Laguna Chicabal (Lake Chicabal) is a crater lake located within the inactive Chicabal Volcano in the Quetzaltenango Department of Guatemala, at an elevation of about 2,900 meters (9,500 feet). It’s considered a sacred site by the local Mam Maya people, who regard the lake and surrounding cloud forest as spiritually significant. Ceremonial altars often line the shore, used for traditional Mayan rituals, especially during May and on other special calendar dates. Swimming is prohibited out of respect for the lake’s spiritual importance. The crater is often shrouded in mist, which adds to its mystique and is viewed by locals as a manifestation of the lake’s sacred presence. The journey to Chicabal typically involves a steep hike, including over 500 steps down to the crater, making the descent memorable and the return a bit of a workout.
Passing through Quetzaltenango on our way from Mexico City to Panama City, we chose Laguna Chicabal as one of two hiking excursions we undertook in the area, alongside the volcano of Santa María. It was an offhand trip—our host had recommended it just the day before as a beautiful spot, and we weren’t yet aware of its spiritual significance. We expected a quiet walk in nature and were completely surprised when we stumbled upon a solemn procession of pilgrims making their way to the shore, engaging in elaborate rituals.
As we later learned, May is a special month for the local Maya groups. May 3rd—a syncretic blend of the imported Christian Día de la Cruz (Day of the Holy Cross) and the onset of the rainy season—coincides with the culmination of the main annual rain-calling ceremonies at the lake. Access to the lake is restricted for tourists on and around that date. By sheer chance, we happened to visit shortly after, in mid-May. And as it turned out, ceremonies were still ongoing then. This fortuity elevated the trip from a casual hike to a cultural highlight of our journey through Guatemala.
Here, I’ll share the story of this unique experience along with all the practical information you might need if you’re planning to visit Laguna Chicabal yourself.
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Getting from Xela to Laguna Chicabal
Laguna Chicabal lies about 25 km southwest of central Xela (Quetzaltenango). The nearest town is San Martín Sacatepéquez (aka San Martín Chile Verde). Frequent chicken buses run to San Martín from the stop next to Saint Mark’s Church in downtown Xela (bus stop location).
We hopped on a bus on a leaden, early morning and managed to snag two of the last free seats. The conductor attempted to rip us off, but we found out the right price from a kind lady sitting next to us. Just under an hour later, we got off at the turnoff to Laguna Chicabal, just off the main road in San Martín (junction location).
We had planned to walk the remaining 4.6 km to the lake shore—but just a few hundred meters in, the plan unraveled. Moments after it rattled past us, a rickety pickup truck screeched to a halt. The driver leaned out the window and waved us over, urging us to squeeze in with the already crammed passengers riding in the back.
Somehow, our bums fit on the bed rail, and, hands holding, we balanced our bodies as the truck jerked up the steep and bumpy road. It wasn’t more comfortable or much faster than walking, but still, next-to-free and surreally interesting.
The vibrantly clothed, exotically featured passengers could hardly speak Spanish. Until that moment, I hadn’t even realized such isolated communities still existed in the Americas outside of Amazonia. They peeped at us with a mix of shyness and amusement, dodging the camera lens with bursts of giggles.
We saw a couple more trucks en route, then hopped off in a wide open area where an entire fleet was parked and a throng of locals crowded among them. We paid a Q25 entrance fee and joined the pious cortège toward the crater lake.
Here’s the location of the car park, ticket office, and trailhead to the lake. The path beyond is technically drivable with a 4×4—at least in dry conditions—but I think visitors’ vehicles are never allowed past that point.
This was how we got there by a combination of chicken bus and pickup shuttle. I presume the latter operate only during pilgrimage periods. If you prefer a more comfortable, hands-off approach with hotel pickup included, you can also join an organized tour such as these.
The Hike to Laguna Chicabal
The road beyond the checkpoint climbed steadily toward the crater rim, a 1.5-kilometer push with roughly 200 meters of elevation gain. The drizzle that began falling around that time worsened the condition of the track, which was already a pliable brown sludge. Each step felt like lifting a boot dipped in warm glue. A couple of trucks—without passengers, probably belonging to the locals who ran the shop—skidded past us, spraying us with specks of mud, but the walk itself was pleasant enough in the cool air and the quiet of the forest.
Reaching the rim, we stepped into a small cluster of life clinging to the edge of the crater. An impromptu shack sold drinks and snacks, its few tables sheltered under a drooping tarpaulin that flapped lazily in the wind. Just beside it, a group of elderly women tended enormous steaming cauldrons set over open fires. Whatever they were cooking smelled like the kind of thing you only find in remote highlands.
A plank ramp led to a wooden viewpoint that looked only marginally trustworthy. It stuck out over the forest canopy like a hastily nailed-together pier. From there, the lake revealed itself in brief, shifting windows: patches of rolling mist parted, showing the dark water far below, the verdant slopes plunging toward it, and then—just as quickly—everything vanished again into white.
The descent began at a steep stairway carved into the hillside, the steps made from fixed logs wedged between shaky wooden rails that offered psychological support more than physical. As we made our way down, we crossed paths with families on their way back up: the younger supporting the older one careful step at a time. Everyone greeted us with warm, effortless smiles.
Eventually, the forest thinned out and the stairs spat us onto a broad, grassy shore. The lake lay silent ahead, half-veiled by the wisps of mist curling over its surface.
The Rituals on the Lake Shore
We followed the lakeshore path clockwise, a loop of roughly a kilometer, and found groups scattered all along the periphery—some huddled in silence, others mid-chant, others simply tending to a slow, steady flame. Each group worked around a small ceremonial fire, coaxing it with bundles of dried herbs and splinters of wood, the smoke drifting into the mist until the two became indistinguishable.
Offerings lined the shoreline in a loose mosaic: candles flickering despite the damp air, flower bouquets propped upright in the shallows, and ornamented crosses wrapped with ribbons or crowned with marigolds. The cross, a colonial import, hadn’t displaced the older Maya cosmology so much as been absorbed into it—just another symbol tucked into a worldview spacious enough to hold both ancient deities and post-Conquest saints.
Clothing varied between groups but carried the same unmistakable highland signature. Women wore patterned cortes bound with wide woven belts, their huipiles embroidered in bright geometric motifs that seemed to glow in the fog. Men wore simpler trousers and shirts, but many had the traditional red-striped headcloth tied around their heads, a style still common among Mam day-keepers and ritual specialists. A few younger guys cradled guitars and strummed soft, repetitive chords that blended with the murmur of chants and the occasional crackle of resin catching fire. It felt less like a structured ceremony and more like dozens of parallel devotions unfolding at their own pace.
Despite being the only foreigners there, we never became a point of interest. People glanced up occasionally, offered a brief, warm nod, and returned to their rites. The atmosphere wasn’t exclusionary—rather inward-facing. These were not performances for outsiders but acts of reciprocity with the forces they consider animate: the lake as a living entity, the mountains as guardians, the rains as a gift that must be courted. In Mam tradition, the boundary between natural and spiritual worlds isn’t rigid; the landscape is full of persons, only some of whom are human.
As we walked, we noticed how each altar mirrored a slightly different blend of influences. Some leaned toward explicitly Maya symbolism—arranged flowers, incense, colored candles, offerings set out in the four cardinal directions. Others showed the hybrid form that’s become common across the Guatemalan highlands: Catholic saints invoked alongside Ajaw and the ancestral spirits, a cross standing beside a fire meant to speak to the world’s oldest energies. The mixture didn’t feel contradictory. It felt like a spiritual toolkit refined over centuries of adapting, resisting, and absorbing.
The farther we rounded the shore, the more intimate everything felt. Families knelt near the water to wash offerings or to sprinkle flower petals across the surface, watching them drift slowly into the mist. Children helped gather firewood, elders murmured prayers in Mam, and every so often someone placed a hand on another’s shoulder in a gesture that needed no translation. We moved quietly between these pockets of devotion, aware that we were glimpsing something rarely accessible without intention or luck.
By the time we completed the loop and reached the grassy clearing again, the lake had almost disappeared behind a thicker curtain of fog. The flames burned brighter against the dimming light, and the soundscape—soft guitar, crackling fires, low voices—felt suspended, as if the crater itself were amplifying and containing it. It was hard to say whether the rituals shaped the atmosphere or the atmosphere shaped the rituals.
Just as the drizzle turned into a cataclysmic shower, we retraced our steps to the car park, caught an open-air ride to the village, and finally found shelter in the inside of a car that responded to our raised thumbs on the roadside and drove us to the city.
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