Quetzaltenango, or colloquially, Xela: Guatemala’s second-largest city couldn’t be less similar to picturesque, foreign-minded Antigua, but it also felt nothing like the sprawling squalor of Guatemala City. In addition to being the city of choice for foreigners dedicated to acquiring Spanish skills, Xela serves as the jumping-off point for treks and tours of Guatemala’s stunning central highlands. This, of course, is why I was here.

Xela doesn't know it, but she has a sister city across several oceans. Steep narrow streets that wind haphazardly; brightly colored houses rising from the hillsides, crumbling roofs leaning down to hear whispers from the city below; a bucolic central square filled with vendors and families: I thought immediately of Darjeeling. Even the elevation is similar. At just over 7,600 feet, Xela is several hundred feet higher than her Indian counterpart and over two thousand feet up from Antigua. She lacks the photogenic gentility of the colonial capital, but there’s an unmistakable feeling of Xela’s being much more lived-in (much like Darjeeling).

I arrived at the aforementioned city square after seven bleary-eyed hours on a pre-dawn minibus. Fortunately, after a few days in mile-high Antigua (and two wheezing acclimatization stumbles up Volcan Pacaya), the altitude rise in Quetzaltenango presented less of a problem than I’d feared. The same could not be said of my stomach, which had succumbed several days earlier to micro-organisms in Antigua’s ubiquitous (and free!) filtro water. A slight fever and dry cough added to the general feeling of shittiness that clung to me as I slouched into the evening pre-trek meeting.

The group gathered around Quetzaltrekkers’ courtyard home was characteristic of Guatemala’s backpacker set: five young Israelis greeting each other like long-lost friends, two lanky 23-year-old Germans who did the entire trek in smooth-soled sneakers, an affable Aussie-Scottish couple, and—at 29 the oldest of the group—me. At the beginning of our pre-trek pep talk, one of the young Quetzaltrekkers guides remarked amiably that “We consider this a challenging trek, but we also think most people can do it.” In hindsight, while I don’t necessarily disagree with their assessment, that particular statement says much more about the average trekking client in Guatemala than it does about the difficulty of the hiking. The backpacking population skews extremely young, extremely fit, and eager to participate in the volcano-scaling, breath-stealing, peak-bagging travel culture up for grabs in the region. I liked everyone immediately.

This is a good time for a few notes on Quetzaltrekkers, whom I recommend wholeheartedly. They’re a self-sustaining, nonprofit trekking company run entirely by volunteers. Trekking fees help kids in the impoverished areas of Xela; one of our guides had been the beneficiary of the educational and crisis support Quetzaltrekkers funds. The guides (many of whom are from English-speaking countries in Europe and Oceania) are knowledgeable, well-prepared, and adept at managing expectations throughout the treks. For a refundable fee, trekkers can rent everything needed, from hiking boots and water shoes to packs and sleeping bags. When I trekked with them at the end of 2014, Quetzaltrekkers was located in the lower courtyard of a rambling guesthouse called Casa Argentina, whose proprietors routinely failed to answer the door. Tip: Arrive early, knock often. See Quetzaltrekkers' description of the Xela-Atitlan trek here.

Note: There are no porters (refreshingly typical of Guatemalan adventure companies), so food and supplies are split up among the hikers. 25+-pound packs are the norm, depending on seasonal water needs. Most of our group stuffed their non-essential clothes and gear in trash bags and paid a nominal fee to have them dropped off three days later at Lago Atitlan. It’s probably better to use one's own pack when hiking, but it’s tough to fit the necessities in anything smaller than a 55L bag. I was initially so floored by the weight of my loaded pack that I wound up relegating my brick of a wide angle lens to the bag drop sack. You know your pack is damn heavy when you choose to throw a $2,500 Canon lens in a trash bag full of dirty clothes and hope a stranger delivers it safely to you three days later. Achievement unlocked.

When 5:45 AM rolled around, I was grateful to have spent an extra day in Xela before pushing on to higher mountain villages. The cough persisted, but a night of rest and purified water did wonders for the rest of me. After a stroll through town and a quick chicken bus ride to Xecam, we started a steep climb that lasted through midday. The initial ascent was no picnic, particularly for those of us unaccustomed to heavy packs, but the tree-lined trail and mountain streams were undeniably lovely. Over the next 60 hours, it would become painfully clear that Guatemala’s geography doesn’t understand the term “gentle.” The country’s hills do not roll; they plummet. There are no gradual inclines or easy descents, only calf-burning climbs and downward slides that can feel more like skiing than hiking. I’m exaggerating, of course, but not much. Lottie, our 26-year-old blonde British guide, walked like her feet never touched the ground and patiently explained at regular intervals what was coming up next. Santi, second guide and Xela native, revealed that he’d once run the entire three-day trek trail in a mere five hours. Even the Germans (whom I’d nicknamed “the cyborgs” after witnessing the punishing pace they set) were skeptical about the feasibility of that one. My money’s on Santi.

The first morning’s three-ish hour climb led to a grassy, sparsely populated plain that narrowed into a sharp ridge. Like any climb worth suffering through, we were rewarded with a view.

I felt the altitude during our leisurely ridgetop lunch. Descending was a relief, if only temporarily. The narrow mud path gouged into the mountainside crumbled as I tried to sidestep a protruding rock, and I went partway over a ledge that dropped precipitously into the misty cloud forest below. Even now, I’m not sure how I pulled myself back up. I mentally high five myself on a regular basis for managing to not die in that cloud forest. I’m enthusiastic about both hiking and altitude, but the universe likes to remind me every once in a while that I’m not all that naturally gifted at either one. That said, near-death experiences are usually an integral part of good travel, so screw it.

We stayed in private homes rather than camping. I’m not sure to what degree safety figured into this decision rather than simple logistical expediency (access to water, cooked food, dry floor, and so on), but it was an ideal way to pass through central highland villages like the evening's stopping point, Santa Catarina Ixtahuacan. In between a smoky evening bucket bath in a traditional temazcal and the morning’s tipico breakfast in a tiny cinderblock cantina, we played round after round of Yaniv, an Israeli card game that the German cyborgs invariably won. Weeks later, I explained Yaniv to my big Irish family over Christmas vacation. From Israel to Guatemala to Chicago, cards transcend nationality, as does competition. I still want to beat those fucking Germans.

The second day of the trek proved somewhat less back-breaking than the first. This was helpful, since my legs had turned to rubber. After tramping through a few kilometers of cornfields and watching Santi and three of the boys attempt to run up aptly-named “Record Hill”—a couple-hundred-meter ascent graded steeply enough to seriously test foot flexion—I swung the pack down and immediately felt like I’d stepped off a boat after a month at sea (note: I have never spent a month at sea), unmoored and listing.

After an afternoon of river crossings, a spell of road walking, and one last punishing ascent nicknamed “The Cornfield of Death” (it’s not a Quetzaltrekkers trek unless you end the day with an uphill bit!), our crew loped into Xiprian at dusk, noticeably slower but unmistakably exuberant. I’d stopped caring about photographing the landscape earlier in the day. I don’t know if I was just too tired and bruised to care or if good company had won out over the ever-present desire to document, but I found myself obeying Yahav, one of my trekmates who looked like an Israeli version of Fabio, when he barked, “Don't picture, just experience it!” Fair enough.

Another night, another series of Yaniv victories for the Germans, this time with beer and Yahav’s guitar in the background. Alas, there was no temazcal in our genial host Don Pedro’s courtyard; if I’d had any sense, I’d have jumped in the freezing cold shower before the warmth of the day completely disappeared. I did not do this. Still, the food was good, the company was better, and the beer was a knockout—literally.

The final day of trekking started with a 3 AM hike up to a mirador, an open expanse of grass that overlooked a still-dark Lago Atitlan. The pre-dawn walk was mercifully only an hour, and the guides cooked up oatmeal and hot chocolate while we jumped back into sleeping bags. I’d imagine in the summertime this is an immensely pleasant hour before the sun heats up the mountains over the lake. In the winter, it’s bloody cold. Guatemala doesn’t surrender her views easily, and like every other time I suffered in this country, the teeth-chattering wait over Atitlan ended with a spectacular sunrise.

I won’t dwell on the three-hour descent to the sleepy lakeside villages because it was, for me, the worst part of the trek. I’d take a grueling, sweaty uphill trudge over a descent that steep any day. Keeping that level of focus on foot and hand placements was mentally exhausting, exacerbated by the fact that my quads were probably 50% lactic acid by then. I was grumpy when we got to the bottom. Nevertheless, it was impossible not to laugh at the final bit of road we walked on the way to lunch: This being a Quetzaltrekkers excursion, it was uphill.

Overall: I walked a fine line between feeling ecstatic joy and love for where I was and everyone I was with, and wondering why in the world I think I enjoy doing things like this. This strange balance is usually the mark of a great experience. I would absolutely do it again, and I’d absolutely dread it before I did. One day, I may consult a psychologist about this tendency. But by far the best part of the whole experience was that after a week of wandering Guatemala alone—which was fabulous in its own right—I had friends. I didn’t spend a single day of the rest of my trip alone. We partied in San Pedro, ate bowls of caldo real with travelers my trekmates had met in Mexico and Belize, and closed the Antigua clubs after many rounds of ill-considered shots. I got on a plane back to the U.S. the last morning of my trip after an hour of sleep, the world still spinning. I felt terrible the entire way home, and I'm not the slightest bit sorry.

More Guatemala here.

General Guatemalan trekking advice:

If altitude’s not your jam, heed traditional wisdom: no booze, hella water.
Painkillers are helpful for minor injuries and altitude headaches—I ate them like candy.
Drinking purified water a day before departure may help minimize stomach distress.
I drank a half liter of H2O before we started out each day, and it helped immensely.
Those who kept their water bottles accessible were much happier than those who had to laboriously drag their packs off to hydrate.
Bring some cash, including enough to tip hardworking guides at the end of the trek.
Sunscreen is a virtue.
Slapping some moleskin or duct tape on a blister when it’s small is a hell of a lot easier than wrestling with blisters the size of quarters later on (the poor Aussie girl in my group borrowed boots from Quetzaltrekkers and wound up with feet comprised mostly of broken skin by the end of the first day. I never heard a single complaint pass her lips.)
Showers are hard to come by, and you have a better chance at spotting a unicorn than finding hot water. Embrace the stink. If you’re keen on being clean, bring some wet wipes.
We slept with heavy sleeping bags and mats, but I still wore every item of clothing I had to ward off the December cold. A fleece or hoodie is well-advised.

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