Laguna Chicobal

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  Quetzaltenango, Guatemala
Saturday, February 17, 2007

Ahoy Mateys,

Yesterday was rather unspectacular as a whole - we had school as normal, spent a couple of hours on the internet and had dinner at the school, which we left promptly because we had an early start today. Thankfully the middle of the afternoon gave us something interesting to write about, when we went to a cafe and watched a documentary about the Guatemalan civil war, called ¨When Mountains tremble¨ (Good luck finding this on the shelves of your local Video Ezy...).

The movie is remarkable for the fact that the film makers must have risked their lives getting footage of both sides of the conflict, and that many people who agreed to be filmed, would be putting their lives at risk also (it was filmed during the war, not retrospectively)

01. Beautiful Laguna Chicobal

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It was very sobering viewing in parts -  hearing people describe how their family members were horrifically tortured and then burned alive by the army, or who had friends who ¨disappeared¨ - their mangled bodies found a day later. Their crimes? Being the secretary of a village workers co-operative, or being in a peaceful protest against the government.

Clearly the filmmakers were of the view that the rebels were fighting for a just cause, and that the government of the rich and the army, were brutally suppressing any attempt by the poor majority to have any say in the political process. What´s more, like in the Nicuragua & El Salvador civil wars, the US financially and militarily supported the regimes murdering all these people so that US business interests could continue to exploit cheap labour and favourable operating conditions (no unions etc.).

Sorry, I (Sam) sound like a bit of a commie here, but it does make you angry when you learn a bit more.

Anyway, today was far more interesting (and politically neutral) when we went out on our own, and visited an extinct volcano about 35km´s from Xela

02. Laguna Chicobal with Tajumulco in background

. We woke at 6 to a crystal-clear morning, and walked to the bus station by 7, as we had been told that after mid morning clouds obscure the view.

The chicken bus ride to the town where you start the walk was unsurprisingly jammed packed, but the beautiful views of mountain villages and frosted fields took our minds off the discomfort. We had a few side-ways glances for our seat mate, who's conversation drifted towards ¨how much did this cost¨ etc - turned out to be completely harmless of course, but was a bit weird all the same.

The walk from the bus was pretty hard yakka! The road to the lake went straight up the hill behind where we were stopped, and we had to stop frequently to catch our breath in the thin air. After an hour of this (!) we reached a ranger station - a brief respite before another 45 minute climb. On the way up we frequently saw tiny, beautiful hummingbirds, their bodies about the size of a human thumb, buzzing between flowers. Occasionally, we heard the sound of a jet flying high overhead (or so we thought).

At the top of the mountain (2900m - higher than Ruapehu), the views were remarkable. The crater lake (Laguna Chicobal) was beautifully ringed by the forest, with views of Central America´s highest peak, Volcan Tajumulco (at 4220m, this is about 500m higher than Mt Cook), which we are to climb in a couple of weeks, in the background.

Looking behind us, down the side of the Chicobal was even more remarkable. In the near distance loomed Volcan Santa Maria, with its side vent Volcan Santiaguito steaming at its base

03. Kaboom! Santiaguito erupts

. We didn´t have to wait very long for the sound of the jets to be explained - Santiaguito erupts every half hour or so, and as we watched, accompanied by the rumbling described, it belched a huge stream of ash and smoke kilometres into the air. It was guite to surreal to watch a volcano erupt so regularly, yet no-one, except those in the immediate vicinity, is in danger - I guess the locals would worry if it didn´t keep erupting.
As a brief aside, Sam had it in his feeble mind that he would take a trek to Santiaguito to see it close up, but upon seeing it in action from 10 km´s away, he has decided against it!!

After sitting there amazed for the best part of half an hour, we proceeded to plod down the 600 or so steps down to the edge of the crater lake, from where we walked around it´s edge. It was unfortunate that during the whole time we were at this beautiful, and otherwise serene place, there was a church service going on with the preacher and singer taking turns and shouting through a megaphone, which reverbarated around the crater - although even this is part of the cultural experience, so we shouldn´t be so harsh.

Like clockwork, the clouds rolled in at 10.30 sharp, and the view from and of the crater was obscured within minutes

04. Sam with some of the 600 steps

. It was nice for us to be in the cool clouds as we staggered back up the 600 steps (50 at a time) to the crater edge, but we felt sorry for the poor gringo´s who hadn´t crawled out of bed at our ungodly hour, and saw absolutely nothing after their trek to the top.

The way back into town was far easier - we caught a shuttle from the ranger station; only then realising we´d saved ourselves less than 20 cents each by our hour long trek uphill....doh!

Back at home we treated ourselves to a scrummy lunch for venturing out on our own, and slept and talked away the rest of the afternoon and evening in our little room.

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