Just a Leisurely Jaunt Through Guatemala

This weekend is my last at Quetzaltrekkers. While it's hard to leave so soon, I'm also totally excited for my last trek. Instead of Tajulmulco, I’m helping guide a hike from Xela to San Pedro, on Lado de Atitlan, with Fydor and Abe. We’re also taking a few of our favorite older boys from the orphanage along, as a treat for them and a break for their house parent.

The trip actually started at Casa Argentina, with a walk to the bus station. From there we took a camioneta up to Xecam, a tiny town high in the hills above Xela. The road was so steep, rock and winding I was amazed the bus could pass, but glad to be riding. Xecam was little more than a few houses, a church, a school, cornfields and sheep. So we set out, with still more climbing to be done. We wove in and out of the forest and people’s fields, always ascending. By midday it was clear that a few of our less fit clients weren’t going to make it, so we were forced to send them home at the first road crossing. From there we hiked up onto a ridge overlooking the Santa Maria valley and had lunch.

In the afternoon we descended quickly through the cloud forests and into the corn fields around Xetinamit. Eventually we ended up on a winding road, where we could let all the clients and the kids hike ahead and hung back, stopping for a swim in the river and to smoke. As we were rambling down the road, singing Cielito Lindo, this man overtook us and started singing along with us. Then he was gone as quickly as he came. It was soo cool.

The road ended in Ixtahuacan, or Nueva Santa Catarina. During the civil war it, like many other indigenous villages, was renamed. As the war went on the town, like many others, was split, with some in support of the military, others in support of the guerillas and still more stuck in the middle. Eventually the town divided in two, Viejo and Nuevo Santa Catarina, and the two still haven’t reconciled. Despite its horrible history, small and indigenous Ixtahuacan was very welcoming. They let us camp in their school for a small donation and all the kids came out to play soccer with us in the square.

As a special treat, we take interested clients for a temescal, a traditional Mayan sauna. It’s an amazing, if somewhat unusual experience. First, the sauna structure is itself absolutely tiny. You have to get on your hands and knees to crawl through the doorway and inside it’s just tall enough for someone small, like an indigenous Guatemalan man or a western woman, to sit. When we three guides were all inside, it was like something out of a Marx brothers movie. Once inside, you seal the entrance, so that the warm air escapes. In one corner there’s a fire so hot that you have to switch places to avoid sitting near too long. You pour water on the fire to create steam and put copal in it to clear the lungs and the head. Once you’re warm and sweating, you bathe by pouring buckets of icy water on yourself, a pleasant shock to the system. This particular temescal was constructed of concrete masonry units, coated in layers of soot

Temescals are very important in indigenous culture. They’re an efficient way to bathe in extremely cold highland weather, as you only need to heat a small space and many people can share it at once. They’re also important in indigenous medicine, used for all sorts of infirmities. Traditionally they were used for spiritual cleansing rituals too, after battles and before rituals. When indigenous couples are married, the temescal is often one of first things they build, sometimes with the help of the community. When their children are born, the parents may then bury the placenta in the temescal.

I don’t know about burying placentas, but the sauna certainly was soothing before bed.