I broke out of work early leaving Antigua around 4 pm. My first objective: Chimaltenangoabout 300m vertical above the town. By the time I reached the madness at the pan-american highway it was already starting to get dark. With the help of a few ayudantes I threw my bike up ontop of a chicken bus and sped off into the evening fog.

I arrived at Los Encuentros a little after 9 in temperatures around freezing. I stocked up of food and beer and began the 20km ride up to cumbre Maria Tecún – lit by headlight.

About halfway up the climb to 3200m a pickup truck came up behind me, matching my speed. It got annoying to the point that I stopped and asked them was going on. The truck pulled up along side me loaded with men. “where are you going” they asked me – I told them my plan was to bike through the night to Totonicápan. “this land is private” they told me “yes, but I am on a public road” I said a bit nervously.

After a bit of back and forth the men in the truck sped off – on a road I knew had no exit. I headed my inner voice and pulled off into the woods on the nearest trail – extinguishing my light and taking a break for a piss. – Sure enough the pickup doubled back. Creeping slowly along the road. I ducked behind a boulder and waited for them to pass.  I resolved to continue with as little light as possible – advancing quickly to the trailhead.

I reached the summit of Maria Tecún around midnight. After my encounter earlier that evening I scoured the forest and retreated far from the trail to pitch my tent.

There are very few places in the Guatemalan highlands where you can wild camp. Campesios rise early and guardianes patrol enormous tracts of private land. That being said it hasn’t stopped me from trying to camp where I can. Camping in Guatemala has made me extremely paranoid about finding a hidden spot. About eight times out of ten I am awoken by someone, usually armed.

I have never adapted well to the urban establishments in Latin America. Which is why a quiet night in the wilderness is like medication to me.  Towns in Guatemala grid themselves out with concrete towers in a patchwork with livestock and farmland. Latin American life is noisy – and life in Antigua more so with the churches in a constant competition to out firework each other. Each weekend – bombs and fireworks go well past midnight – and the first bombs of the day set off around 5am like the muslim adhan. Dogs and roosters fill in the spaces in-between.

It’s really a shame because Guatemala has so many areas of natural beauty – and solice. But I have yet to find a way to live as a foreigner outside the urban center.

The communal forest of Totonicapán is dotted with countless springs and aqueducts. Each spring has the name of the municipality it feeds painted on it along with a color code – corresponding water pipe buried below. The area has an enormous trail system – which coincidentally is mostly ridable, even on the bikepacking setup.  Following the color blazed on the trees you can follow the waterlines below.

That is not to say I didn’t get lost more than once  // cliffed out or stuck in a section with no way out but down. For happenstance I stumbled across an enormous cliff formation with views over the forest. I pulled off my bike cleats and scrambled to the top, only to find two Mayan men up at the top – barefoot as well. Holding a fire ceremony. One of them had to be 80 years old.

We talked for a bit and I left them to their rituals, exploring around the far side of the cliff. Not that any rock climber would make it this far out into the forests of Totonicapán Guatemala, but if they did they would find incredible granite towers just waiting to be climbed.

Part of what makes this area so special is the abundance of footpaths. Quiché and Totonicapán are home to countless small indigenous villages living much like they did 400 years ago – working the land, farming, logging and weaving. To approach this region is to arrive without a map. Looking across the deep canyons and vallies you can let your imagination wander with the countless opportunities for exploration – visible in the numerous trails and 4×4 roads that switchback the hillsides.