Hiking to the top of Central America: Tajulmulco

This is quick little blog to describe my hiking adventures in the western part of Guatemala. Having only 10 days here (highly recommend you go longer) my time was mainly spent doing what I truly valued. With my travel buddy, Ross, we caught the $3 dollar chicken bus from Lake Atitlan to Quetzaltenango or as the locals called it Xela. Seriously this was so confusing as all the verbal information we were told advised us to go to Xela for this hike and the online information told us to travel to Quetzaltenango (turns out the locals resent the original Spanish names and prefer the indigenous names making this). Conversations went like this

Quetzaltenango? Si si Xela!

As you can tell for two white boys who just know enough Spanish for numbers, please and thankyou…. It was a little difficult.

Going back a bit you might also ask. Jules, what the hell is a chicken bus?

Source: http://www.kathmanduandbeyond.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/Chicken-bus-Santa-Cruz-del-Quiche-Guatemala-9-e1420681069875.jp

Well to put it simply it is a budget bus service that connects the entire country, a service that every travel advisory website suggested to avoid because of previous encounters of kidnappings, pickpocketing, busses plunging into the jungle abyss and multiple other unpleasant sounding things! Sounds like a cultural experience (oh boy it was!). Now these are not just your regular buses. They are old American school buses that have been pimped out under the hood, colourful paint jobs and have many seats crammed in to make extra seating (I had to use my t shirt to cushion my knees from imminent abrupt braking to avoid near death from overtaking). So on the chicken bus seat for sat me and Ross, multiple stops later (the bus stops whenever people hail it down, literally anywhere), I had a lady with a fruit basket on her head infront of me and a mother with her two infants in a colourful dual baby sling wrapped around her front while people hoping on the bus selling fried plantains, fresh donuts and sweets for the ride. We just laughed, this was great!

As we are driving down a two lane road across a mountain highway Ross and I couldn’t help but notice how fast this bus was driving. We were precariously overtaking every car on the opposite side of the road as if it was some kind of race. On at least five occasions we would attempt to overtake a car around a blind spot bend only to have the driver slam the brake and pull back behind the car to avoid a head on collision. At this point Ross and I were stunned at miraculous it was we weren’t dead all while the local mothers with their children all laughed probably with a unanimous tone of (pfff tourists!)

Somehow we arrive in Xela in one piece. This was the meeting place for our hike to Tajulmulco. The group that led us was Quetzal Trekkers. This is an outstanding non for profit organisation with all profits go to Escuela de la Calle (“School of the Street”), an organization that provides education, housing, and social support to disadvantaged children in the city of Xela. Not only is their mission on point but the level of service these guys offer is also gold standard. All the gear you need they have (my luggage got lost on my arrival into Guatemala, they lent me literally everything from boots to raincoats), transportation, food and very knowledgeable about the area. All this for around $60USD.

You can find them here and they also offer other spectacular multi day hikes.
https://www.quetzaltrekkers.com/xela/tajumulco/

The following we day we started our trip with (another chicken bus) to the base of the mountain. Our plan was to hike to the first summit day 1, wake up at 3am and climb the second summit with our sleeping bags to catch the sunrise. As we ascended higher and higher, rain clouds and an eerie fog set in (so did my altitude sickness).

Altitude sickness is strange thing, it doesn’t matter how fit you are because it affects everyone very differently. I couldn’t believe how debilitating the effects were and I was the only one suffering out of the group. Massive headache, sick to the stomach, short of breath and muscles cramping at around 3900m with heavy rain it became one of the biggest mental battles of my life. We had reached the first summit and set up our tents and I was a total wreck. Dark angry silver clouds still surrounding us our guides suggested that we wait for a pause in the rain to climb to the summit with no gear just in case there was too much rain early in the morning the following day.

My body was screaming at me to stop but I wasn’t going to let this get in the way of all this effort to get here. Every three steps (not exaggerating) I needed to stop to have a breather. Quads and calves cramping like my muscles were turning to stone and little voice in my head telling me to you’re not allowed to quit. About 40 minutes later of what seemed like the hike from hell we made it to the top. Normally you can see the edge of Mexico, the Pacific Ocean and Nicaragua from the summit vista, however we were greeted with snow and cloud (first time our guide had ever seen snow up there). While not entirely picturesque, I had set a personal bar of pain tolerance so high that anything I will do in my life I will look back, compare and say “not as hard as Tajulmulco altitude sickness”.

First thing I did returning to the campsite was go straight to bed and the next thing I knew I woke up at 3am with a while light in my face (what an ending to a dream)…… but I was fit as fiddle and switch had completely flipped, everyone else except me now had altitude sickness. To our delight, the sky was clear with thousands of stars out, it was time to climb that rock af hill again. With our headlamps on, backpacks with sleeping bags and food we traversed our way up the mountain in the disorientating darkness and with a little stray dog following us (I can’t make this shit up, he just appeared out of no where).

As the sunlight was pushing the horizon we made it to the top, set up our sleeping bags, cut up our banana bread (which the dog stole half of and proceeded to hide behind my mate ross to stay out of the chilly wind, adorable).

Here is a nice pano of the sunrise.

The walk down the mountain was the best bit. Spectacular views everywhere and fried chicken on horizon for dinner (oddly enough, Guatemala does really good fried chicken).

Pollo Pecante. Don't be a gringo like I was and say pol-lo, "ll" in Spanish is a y sound like yacht

It was truly an epic few days for Ross and I with more yet to come!

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