Our next stop in Guatemala takes us to a crater lake on the extinct Chicabal volcano. This crater lake is revered as a sacred Mayan place. To incorporate this natural monument into our trip, we make a detour of two times 100km. But one of the advantages of traveling with our own vehicle is that we can change our route every day.

Ascent to the Chicabal crater lake

When we arrive, we quickly realize that although there are roads up to the crater rim, it is really not possible for our camper Ben to climb any further up the steep road than the first parking lot. We continue on foot. We climb a good 500 meters in altitude on steep or very steep paths to the viewing platform. We should actually be overlooking the crater lake by now, but unfortunately, we can’t see much apart from lots of clouds and the nearby forest. So, we head straight down into the crater to the lake.

Chicabal crater lake

A volcanic crater is steep on the outside, and in the case of Chicabal it is just as steep on the inside. Unfortunately, we have no view on our descent to the crater lake. When we arrive at the lake shore, the cloud cover finally lifts and we can see the entire crater lake in the warm sunshine. After all, we are at around 2800 m above sea level and it is noticeably cool under the cloud cover or in the shade.
We enjoy our break on the lakeshore and look at the various flower bouquets on the shore. Mayan ceremonies are probably held here or at least flowers are brought here as a memorial. Some of the bouquets are older, but at least two are still very fresh. Unfortunately, we were unable to witness an active ceremony.
The break is inevitably followed by the ascent to the crater rim and then the subsequent descent back to our overnight accommodation. We spend a cool night in the hills of Guatemala’s high plateau. With this excursion, we have finally integrated a little more exercise into our daily camper routine. At the same time, this is a little pre-training for a longer hike near Antigua – we’ll report back soon!