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I’m still here in Xela… for one more night anyway… yesterday I made the trek up to the Fuentes Georginas hot springs… far up in the clouds clinging to the side of a volcano…

The journey involves a half hour ride in an old American school bus sitting with 3 indigenous Mayan women (one with a baby in a pouch of intricately-embroidered fabric on her back) in a seat designed for 3 American elementary school children…

The bus drops you in the town of Zunil… which is pretty enough as it is… a very much agricultural town… where this time of year with the lack of rain, the patchwork of mountainside fields on the hills are dry. Down in the valley below, however, an intricate system of tiny irrigation canals snakes through the bright green plots containing all sorts of different vegetables… the scent of onion making it the most pronounced… the scene is completed by men walking along the canals and, using a shovel-like device, throwing the water over the fields… It’s amazing how labor-intensive it is… all day walking along and shoveling water…

Once off the bus, you need to find a pickup driver willing to drive you up the mountain through the fields and clouds… The drive is beautiful as it is on a road which clings to the side of the steep mountain. Theres a line painted in the middle to separate it into lanes… but they are certainly not wide enough even for 2 vehicles to pass without being really careful (which the pickup drivers are not)… Last time I was here I walked the 9 kilometers up with a couple of my fellow Spanish students… and that was a beautiful walk…

Today, however, it was thick clouds a few minutes after ascending from town… so conversation with my driver ended up being the highlight… I was actually really amazed how well I was able to carry on conversation… using only the present tense and my rudimentary Spanish vocabulary. We just chatted about our families and our homes… he going on for some time about how much he loves his region of Guatemala… I sharing my lacking descriptions of the beaches and mountains of New York… and finally discussing how he had friends up in New York working to keep their families going… It was quite a nice experience… as I don’t think people in any other country have been as interested in carrying on a conversation with a foreigner… especially one with only a basic understanding of the language… though I suppose mine is better than some…

Once we arrived at the Fuentes, I went for a soak… the water being actually just barely warm… which was somewhat disappointing… but I found out later from my driver that this is owing to the fact that it’s the dry season… and the lack of rain means a lack of water to be heated in the mountain and drop into the pool from the cliff that forms it’s back wall… The experience was still just as atmospheric as it should be… Though emerging into the cold air was somehow less refreshing and more tortuous than it was when the water was nice and hot…

The drive down the mountain was pretty quiet… as we pretty much used up all the Spanish conversation I’m capable of on the way up… I hopped on the bus back to Xela to ponder the day’s experiences…

Back in Xela I hiked way up a steep hill on the edge of town to this little vegan restaurant with a view looking over the entire city… The food was as excellent as the view… which together more than justified the arduous climb…

I didn’t take my camera along for the day’s adventures so I wouldn’t have to worry about it… but I managed to snag a few pictures from the internet to give you an idea of what it all looked like…

 

  

Mayan woman w/ Child

  

Fuentes Georginas hot springs

  

Shovel irrigation

  

Shovel irrigation in action