Laguna Chicabal
Sometime in December 2015...
[Edit: I struggled a lot during my first 3 weeks in Guatemala. It was low season for volunteers, so I legitimately did not have friends in my town for 3 weeks. I had difficulty connecting with locals. I felt really awkward in my host family home, and I was really homesick and lonely. Also, one of their cats brought fleas into my room and I had hundreds of flea bites all over my body. Not an exaggeration. Like, the pharmacist was like “DIOS MIO” when I walked in. Then one fateful day, my host mom told me a new person was going to be joining us in our house - and her presence and friendship completely turned my trip around. This was our first day hanging out together.]
In Quetzaltenango, a common day hike on the weekend includes Laguna Chicabal – a lake in a crater with Mayan prayer sites around its perimeter. It’s a beautiful lake, or at least that’s what people and the Internet have told me.
My Spanish teacher was kind enough to escort my new friend/roommate and I to this great lake via microbus and chicken bus, as opposed to paying extra for a tour company or shuttle. I, being immensely out of shape after not having worked out in 50 years, and having lived all my life close to the ocean, struggled with the high altitude and steep slopes. My Guatemalan teacher, however, just traipsed along, being all used to the oxygen levels and probably having exercised regularly…
We were supposedly in the dry season of Guatemala, but it rained. IT RAINED. IT POURED. FOR HOURS. Being stubborn, we completed the hike, but not without me slipping in mud on the steepest hill and falling. And rolling down the hill. And rolling some more. (This was after I jumped off a moving chicken bus because the bus driver did not care that I was trying to get off the bus with my friends).
Typically the bus drops you off and you walk uphill through this town, uphill (with a little downhill) to the park, and then up uphill to the mirador, and down downhill to the lake itself. I thought this picture was an exaggeration, but after the hike I found it to be drawn to scale quite nicely:
ANYWAY. After much struggling and slipping through mud, we finally made it to the mirador, where we were supposed to see the most beautiful view ever. And it was absolutely covered in fog. This photo is not an exaggeration. All I could do was laugh. Hysterically.
Alas, after coming home absolutely soaked to the bone (and our host mom yelling at us to take a hot shower so we don’t get sick, because we don’t know how to behave like adults), going out with your fellow American friend for hot chocolate is the best. Thing. Ever.
Now I really can tell my grandchildren that I walked uphill BOTH WAYS. No snow, though, just rain and mud.
Sooooo if you want to see the lake, go on the internet.
