Subida de Acatenango

This past weekend Tim and I climbed the Acatenango Volcano, one of (at least) four volcanos surrounding Antigua. Acatenango is dormant, but from the top you have an excellent view of Fuego Volcano, which erupts every 8-15 days. As with most things in Guatemala, the travel angency gave us very little information about what to bring or what the trip would be like, but we knew to bring four liters of water each from conversations with other travel agencies, as well as all of the clothing we currently possess, as it would be cold. 

Our two guides were Fidel, age 63, and his son Antonio, age 16. Antonio was drinking a 16-ounce energy drink on the hike up because he had been slaughtering pigs from 8 the previous evening until 6 in the morning, before meeting our group just four hours later at around 10am. Fidel carried their tent, and the rest of what must have been at least 30 lbs. of gear, in a bag withh shoulder straps he declined to use in favor of a rope stretched across his forehead.

Fidel and Antonio used their machetes to cut firewood for a fire at our base camp, which we reached after about five hours of hiking straight up the mountainside through cornfields planted at about a billion-percent grade (Tim had been teaching me about civil engineering - clearly I'm a quick study). The volcano erupted the whole night, so we slept very little, but it was worth the sight of lava and flaming rocks hurtling down the side of the volcano.

We went to bed early in our tents and awoke at 3:30 to hike the rest of the way to the top of Acatenango to get an even better view of Fuego, as well as to see the sun rise over the valley and explore Acatenango's crater. The descent to base camp was an easy downhill "ski" through volcanic ash, followed by a two-hour sprint to the bottom after we ate breakfast and packed up. 

Two days later, it's difficult to climb stairs, but we both agree it was the coolest hike we've ever done. We also had incredible luck - many people make the hike and the volcano doesn't erupt, or fog obscures the view, or they get rained on for 24 hours. We had beautiful weather and an overall wonderful experience.