After almost a month in Panajachel on Lago de Atitlán we travelled on to La Antigua. The city is Guatemala’s tourist centre. Let me just say this much: there is a McDonald’s here, a Burger King, Wendy’s, Subway, Dunkin Donuts… and hundreds of other cafés. Strictly speaking the lovely colonial old town is paved exclusively with accommodation, restaurants, travel agencies and souvenir shops in every price range and has nothing whatsoever to do with Guatemala.
Antigua is quickly described in three pictures:
Admittedly: when we arrived, I briefly regretted, given the many wonderful cafés, that we had not done our Spanish course in Antigua. But once the first coffee has been drunk and the first cake eaten, the temptation of an oversupply of lovely places is soon kept within limits again.
Antigua was Guatemala’s capital until a severe earthquake in 1773 and, thanks to its colonial centre and the three surrounding volcanoes Fuego, Agua and Acatenango, is a genuine feast for the eyes.
In Guatemala you find volcanoes at every turn. 34 of them dot the country in total. Four stand in the immediate vicinity of Antigua, including one of the most active volcanoes in Central America: the Volcán de Fuego. And its name, fire volcano, is said to be well deserved.
You do not climb the Fuego itself, though, but its (currently) inactive neighbouring volcano Acatenango. Although numerous travel agencies in Antigua offer expeditions up the Acatenango and the climb is a popular tourist activity, I had a healthy respect for the tour:
You walk up to 3600 m with all your luggage for the night, 4 litres of water and food on your back. At night the temperature is supposed to drop to freezing. Around 4 in the morning you then climb the remaining 400 metres to the summit to watch the sunrise from there, before tackling the 2000-metre descent.
So far, so good. Sadly the accounts of quite a few people said that the walk was insanely strenuous, that they saw nothing at all because of bad weather, or that it was simply incredibly cold. As if that did not unsettle me enough, six people had also died at the summit in January when a severe storm blew up unexpectedly. Not exactly encouraging. But hey, it will be fine, right?
We kept an eagle eye on the weather report, picked the best day and the best tour operator, bought rain ponchos and gloves, and off we went!
Our group was very manageable with seven walkers and our guide - and happily nobody was hugely ambitious, so we climbed the 1500 metres to our base camp at a very leisurely pace. Who would have thought it: if you set the right pace and take enough breaks to catch your breath, walking at 3000 m feels no different from walking at 1000 m!
Halfway up we suddenly felt drops on our skin. They were not drops of water, though, but a rain of ash from the volcano!
After six hours of walking we reached our camp at 3600 m with a clear view of the Volcán de Fuego!
We had already heard it rumbling throughout the walk and now it rewarded us with regular eruptions of dark clouds of smoke. ❤️ We were fascinated by its continuous eruptions - but it would get even better…
Because what we did not suspect was that it would spray lava all night long! Simply incredible! Not of this world!
Every time we had just closed the tent, the volcano exploded again deafeningly and spat lava into the air, so that we quickly opened the zip again and carried on marvelling at the spectacle. Even at the time it felt unreal to me. But now, in hindsight, I can barely believe myself that we really did see this wonder of nature with our own eyes…
My pictures do the eruptions no justice whatsoever, by the way. Good old Christin had a DSLR with her, and this is what the pictures look like then:
After what felt like ten minutes of sleep, the alarm went off at 3:30 to tackle the final 400 metres to the summit. Our group set off on the effort in slightly reduced numbers; Jan, among others, preferred to slumber on for a few more hours…
Happily we could leave our luggage at the camp and our guide reduced the previous day’s pace even further, allowing us a few breaths to recover every 10 minutes. So the climb was still strenuous, but not as agonising as I had feared.
After a good hour we were the first group at the summit to enjoy the sunrise behind the Volcán de Agua. Alright, honestly, it was too cold to really enjoy the spectacle, but we did our best.
What I found particularly fascinating was the shadow cast by the Fuego. It looked like another (phantom) volcano. Very spectacular. I had neither seen nor expected that before!
Once our hands had frozen off, we started the way back. Incredible how quickly you walk down what you climbed with such effort before…
The tour was definitely one of our very biggest highlights, if not THE highlight of all. We were incredibly lucky that the rain spared us almost entirely and that the volcano had a very active day and an even more active night.
Although only today a report appeared saying that the Fuego is currently extraordinarily active… Perhaps we had more luck than judgement in everything going well?
Next destination: Costa Rica!
Our route: