A beginner’s guide to hot springs and modes of transportation in Guatemala

Between near debilitating jetlag, and sorting out my school and homestay the first few days in Xela were a bit hectic, but because I did all my life admin before the weekend, I got to squeeze in an adventure on Saturday, when some hostel amigo/as went on an EPIC ADVENTURE to the Fuentes Georginas.

The Fuentes Georginas are hot springs at the base of Cerro Quemado, a dormant volcano within the mountains which surround Xela. The springs were discovered by a pair of locals in about 1902, and were later turned into communal baths, and named after "benevolent dictator" Jorge Ubico's wife. Ubico was the last president before Guatemala's ten-year long civil war. He came to power with the backing of both liberals and conservatives, and ruled for about 13 years during which time he did some good things (built infrastructure, provided some economic stability) and a few more bad things (quashed opposition, made it legal to kill indigenous people who failed to comply with a law controlling when and where they could work). According to the internet, his nickname was "the Little Napolean of the Tropics". Which I literally could not love more. After he was overthrown in 1944, Ubico fled to New Orleans where he lived in exile until his death in 1946. 

Like the intrepid exploradara/os we are, when faced with the option of saving 30quetzales (the currency here – about 6 dollars) by not taking a tour bus up the mountain, we laughed and thought of all the brews that could buy (a lot), and decided to wing it ourselves.

A chicken bus. 

So we jumped on the local bus (known as a “chicken bus” – and it’s too soon for me to say whether that’s an affectionate term) to travel to Zunil the town at the base of the mountain. The buses are good fun – no seatbelts, no suspension, no concept of passing distance or speed limits, no limit on how many people can ride… #libertarianparadise.

The only vaguely clear photo I could take from the chicken bus. 

The ride was short, but really interesting, because it was my first chance to really look out of a window on a bus (I had an aisle seat on my coach from Guatemala City, and the windows were fogged up with humidity for the whole ride).  The mountains interspaced with valleys, with a generous serve of atmospheric fog gave me views that I don’t think I will ever find underwhelming. It also shows how the majority of Guatemalans live – that is to say rurally on impossible slopes.

Another small town outside Xela

We had a quick stop in a small village, where a guy jumped on and enthusiastically espoused the virtues of the plastic things that hold cards that you clip onto the bottom of lanyards (no sale), and another guy with an ice-cream trolley brought 4 pre-made ice creams onto the bus to sell.

The ice-cream guy's cart

After the chicken bus, we haggled for a ride the 8km up the mountain with a local man. When I was a kid, when Dad came home from work, he’d always stop 5meters from the driveway and let us ride on the bull bar at the front of the Hi-lux into the garage. Little did he, or I, know that the years of hitching rides on bull bars would prepare me for this moment. Eight of us piled into the back of the ute, and held on for life as we made our way on the single, occasionally dirt, lane road up the mountain. There are no photos of the journey, because of said holding on for life, but it was just stunning. We rose up through the clouds, and just when you think you’re at the top of a ridge, you catch a snippet of another peak high above you – it was just incredible.

Along the roads we got a closer look at the truly magnificent determination of Guatemala’s farmers. Not a single square metre was wasted, vertical or otherwise. And yet somehow, the crops were still planted in perfectly straight lines. Goats and cows lingered on the side of the roads, occasionally tethered, but mostly constrained by the fact that they literally could only go up or down the road.

But at the end of the road, we reached the hotsprings, which were pretttttty amazing. We ended up spending a number of hours there, jumping in and out of the pools. At about 5, just when we were starting to think about contemplating going home, a storm rolled in and we decided to wait it out. Hanging out in the springs in the rain was just incredible – but as the rain kept coming, and it became less likely that this would be just another 30min downpour, we had to make the dash down the hill.

Hot springs

So, we rallied and dragged ourselves out of the water, only to find that all of the pick up trucks that you could hitch had bailed… leaving us with the deeply undesireable option of walking 8km down the mountain. We managed to summon all of our collective luck and found one truck going down that we were able to squeeze into. It’s not common that I’d say squatting in the back of ute, while on the verge of hypothermia and with rain-knives slashing  my face was a godsend, but hey – Guatemala changes a lass.

At the bottom of the mountain, we managed to intercept an almost-but-not-quite full chicken bus heading back to Xela, however at twice the cost of the first bus. Turns out, twice the cost meant twice as far away from where we wanted to be back in town, so we again legged it through some kind of early Christmas market to jump into one of the shuttle buses that service Xela.

I have no idea what this is.
It's not a shuttle, or a chicken bus.
But I now dedicate my time in Xela to finding out and riding in one of these. 

The shuttles are good fun – they’re your standard minivan, however rather than sticking with a paltry 12 or so people, you become intimately acquainted with up to 25 of your newest friends. There are people sitting on people, standing/bending awkwardly around the chairs, as well as up to 4 people hanging out the side of the van.

Very pretty.
Very cold. 

Long story short: 

hot springs: good

chicken buses: cheap. 

ute-based transportation systems: lifesavers. 

shuttles: not so much. 

Until next time, frenemigos!

The view straight up in the hot springs.