Our route map consisted of four photocopied pages, kindly drawn up by a couple guides from Quetzaltrekkers. Two pages were narrative instructions, the other two - a crudely drawn map. It was 50 or 60 kilometers from Xela to Lago Atitlan as the crow flies, and a mere 20 inches worth of lines scribbled to guide us. Our plan was to bike the recently blazed hiking trail, and these sheets of paper were supposed to get us there.It began in the village of Xecam, at a church with a road leading towards the mountains. I stepped into the tienda to verify, “Which road leads to the trails over the mountain?”The Dueño, looked at me, then my bike, and said, “Forget about it. There´s no way you will make it with your bikes.”
My Spanish fails me often, so I had to ask again,…
Our first turn was “up a path with flat smooth stones”. We each tested our biking abilities against the obstacle . We each made it about 20 feet until our rear wheels began to skid, forcing us to step off our bikes. The trail leveled out here and there, allowing us to saddle up momentarily, but after we crossed a creek, the real pushing began.
“Remember when we used to ride our bikes?”I joked.
“Yep. Sometimes even downhill. Those were good times.” Sean responded.
The sun began to set. And we hurriedly looked around for a campsite.
“Glad we have our hammocks, would sure be tough to find a level spot on this cliff.”I commented.
I was becoming more certain that north and south America were ramming into Guatemala, squishing the country up into torturous mountains. The locals didn´t seem to notice or care, walking up and down the trails with ease, often accompanied by a horse or two helping to carry the burden of leña (firewood) for cooking and heating. Every hour or two — into the night, a dozen or so locals would trample past us; until the foot traffic dwindled with the remaining twilight.
“Buenas DIAS!”A native merrily greeted me the next morning, shortly before the sun was up.
I was startled, and not just because it was so early, but because his dark stubby face was a mere 18 inches from mine, peering into my hammock.
“Si.”I muttered sleepily and rolled over, hoping he would go away.
“Donde vas?”He implored.
“A dormir, con suerte.”
“Y después?”
“Lago Atitlan.”
At breakfast, we sat and watched all the locals passing by.
“There they are.”Many would say, having heard about us in Xecam, where word of three gringos passing on bikes must have circulated like the wind.
Then came pounding footsteps accompanied by nervous laughter, followed by two guys — apparently startled, they slowed down noticeably. “Seems they didn´t hear about us,” I thought to myself.
Shortly after, I went to pack up my hammock, but encountered it on the trail, hastily stuffed into one of my dry bags. “Uh oh. What`s this doing, here?” I asked myself.
Stuffed inside the dry bag, I found the camera and most of my sleeping gear. But I was still missing my pillow, the straps for my hammock and some metal stakes.
“It´s just not right to steal a man´s pillow.” Sean said when I told him what happened.
Within an hour, it was no longer feasible to drag our loaded bikes up the steep trail. Forced to carry our gear and bikes separately, we shuttled them up, one at a time, one hundred yards at a time, again and again.
I find it hard to believe, but, eventually we did reach the “cuesta” of the mountain and celebrated with some banana bread and peanut butter, purchased from the Mennonite Bakery in Xela (a place performing small miracles of gastronomical delight every Tuesday and Friday).
We pulled out our map and realized that we were going to need a bit more than banana bread to keep us on the right track. “Ride through Pacural” was one of the more simple instructions we could latch onto, but when the (”Road will curve to the left, on the right side after the curve, some paths to right(ruts)”) ruts did not appear, I decided to inquire with the locals, “Is this Pacural?”
“Si.” Was the reply.
And to get a better sense of the area I asked, “And that town up there, what is it called?”
“Pacural”
“And down there. Pacural as well?”
“Si”
Plan B: Use our visual diagram to reach the trailhead to Santa Catarina. It was supposed to be at a school — there couldn’t be that many schools out here, right… So we went to the first one, and then saw another one further up the hill, so we went to that one, alas another one appeared at the absolute top of the ridge. “That´s the one.” I said confidently. I still believed in the power of our map.
We passed through small dirt streets in what appeared to be a long term refugee camp. After Hurricane Stan wiped out hundreds of homes with landslides around Lago Atitlan, many people were relocated up into these little mountain towns. USAID tents were still being used while they tried to scrounge up the resources to build more permanent adobe structures. Roadwork mangled the last stretch up to the school and a man stood by his truck, “Where are you going?”
“Lago Atitlan, por Santa Catarina.”
“But, the road is that way, pure pavement” He said pointing down the hill.
“We´re trying to find a hiking trail to ride.”
“No hay,” he said and repeated for emphasis, “There are none.”
He pointed across the mountains at the lake which we could see for the first time, its volcanoes rising sharply out of the terrain. “You can take a dirt road to the lake, it starts just 100 meters from here. Directo”
Directo. It´s what we want to hear, and it´s what they like to tell us, but it rarely implies what it means. The best translation I can come up with for the word is, “keep going until you reach a T and ask somebody else”
We looked at each other with expressions that clearly said, “Why not?”
Down the mountain road we raced, checking our brakes before hitting the sharp cliff-lined turns. When we found ourselves winding around the mountain and away from the volcanic peaks I skidded to a stop.
“Any thoughts?” I tossed out, “Anything on the map.”
“Off the grid.” Goat replied.
This was no surprise, and as I stole a brief glance at the map, I couldn´t help but laugh. It looked far too abstract to qualify as a map.
Through a patchwork of multi-colored agriculture draped over the mountainsides, we continued down the bumpy rutted out road. Creeping behind me was the feeling that this road was not as “directo” as promised, and the volcanoes faded from view.
Fortunately, dirt roads usually go somewhere, and we found ourselves in San Tomas La Union the next morning after having dropped about 5,000 feet elevation. We were such a rare sight in the town that they sent reporters to interview us and take photos.
“There is a road to Lago Atitlan?” Sean asked.
“Just turn left at the corner. Directo por San Miguel.” A fruit vendor said with an eager smile shaded by a wide brimmed hat.
Pavement abruptly ended into a chopped up track of dirt and rocks, passable only by pedestrians, motorcycles and four wheel drive vehicles. Men and women sat on bags of recently harvested coffee, waiting to be picked up. Their eyes followed us curiously. Pigs with floppy ears rooted along the roadside for food, and wild dogs tentatively followed our path. Coffee was being spread out under the sun with a rake, a rhythmic, musical sound. We traversed this neighborhood for many miles as we gradually climbed back up into the mountains.
By dark, we had come to the foot of what could only be described as “the hill,” because we would soon discover that it´s unrelenting steepness forced us to recognize it as the most challenging climb yet.
“We´re looking for a campsite, a place with a couple trees to hang our hammocks. You know of any places near here?” Goat asked a man in front of a house beside the river.
With some form of K`iche` his first language, he replied in soft uncertain Spanish, “You can sleep here in this building. There is no roof, but the weather is good.”
As soon as we began unpacking, we were swarmed by curious townsfolk. Every item we pulled from our dry bags elicited a quiet wave of curiosity. The headlamps were particularly fascinating, as were the Thermarest chairs we set up in the empty, roofless structure. The narrow doorway was painted with awestruck faces, watching our every movement. When I got up to grab my water bottle, the kids all ran off giggling, returning to their lookout posts as soon as I sat down.
It just so happened that the Bridge was out, and the trucks that shuttled the villagers up to the Lago had to stop in front of the house and discharge their passengers to cross the river on foot, and change trucks. Every hour or so, a new group would entertain themselves with a bit of gringo voyeurism while waiting for their ride. In exchange, our window was a constant reel of entertainment, a makeshift television splashing images of beautiful faces; kids covered with snot, others with leathery skin, tightening to expose a genuine smile.
All the while, an imposing wall of a mountain guarded the entrance to Lago Atitlan. It´s presence felt as we tried to sleep. Something just wasn´t right about it, the way the line cut up the mountain, the angle too abrupt, the pass too close. I pitied even the crow as it flies to the top of this mountain. The faint sound of giggling woke me up, bubbling into unrestrained laughter as I opened my eyes and sat up. I counted 17 different people standing around looking directly at me from various openings in the structure.“Buenos Dias” I greeted them as I rubbed the sleep from my eyes.
A chorus of voices echoed my words. I hoped we were right, but as I looked to our path ahead, I wasn`t so sure.
A desperate stretch of dirt road clung to the steep mountainside. Each turn switching back and forth, unsure about its destination.
Every revolution of my cranks caused my bike to creek and groan and I expected my chain to snap at any moment. I could have walked up this hill faster than I was riding and thought about one of those questions we get all the time, “You ever have to walk your bike up a hill?”
On this particular road, that would be a luxury, I thought… The reality is that walking a fully loaded touring bike is exponentially more exhausting than riding it, and so I made every effort to keep momentum. Stepping off meant having to step back on - a delicate maneuver at best, on such steep terrain. This involved holding the brakes and leaning against the bike so it wouldn`t slide down, jumping on, clicking into the pedals (maintaining balance through the first traction-less pedal stroke) and grinding your way up again.
“Guess how many kilometers that hill was?” Goat asked as we sat for lunch enjoying the view.
“Too many.” I replied.“8 K.” Goat verified after checking his computer. “Have any idea how long that took?”I looked down at my watch and answered, “Ooohh, about 4 since the river.”
“2 kilometers an hour.” Sean added.
“Ouch.”
“Heh, I probably sat against my handlebars wheezing for at least half of that.”
Just before sunset we found ourselves resting on the roof of a friend`s house. In front of us, a vivid panorama of the lake resting at the base of three volcanoes while the sky flashed its remaining torrid pigments across the cloud before the darkness brought out the stars. A lady was singing at the community church and her voice was amplified across the lake.
I thought about our map for a moment, laughing about the confidence a few scribbled lines can give us; I pulled it out to look it over. The pages weren`t much to look at, but they were an idea, and they had served their purpose.
And the view couldn`t be better.
