Our guides were telling us that a few weeks ago on the trek, someone pulled out a camera in one of these villages, and all the kids immediately fell to the ground. They were legitimately afraid that the camera would steal their souls. I've heard about it before, but never thought I'd actually be among those people. And for that reason we are asked to not pull out our cameras around them and to make sure to ask people if it is okay that we take a picture.

Team Purple!

What also made this a great trek was the group. Everyone meshed really well together. It was a small group, 9 total, and so we all hung out together and got to be friends. On our next trek, the Lago trek, our group was 17 people, and so you just could not bond with everyone in 2.5 days.

Nico and I heard that Lago Atitlan was a really nice place, and planned to check it out. It just worked out that QT was running their Xela to Lago trek two days after we got back from Todos Santos. So after one rest day, we were ready to hit the trail again. I can see why this trek is so popular, with see some really great scenery and being only a few days, and it goes to where people want to end up anyway. QT will even drop off a bag for you at the end so that you don't need to carry all your stuff.

It was another great trek, but not quite as good as Nebaj. The scenery was good, but not quite as amazing and remote as the other trek. One sweet highlight though was that on the last day, you get up at 3:45am, and hike to a nice mirador for the sunrise. We got there just as the first hues of light were on the horizon, and you could see the lights of San Pedro below, and also just make out the 3 volcanoes that run along the southern part of the lake. It was quite a beautiful sunrise, until just before the sun poked up when a bunch of clouds rolled in and kept us covered until the sun was well up in the sky.

Sunrise from the mirador

Then we were left in San Padro will all of our stuff and no plan. Typical for us.... San Marcos, across the lake, sounded like an interesting place, so we took the ferry there. What a weird place. I really liked how for the part of the town that was near the water, there were no roads. It was just footpaths winding amongst the trees and shrubs... and also the hostels and meditation centers. It was a very idyllic tropical place, but nothing there felt like Guatemala; it could have been anywhere. The people were the weirdest part. It was a hippy haven, and all of them with the weird clothes and crystals on their foreheads made me feel so damn normal.

Lago Atitlan

It was a nice chill time though, until the next morning when we were feeling like we really needed to figure out what we wanted to do with our last week here. Since there was no internet to be had in the entire town, we packed up again and went back to San Pedro, which was a bit of a bigger town and also party central. It was really odd when the next morning at 7am we were trying to find breakfast, and the only store open was a liquor store... Anyway, it took us all afternoon but finally we came up with a plan. I had wanted to go to the jungle and Tikal, but it was actually really far away, and would have been such a pain to get there. We decided on heading back to Xela to do more hiking! Before that though, we went for a kayak on the lake, and also spent a night in Chichicastenango which has one of the largest markets in Central America.

From our paddle on the lake.  The water has risen quite a bit in the past few years....

Chichi was actually quite a nice little city. Saturday evening as we were walking around, many people were starting to get set up for the big Sunday market. Neither of us are much of the shopping type, but it was still interesting to wander around and see what there was to see there. Then it was an easy few rides on the chicken busses back to Xela. Xela kinda feels like our home here in Guatemala, and it was good to be back in time for the potluck dinner with everyone from QT.

From the market in Chichi

For the third QT hike, we will be doing a full moon hike up Santa Maria. It hasn't actually happened yet, but it will be basically the last thing we do before heading back to Guatemala City and flying back to NY the following day. I am really hopeful that this time we will get good views of Santiaguito which is the very active volcano that we attempted to see a couple weeks ago. Starting the hike a bit before midnight should put us on the summit well before sunrise, when the skies are the clearest. Wish us luck!

And of course to view more awesome pictures that we took (all from Nico's camera though)

https://picasaweb.google.com/nicotedesco