Advertisement
Published: July 19th 2008
Edit Blog Post
Volcan Pacaya
Yep, that's lava directly behind us. Antigua!
After our initial uncertainty about this town we have decided to stay a couple days. We'll pick up our tickets today and leave in the morning for Panajachel, on Lago Atitlan about 2.5 hours away.
Lodging:
We stayed at the Yellow House two nights ago and thought it was nice but not great. Lots of travelers obviously stay there and there is a small kitchen for use, a small breakfast is provided, but there are only two bathrooms for a lot of people. We decided to move on to one recommended in Lonely Planet, Posada Juma Ocag. It is a very nice place, with friendly staff, free agua pura, and large, clean light rooms. Only eight rooms so you should book ahead, but for $17US (a little cheaper than the Yellow House) it might be one of the best places in town.
Yesterday: Volcan Pacaya
We set up a tour to one of the nearby volcanos yesterday, called Pacaya volcano. We had a choice between 6am and 2pm and chose the afternoon one, which is a bit more risky with weather but the lava looks better in the late afternoon than around mid-morning so we think we chose
Posada Juma Ocag
Our huge room, with private bath wisely (and we got to sleep in). It was about 90 minutes to the trailhead, and a 75 minute walk uphill to the lava fields. In light of our recent uphill adventures, the walk was like putting Tikal's temple 4 on top of temple 5 with a hike up Semuc Champey's El Mirador to get next to the lava. Definitely need good shoes, but, like all things we've seen in Guatemala, it was well worth the effort to get there.
After hiking up steep cobblestone, steep dirt, and dodging the mounds of horse poo (there was a guy that followed us on a horse for a while offering "taxi service"), we came to the edge of the lava flow. Our guide only spoke Spanish so we only caught pieces of the verbal part of the tour, but did learn that the flow we walked across is new in the past three years. He also made a joke about sacrificing the dog that kept following us in a lava barbecue. When we waited for him to go first he joked about sacrificing the tour guide also.
As we neared the fresh lava flow, there were vents around us and
Volcan Agua
on the hike up Pacaya, we had some great views of Volcan Agua, which looms over Antigua the rock under our feet started to get warmer. You could feel the heat through our hiking boots! You would also take a step and get a very hot draft of wind in your face, or look down and see a little red flow beneath you down a crack - a little scary! After thinking we were close enough a couple times we finally ended up only a couple feet away from the lava. Our guide walked around slamming a stick into the rock (presumably to assure us that the rock was thick enough for our weight) and poking the fresh lava until his stick was on fire.
Quite a guide! We hung out at the main flow for a while and then moved back to cooler, more solid ground for a quick snack. Our guide spotted another fresh flow so we walked over there and lit more things on fire. Ben and Ruth, who we'd met on the route to Coban a couple days ago, showed us pictures of them frying bacon on the rock and we now see how they could do that.
Pretty impressive area, and yet another wonderful way to risk our lives this trip! With dusk rapidly approaching we returned down the the base of the flow and watched the sunset approaching over Volcan Agua and the valley. Very beautiful, and might be the only place that Guatemala City looks nice (it's to the right below the volcano). The trail down only took about 40 minutes and we got to the tourismo van right around dark at 7pm. It was just light enough on the way down to avoid the treacherous mounds of horse dung.
Once again, we had a lot of fun, were impressed with the experience, and would strongly recommend it to others!
For travelers: there are travel agencies on every block in Antigua to book a tour with. It was less than $6us each plus $6 for admission when we got there. We booked through Universal tours, across the street from the Yellow House. It seems to have good prices and friendly service, in comparison to other places we've walked by.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.171s; Tpl: 0.018s; cc: 13; qc: 49; dbt: 0.0935s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.2mb
Mackenzie
non-member comment
Aw!
What a great picture of you guys at sunset :)