Fuentes Georginas and the towns around Xela Quetzaltenango
Sunday, August 5th was our day to explore Fuentes Georginas, the hot springs and thermal baths located in Zunil, Guatemala. Zunil is a city in the department of Quetzaltenango with an altitude of almost 7000 feet above sea level.
To get there, we had to pass through several villages and municipalities. One of them is supposedly called “Buen Verduras” (which means good vegetables) and it is certainly appropriately named! As you drove through that small town, the streets were lined with vegetable carts bearing the largest carrots, cabbages, radishes and onions that I have ever seen! With the window rolled down a crack, the fragrant smell of onions wafted through.
As we got closer to the attraction, we got an up-close view of more farming plots where those gigantic vegetables were being grown! We saw many people tending to their crops. I imagined how difficult it must be to plant, tend and harvest vegetables on the side of a mountain, but they do it! When we had almost reached our destination, we noticed a traffic backup… a line of cars, trucks and tourist vans on the twisted path up the side of the mountain.
Our driver told us that was the path we had to follow and he didn’t know what could be causing the delay. He decided to stop to talk to one of the men tending his field. He asked me to roll down my window and a sprinkler oscillated right through the window and gave me a face wash. We all cracked up laughing! Even the farmer chuckled, and proceeded to say that there was road construction.
We continued on, until we got to a point where traffic was no longer moving. We were greeted by someone (I don’t know if he was a crew foreman or a member of the staff at Fuentes Georginas) but he said that we could catch a complimentary ride from one point to another, where we’d get out and walk around the construction zone and then catch another pickup truck from the end of construction to the front entrance.
We were part of a group of 19 adults crammed (standing) in the back of a pickup truck for the ride through the bumpy construction path, but eventually made it to the front entrance! Once there, we had ascended to roughly an altitude of 8200 feet above sea level! We were in the clouds!
We got in line to pay, and were delighted to be told that our Guatemala-born son got to pay the local rate (about $4 when you convert the currencies) instead of the tourist rate of roughly $8!
Upon passing through the front gates, we saw a couple of food vendors and a path leading past bungalows that you could rent. Some people camped overnight so they could enjoy the thermal baths and wild monkeys all day long! It appeared that most of them were rented and the fragrant smell of campers’ lunches made me hungry!
We kept walking and then got to the shower house and changing rooms. (See featured image on this blog post.) In front of this changing area, where they had lockers to store clothing and other personal belongings, there was an area divided into separate baths, varying in size and temperature of the water. All of them were pleasantly warm, but this one was the warmest, as it was closest to the mountainside slope. You could sometimes feel pulses of heat under your feet or (if you were leaning against the side) on your back. It was so relaxing!
In addition to the relaxation, there were other advantages of this type of hydrotherapy! My dry and cracked heels were smooth when we exited, and the next day Scott commented that his acne had improved and Sarah mentioned that the hot springs had made her back stop hurting. Many people flock to this location and other hot springs in Guatemala for their “medicinal” benefits!
When it was time to leave, we dried off and waited our turn for a pickup truck to pile into for the descent and trip back through the construction area. This video (which I like to call “spilling asphalt from the clouds”) does a good job showing just how much we were in the clouds!
At the construction site, the road crew was shoveling hot asphalt from the top of the truck as the truck moved slowly down the path. Then, they were followed by a big roller. We had to walk around them, and as we did, we hugged the side of a road that had very little land before the cliff edge.
When we finally made it back to our transport vehicle, Santos asked us if we would like to go into the city of Xela (Quetzaltenango) for dinner. He recommended a lovely place called Albamar. They had a large variety on the menu, separate areas for banquet seating and family dining, a gigantic play area for children, and live marimba music! Worth a visit if you’re in the area!
Overall, I loved the trip to Fuentes Georginas and would recommend both it and the driver that took us. The drive to get there is a little over 3 hours from Panajachel, but our driver Santos Jurican made it enjoyable, teaching us little tidbits about the towns we passed through and the pronunciations and derivations of many of the Mayan city names along the way! For example, do you know that Iximché (the historical kingdom of the Kaqchikel Maya and tourist spot for Mayan ruins) is made up of the Kaqchikel words for corn (Ixim) and tree (ché)?
The “right” opportunity arose when I learned about a travel opportunity for adoptive families which would include volunteer work and cultural sightseeing. Being members of that team had a profound impact on me, Lillian and Andrew. Not only were we able to make a real connection to our son’s birthplace, but we met incredibly warm and generous people, all of whom we now consider to be a part of our “family.” In addition to the volunteer work I shared with the Team, I also was able to “give back” by performing as my alter ego, “Farfel the Clown” at a barbecue for children of The Backyard School. It will remain one the proudest and happiest memories of my life.