Horseriding with an Armed Anarchist in Bandit Country

One of the really appealing things to me about travelling to the Lago Atitlan area was the possibility of trekking up and having a good look at a volcano first hand. However when it came down to it, both the foreign and commonwealth office website and lonely planet seriously discouraged any kind of trip without at the very least an armed escort, but also preferably with a couple of tourist police.

When we arrived at Santiago Atitlan, the second village of our little tour, there were a number of touts who approached us fairly aggressively offering every kind of service from kayaking to volcano walks whilst also wanting to assist in any drug procurement issues we might have. Our initial thoughts were to find out what we could from the tourist office, and see if we could find a slightly more reputable guide. In the end, there didn't appear to be any kind of tourist office, so we went to a fairly upmarket posada/hotel and asked them about the tours they did.

All their trips were run by the same American couple who had lived nearby for the preceeding 20 years. The woman from the hostel wasn't too complementry about the chap we would be going with, but was totally confident of his safety record and ability to get us out of any sticky situations which might arise. We couldn't do the San Pedro volcano trip though as he claimed to be fed up of having to pull his gun on average one out of every three trips he led in that direction.

In the end, the best bet was an early morning horseriding trip up to the El Mirador lookout point giving views across to the pacific (on a good day) and back to the 3 volcanos surrounding the lake. This also included a gourmet breakfast, but as you can imagine, that had nothing to do with my choice. Unfortunately, part of the blurb for the ride described the climb of "1800 vertical feet", and this was enough to totally put Clair off. So we just paid for me to do it, and Clairy had a nice long lie in while I went off on my adventure.

I was picked up the next morning at 7am by a very nice elderly American woman called Nancy in a battered 4 by 4. She drove me to their utterly stunning place a couple of miles away on the lakeside. I was introduced to some of their vast array of dogs (they had 22 in total in 3 separate packs) and led into the house for some lush coffee and home made muffins. Shortly after Jim arrived, who was to be my guide for the trip.

Jim was in his early 70's, but didn't look much past 55. He hiked on average for 5 hours a day, but had a slightly awkward gait, having broken his hip 18 months earlier whilst on his own in the mountains. He had had to drag himself back down on his broken hip to get help. This was the first of many heroic stories he told me of himself. He had moved to Guatemela whilst the civil war was still in progress and had been forced to learn to look after himself fairly quickly.

He is apparently known locally as 'That Crazy Russian' due to his various armed encounters, and as it is known that he is always armed and hikes/rides with a pack of dogs, he is generally now given a wide birth by the various robbers/bandits roaming the local countryside. Obviously this was not a man too fussed about blowing his own trumpet. However, I felt reasonably confident as the woman who sold us the trip assured us he holds the unlikely achievement of being the only local guide who has never been robbed.

In the end, despite his slightly grating arrogance, I really quite liked the chap. We had some great chats. He describes himself as an anarchist libertarian and we talked at length about his ideas that collective responsibillty was the reason for most crimes against humanity. He was a total insomniac, and had a photographic memory for the vast amount of stuff he'd read, so kept me entertained with whacky quotes to back up his rather twisted view of the world.

Soon I was shown out to my very healthy looking horsey. She was called Cimarron Rose (after a James Lee Burke novel!) and was lovely and impeccably behaved. I was slightly horrified to learn afterwards that she was pregnant. The poor girl had to carry me as well as a baby!


Here's Jim with his immensely painful looking broken-hip horseriding posture that apparently wasn't actually as bad as it looked.


Looking back towards the San Pedro Volcano - Positively rife with bandits.


Here is the ridge that we rode up to the top of. Sadly I can't remember its exact name. It is directly on top of the fault line that is a continuation all the way down from the San Andreas fault. Hense regular earthquakes (he said they get tremors pretty much every day, although we sadly didn't feel any), and the line of volcanos.


Volcano Toliman in the foreground with Volcano Atitlan behind.


Looking back down towards Santiago Atitlan, the town where we stayed. The settlement closer on the left is the temporary shelters built after hurricane Stan in 2005 almost completely buried the village of Panjana. The walls of a volcanic lake collapsed after the relentless rains sending thousands of tonnes of mud and water down the mountainside. The relief shelters were built right between the two major landslides. It looked like an unbelievably precarious place to put them.


Volcano San Pedro again, this time from the ridge.


Volcan Toliman.


Looking west from the ridge. On a clear day you can see the 30 odd miles down to the pacific from here.


Oh hi! There I am...on my poor horsey Rose. Wearing a manky borrowed cap no less.


Jim leading the way back home.


What a good girl. She was staggering a bit going down hill and I felt desperately sorry for her, but Jim assured me she was fine.


"Its quite steep here so lean right back" Jim told me, in case I attempted to follow his lead of slouching over and looking like he was about to unintentionally dismount at any moment.


A large avocado tree on the way back.


This was the old dock from 20 years ago or so. The lake's water level has dropped by more than 30ft over the years leaving it high and dry.


I rather liked the composition of this last one.


Upon returning to their lovely place I was treated to the most gorgeous breakfast while Jim recounted many stories of his exploits. The food was stunning. I had pineapple slow poached for 4 hours in rum butter and brown sugar followed by eggs with Bearnaise sauce served on a freshly made waffle with home made hash browns and griddled pork. Gurt luscious!

A thoroughly enjoyable experience all round, and Clairy was well chuffed to have me back without even slightly being robbed or shot. Bonus!