And so another lengthy drive routed us through Guatemala City and on to Antigua. Antigua is a very touristy place with a lot of expensive food that’s not bad, but not really amazing either. Some people love it, some loathe it. Us, well, we used it as a launching pad for fun!
Antigua is loaded with great cafes though and we drank quite a bit of excellent coffee. We had noticed that it was awfully “cloudy” when we arrived. Later, we came to find out that there was a good deal of smoke mixed in those clouds from the volcano we were planning to climb… which literally erupted the day we drove in! Fantastic timing for us as we’d much rather watch it erupt from the safety of the town than on its summit!
We sought more coffee and hatched a new plan… a much more grandiose endeavor would be to climb the nearby Volcan Acatenango 13,045′ (3,976 m) which overlooks the very, very active Volcan Fuego. We asked around town and to our dissapointment the cheapest outfitters we could find came in at nearly $200 US. That seemed a bit much to us considering it’s merely a 13er back home and that the reality of it is that we’d be paying mostly for the security. If the region was safer and we were free to wander around as we pleased we wouldn’t hesitate to go without a guide being very experienced at altitude, etc. After some more research and asking around we decided to drive ourselves to the remote, itty bitty pueblita at the foot of the volcano called La Soledad and try to arrange secure parking and a local guide to avoid getting robbed on the mountain – I’m quite fond of the camera. Google Maps led us up a very interesting “shortcut” where we thanked the lucky stars it didn’t rain as we’d have been done for. Even with it being dry, it was a little rougher than we prefer for vanning. But in the end we made it to the town, hired a guide, and parked our van in a very nice family’s yard. All for about $35 US I might add! Plus, the money goes to the locals who not only live there, but can use every dollar they can get. Everyone was happy!
It was the real deal: chickens and cows and dirt. Niccole has had some plateau-busting breakthroughs in her spanish speaking and with her help we had a nice conversation with the folks there. I don’t think our guide, Timoteo, had any idea that we’d truly be very fast, well equipped, and used to high altitude and insisted on a 3:30am start time. We laughed and it was probably a good thing considering the slant we had to park the van on and sleep in.
Bright eyed and bushy tailed (ha), we immediately began hiking up the loose volcanic slope. In the darkness we could only imagine what our surroundings looked like. The sounds of heavy breath and Timoteo’s machete tinging against grass as he cruised through the terrain in his rubber boots, bag strapped to his forehead, made it a much more unique approach than most high elevation slogs we’ve done. Plus, it was nice not having heavy rock climbing packs to weigh us down! The sun began peaking out of the clouds about half way up – great views and pretty forest.
As we approached the summit it got quite chilly and I could see a cloudy mist beginning to form right smack on top of everything.
We pressed on and when we topped out the saddle having climbed the steepest, hardest part, a mere 100 feet from the true summit, the guide stopped and said, “we’re here.” I walked the easy 1-2 minutes to the real top and took this disappointing photo.
Our guide said it would likely stay that way and that we might as well head down. It sounded a bit suspect to me and I thought it might be worth it to hang out for a bit and see if it would clear. We could actually hear and feel the ground-shaking, explosive noise coming from nearby Fuego – I couldn’t believe we weren’t going to get to actually see it! Timoteo was clearly cold and wanted nothing to do with hanging out so we started down. We didn’t get 2 minutes down the trail when I looked back and saw the sky open up!! I literally ran back up to the top. It was stunning to look around the summit!!!
So I’m standing there, just checking out the panoramic layer of clouds below us while Niccole is walking towards me on the rim, when Fuego, covered in the cloud bank, rumbled loudly. I looked out at the white layer of clouds and couldn’t believe it when I saw a giant plume of orange, sulfuric looking smoke come shooting out of the cloud layer! It took me a minute to even remember to shoot a photo it was so awesome!
I shot some pretty cool video of the clouds moving over Fuego but you’ll have to wait on my future time lapse project for that! On a clear day, the view from the top must be amazing. Still though, standing on top of the clouds in the thin, windy air is certainly a good time too – it reminded us quite a bit of playing up high at home.
Fully satisfied, and with Niccole getting pestered relentlessly by our guide to reel me back in, we made our way back down. Timoteo must have simply been freezing because as soon as we dropped in elevation he wanted to relax and take breaks everywhere whereas Niccole and I were ready to nail the whole decent down and split. We made good time despite the oddities and found ourselves back at the van at 11:30am! Hilarious – I had guessed we’d be down before lunch with such an early start.
We drove back to Antigua (sans Google “shortcut”), scored some showers in town, and had a few tequila shots before a very early bedtime. Mission accomplished, we saved ourselves about $150 or so dollars, didn’t get blown up, and had a very authentic and thrilling outing into a remote Mayan area.
After some more splendid coffee in the morning we drove a bit out of our way northwest to check out Lago de Atitlan. On the Pan American Highway proper, I decided to race some of the local transportation. I barely won out over the colorful Guatemalan chicken bus, but the normal, smaller transport vans smoked me like usual.
We descended into the enormous caldera formed by a gargantuan volcanic eruption 84,000 years ago that dispersed ash over an area of some 6 million square km! The caldera having since filled with water became Lago de Atitlan – unique in that it is endoheic (lacking any direct flow to the sea). The lake was stunning and the clouds made for a cool view with sun poking through and hitting the water in several spots.
And now we’re off for El Salvador and hopefully, some really good surfing! Back to the ocean we go…
PS – Our last remaining hubcap is gone – yes, that makes three for those of you who have been keeping count 😉
