Guatemala

We have a two week break for Semana Santa (Holy Week) in April and wanted to go somewhere to continue practicing our Spanish, so we were stoked when we found cheap tickets to Guatemala. 

We started our 10 day trip in the city of Xela (Quetzaltenango is the official city name, but most people call it Xela, pronounced shell-a). 

This is the parque central, or central plaza, the cultural hub of the city. Xela is the second largest city in Guatemala, so it's big and gritty. But it also felt safe, friendly, and vibrant. It's also the only city with an indigenous majority since 60% of the population is of K'iche Mayan descent, so we got to experience both the Latin American and Mayan culture and language. 

Most of the streets were cobblestone and the sidewalks were an adventure in parkour. It took constant vigilance to not step in dog poop, fall into a sudden crevasse, or trip on hanging electric wire. 

 

Apparently during COVID the stray dog population exploded, so there were also packs roaming the city. They were mostly cute, but their fighting woke us up most nights and I saw plenty of people walking with sticks to defend themselves. 

We were fortunate to be in Xela during Semana Santa, so the whole city was gussied up in purple for the week long celebration. 

We took an afternoon to walk to Park Cerro el Baúl on a mountain that overlooks the city. Xela is located above 7,000 ft elevation and we were trying to acclimate before our volcano hike later in the trip, so we ended up walking an average of 8-9 miles a day around the city. 

Besides a nice view and walk in the pine trees, the highlight of this park was a giant concrete slide. 

It was BYO cardboard, or crushed plastic bottles for the speed demons. This slide was definitely a highlight of Xela for the girls. 

I'll tell you what was NOT a highlight for the girls: the two hours of Spanish immersion school we put them in each day! While the girls are getting a fully bilingual experience at La Paz and soaking up Spanish like esponjas, it's been much harder for Mike and I to speak Spanish in our daily lives since we teach in English all day (our subjects are in English, and the other core subjects are taught in Spanish) and then come home and speak English at home We wanted to use this trip as an opportunity to fully immerse, so every day we each did 2 hours of private lessons at a Spanish immersion school, and stayed with a local family the whole 5 days. 

The family was three generations of mujeres fuertes (strong women), who cooked breakfast, lunch, and dinner for us and encouraged S & P to dress up in the "ropa tipica", or handmade traditional Mayan clothes, that their daughter had grown out of. We all ate and talked together over traditional Guatemalan meals of beans, tamalitos, tortillas, and rice. Due to the classes and host family, our Spanish improved more in those 5 days than it had in months living in our highly international and touristy region of Guanacaste, Costa Rica.

Obviously I had to hit up the famous bakery here, Xelapan, and we whiled away a few afternoons playing some very heated games of travel Trouble in coffee shops. 

By far, my favorite experience in Xela was walking around and admiring the "alfombras" or street carpets that the citizens create for the Semana Santa processions. The whole thing is beautiful, from the creativity and colors of the designs, to the ingredients they use (colored wood chips, colored sand, colored flour, plants, or fruits and vegetables), to the community effort involved. Below are some photos of my favorites from the neighborhood of Salcajá, which is famous for their alfombras: 

One of the groups let us help! 

They design and cut giant wooden stencils to use. 

A quetzal bird, the national bird of Guatemala and a bird I hope to see in Costa Rica someday!

This one had awesome shading. 

The alfombras were so beautiful and impressive, and became more so when we realized how ephemeral they are. They create them in just a couple of hours, and are destroyed when the procession walks over them that evening, or before that when frequent rain threatens to wash them away. 

The oldest Catholic Church in Central America is in Xela, Iglesia de San Jacinto, built in 1524 right on the heels of Cortez conquering the Aztecs in 1521. I'm guessing this is why Salcajá has such a special procession and such elaborate alfombras. 

As part of our tour exploring Salcajá, we got to stop at a local baker's home and make the traditional Semana Santa sweet bread. This was a certain type of torture for S, who loves sweet bread but has an allergy to gluten, but she enjoyed making elaborate bread designs anyway. 

The traditional oven used to bake the bread. This was basically in his living room. 

The processions, of which there are many (each church has their own procession, and there are lots of churches), are somber affairs since they are commemorating the death of Jesus. Hundreds of people in religious garb or costumes (Roman soldiers), walk slowly through the streets following an intricately designed float with a crucified Jesus on it. There are drummers and musicians following the float playing dramatic and ominous music for extra effect. This image was striking, with the oldest church in Central America and a full moon behind clouds during the procession. 

Above is the float from the procession at Salcajá. They told us this weighs over 2 tons, and it takes 96 people to carry it the 2 kilometers of hilly cobblestone streets they walk in total. The coordination alone to lift it, walk as one, turn tight corners, avoid electric lines (they have 5 people with 20 ft giant forks who walk around the float and lift the electric lines for the float to pass beneath), and put it down was mind blowing. 

After 5 days in Xela, we switched gears and hired the sickest car ever to take us to Antigua. Mike's experience was a little different than ours since he was in the front seat with a seat belt and open window while the girls and I sat steaming and squished in the back seat with the subwoofer booming in our bones the whole 4 hour ride. Guatemala is a beautiful country though, and at least the views of the montane pine forests were nice. 

Antigua couldn't be more different from Xela. It's quaint, clean, colonial, and highly touristy. It sits in between three volcanoes, and the views are incredible on a clear day (that's Volcán de Agua in the background). Some more pics to set the scene: 

P & the pigeons in the Central Plaza. 

There are quite a few ruins of churches that were destroyed in so many earthquakes they eventually gave up fixing them and left them in ruins. 

We went to a local finca, or farm, and took a chocolate making class where we made chocolate from bean to bar. 

S got to eat her favorite fruit, cocoa fruit, which you can't find many places in the fruterias. 

The view from the roof of the house we stayed in. Once again, the ultimate community came through and our friend Chris (we played together on HeeHaw and Mike played Masters Nationals with him) kindly offered to let us stay at his place while he was traveling in Portugal with his partner. Their house was incredible, and a perfect location to explore the city. 

The main reason we went to Antigua however, was to hike Acatenango. Volcán Acatenango is a popular overnight hike to see the adjacent Volcán Fuego, one of the most active volcanoes in the world. Gwinner runs an outdoor adventure company in Antigua, Old Town Outfitters, so we were able to hire a guide through his company. 

Volcán Acatenango's summit is 13,000 ft elevation, and the base camp where you sleep is over 12,000 ft. The hike to base camp is not too long, only 7 km (4.3 miles) one way, but in that distance you gain 5,000 ft of elevation. So it's STEEP. And since it's over 12,000 ft, temperatures frequently dip below freezing.  

While we were both very excited to try a physically demanding hike with the girls, with the possibility of an incredible payout view, Mike and I approached this family challenge in totally different ways. I spent 4 weeks reading every blog and research source I could to make sure we were prepared, writing detailed packing lists, asking around to borrow hiking poles, gathering a mountain of gluten and lactose free snacks, and researching high altitude pulmonary edema (altitude sickness) in children. I fretted and prepared. Mike was like, "we got this!" and went along his merry way, putting faith in the universe and his genetically superior athleticism. 

The first couple of miles and hours we walked through farmland along the slopes of the volcano, just above 7,000 ft. 

The pictures don't do justice to how steep it was, but it was just unrelentingly steep. By far the steepest hike I've ever done. 

The 3rd mile or so, you enter a cloud forest. It thankfully flattened out for a little before getting very steep again. It was slow going, but the girls so far had been absolute troopers. We stopped for water and/or snacks whenever they asked, and we followed our typical family hiking rule (no whining, but you can always ask for a carry). Halfway through this section, S started to get a headache, and feel dizzy and nauseous. Altitude sickness can strike anyone no matter how fit they are, especially at the rate that we were ascending (it's especially common on this hike) so we were pretty worried for about 30 minutes and stopped to rest. Luckily, she started to feel better (seemed like exhaustion, not altitude), so we were able to continue. I credit our 5 days acclimating in Xela with our ability to complete the hike.

The last mile, just before treeline, just below 12,000 ft, there's a beautiful pine forest where the campsite is located.

There were some great views of the top of Volcán de Agua over the clouds from the trail.

 Just as we were wondering if we were going to see any volcanic activity or just a nice view (many people hike the whole thing only to see a cloud the whole time), we felt and heard a ground shaking boom and saw a giant cloud of smoke over the trees. We looked back at our guide Luis, who has done this hike over 500 times, and he had a look of concern on his face. 

That eruption was over by the time we turned the corner and saw Volcán Fuego for the first time. Our campsite on the side of Volcán Acatenango was a mile and a half from the summit of Volcán Fuego, which felt like a mostly safe distance. 

Our cozy tent sleeping arrangements for the night. 

We were wondering if that eruption was going to be the only eruption that would happen, but as the photos below show, it continued to erupt every 15-20 minutes all evening, night, and the next morning. Many gratuitous volcano photos follow, because it's not every day you get to see the earth forming new land. 

We ate a delicious dinner cooked by Luis while the earth supplied the entertainment. 

Cool view of the moon and Volcán Fuego going off.

The nighttime was the best viewing, because you could see the lava flow exploding into the sky and then down the sides. At times it looked like a golden glitter explosion. The photos don't nearly do it justice. When the sky was clear and we could see the stars and lava eruptions at the same time, it was incredible. 

There was a cloud covering the top in this one, so it looks like it's raining glitter. We mostly slept well since everyone was exhausted (and luckily no one had altitude sickness), but we were woken up a few times in the night by the ground rumbling and shaking, with the sound of falling rocks in the distance. 

Instead of waking up at 3:30 a.m. the next morning to hike another steep mile to the summit of Acatenango, we let the girls sleep in and Mike and I got up early to watch the sunrise. 

More awesome weather and good viewing for breakfast. And a heart shaped pine cone that P found on the trail. 

After breakfast, we hiked out in a quarter of the time it took to ascend, and caught our van back to Antigua, where we spent the rest of the day recovering and watching movies at Gwinner's house. 

Mike got to tag along on an urban bike ride with Gwinner's weekly bike gang group. This is something he used to do weekly in Austin too, and I know he's been missing his bike, so it was awesome that the timing worked out for him to get to explore Antigua by bike with a group of locals. 

I loved Guatemala, and hope to make it back there someday to explore the Mayan ruins and other beautiful places we didn't have time to see. In my view, it was my ideal vacation: culture, connection, physical exertion, mild discomfort, and beautiful nature.