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Lava!
I was just 150m away from the bottom of that lava flow.Some of you of a certain age may remember a film in the early 90s starring Tom Hanks (and Meg Ryan, of course) called Joe Verus The Volcano where Joe (Tom Hanks), a man who believes he is dying, agrees to jump into an erupting volcano. Well, I’m not dying and I don’t plan to jump into an erupting volcano…but I was willing to climb one.
But I had to get there first.
Mindful that I now had just under a month to get to Cancun with a whole lot of stuff to see in between, I’ve been moving quickly. Since I left
Copan Ruinas, I had been travelling to a new place every single day and it has been exhausting.
And once again I was only going to stay one night in my next destination; Guatemala City.
It is probably not the best place to get your first impressions of Guatemala and indeed I hadn’t originally planned on coming here – but my camera battery charger search continues, which was to take me to some sketchy parts of a sketchy city that tourists normally wouldn’t go to. Spread out, with poor public transport and a proliferation of famous American
Iglesia San Pedro Apostol
Another beautiful church in Antigua. fast food chains, the place reminded me of a way more dangerous Auckland. The danger is evidenced by the amount of armed security
everywhere and the amount of heat they were all packing. Seeing guards all around the place carrying double barrel shotguns is a little unnerving at first sight.
It sure ain’t a pretty town either and I’ll let Lonely Planet describe it for you; “Depending on who you talk to, Guatemala’s capital is either big, dirty, dangerous and utterly forgettable or big, dirty, dangerous and fascinating.” I am definitely in the first camp. You can sometimes rely on Lonely Planet to crack you up. It wasn’t kidding though – with Guatemala City’s reputation for danger, I made sure I was back before dark.
So much time and effort has gone into looking for this bloody charger; working out which shops to go to, working out the local public transport system to get there, accounting for taxi/transport costs – and extending to deciding which available hostel was best located for my search and taking my personal safety into account. Ugh.
And in the end it was a heart-breaking mission. I did finally find a charger at the Sony
View From The Top
An amazing view over the clouds looking towards Volcan de Agua from the top of Volcan Acatenango. Center, inside one of Guatemala City’s flash shopping malls – only to see a price tag of Q695. That’s US$90, or four days’ budget. So with a heavy heart, I had to leave it behind.
And it wasn’t just the charger – general prices in Guatemala City are not what you would call cheap. Whether it be meals, toiletries or groceries, most things were costing me between at least US$3 to US$8. It all adds up. Mexico doesn’t promise to be cheap and I have heard that Cuba is also expensive. With Western Europe then directly following Cuba, I think that I may have some money problems ahead.
Remembering how apprehensive I was at the start of my trip in
Sao Paulo, I would never have thought about taking chicken buses in the way I do so now. But considering how cheap they are they’re a no-brainer.
The people selling stuff to you on the bus here also seem to give you more of a pitch than they do in other countries. Delivering a full-on spiel at the front of the bus, it’s just like live TV shopping although with this being Guatemala, I might have been a bit
Quinta Avenida Norte
Popular cobblestoned pedestrian street in Antigua. worried if they suddenly started tossing around free sets of Ginsu 2000 steak knives.
The bus eventually dropped me in Antigua – and the place is beautiful. Cobblestoned streets, colourful colonial buildings, and set against the backdrop of a volcano…it definitely has charm and was much more impressive than
Granada. The fast food chains are all here as well – including rather excitingly, Wendy’s – but they are forced to keep the colonial exterior of their buildings, giving the impression that all of these chains are trying to hide their dirty commercialism.
There are some beautiful churches, as you’d expect and it has a charming main square reminiscent of Cusco or Arequipa. The place really was a delight to walk around.
The result of being the prettiest city in Central America however, is that it makes it extremely touristy, although being a Sunday, there were in fact actually more local tourists from Guatemala City chilling out here for the day, and getting in the way of my photos. They also introduced a bit of a traffic problem here as well.
And speaking of photos, my search for a camera battery charger finally came to an end here in
Arco de Santa Catalina
One of Antigua's most famous landmarks. Antigua. A small independent photo shop happened to have one and for the much more reasonable price of US$30. It was indeed the happiest moment of my trip so far – just in time for a photo tour of beautiful Antigua and for a hike up a volcano to see some lava!
Different hikes are difficult for different reasons so it’s hard to compare them all and work out which was the toughest. Some are tough because of the incline, some because of the terrain, and others because of the heat. It was the first two however, that made climbing up Volcan Acatenanago particularly difficult and then there was the backpack, sleeping bag, tent and sleeping mat that you had to lug up there with you.
The extra weight was a killer and my legs were burning during parts of the ascent, but I made it up there in a very fast four hours. Normally people take about six and one group even took ten! Luckily there was no time pressure and I could take my time going up. The gravel was often loose, meaning that you’d take a step up and then slide half a step down. Every
Blowing Its Top
Volcan Fuego erupting. The view is from our base camp. time. It certainly didn’t make things any easier.
Watching an erupting volcano from your tent? Standard. Volcan Acatenanago isn’t an erupting volcano but is next to one that is – Volcan Fuego. Named as such for obvious reasons. And you could see it do its thing from our base camp.
The sound of an eruption is like a mix between thunder and an airplane there was one particularly big one that produced a huge ash cloud.
As if the hike up to where we were camping wasn’t enough, I was then offered the opportunity to climb up Volcan Fuego itself! Having to go back down Acatenango – sans backpack this time thank God – and then up Fuego, it wasn’t easy but it was rewarding. First of all, we saw a heavenly sunset over the clouds before creeping to within 150m of an erupting volcano! Going up to the mouth of the volcano is obviously a bit dangerous but it was still pretty exciting to see it spew out molten rock, leaving a blazing trail of lava sliding down the hill.
Pictures were difficult to take however as in the dark, the eruptions weren’t producing enough light for long
Heaven
Just before sunset, I thought that this was a better photo than the actual sunset ones. enough. My guide Leo and I waited up there in the cold and wind – it admittedly wasn’t as cold as I was anticipating but sure as hell was windy – for two hours waiting for another big one. IT never came unfortunately…until of course, the moment just after I had put away my camera and was making my way back to base camp.
By the end of that day, we had been hiking for eight hours, seven of them straight up, with four of those with the backpack and all our equipment. I was struggling big time for the last half hour in the dark as we made our way down Fuego and back up Acatenango and I struggle to recall a time I felt as tired as I did when I got back to base camp.
Most people aren’t able to sleep up there because of the cold and the constant promise of eruptions – I had no such trouble.
Base camp is called base camp for a reason – because it isn’t at the top.
Waking up some five hours after I had gone to sleep at around 3:45am, we had an hour and a half
Volcan Fuego
Night time eruption of Volcan Fuego from our base camp. of climbing to do to reach the summit of Acatenango for sunrise.
I think I preferred hiking in the dark. That way, you don’t get demoralised every time you look up and realise just how much further up you still have to climb. The opposite of being up somewhere really high, it is better to look down rather than up in order to keep your spirits intact.
The view up there however, is simply stunning. Despite the ridiculously strong and cold winds, seeing the pink and orange sky glazed over a bed of clouds, with only Volcan de Agua and Volcan Fuego poking through, Leo’s labelling of it as a
buena vista was an understatement. Incomparable, is a much more accurate description.
The way down was much easier obviously than the way up, and sliding down the volcanic scree was actually quite fun. You could go quickly but safely down, in a skating motion that made you feel as if you were skiing down the volcano.
But despite that, I am going to go ahead and say that it was the hardest hike I have ever done. Constantly eating dust and putting up with rocks in your shoes, I
was over it about half way back to the bottom. I was over hiking in general too. I had now climbed three different volcanoes in Central America, so I feel I no longer need to make a point.
And thank God I had a hiking stick, which was recommended by the girl working at my hostel in Antigua. It was a life saver. It gives you a third leg when climbing and it supports your weight and stops you falling over when descending. It would have been an epic struggle without it and I’m not sure I would have made it up. The best Q5 I have ever spent (less than a US$1).
It turned out also, that I had my own private tour up the mountain – just me and Leo. It was a great opportunity to practice my Spanish for two days but admittedly it would have been nice to have shared the experience with other backpackers as well. We would’ve had this sense of achievement bonding us forever.
As it was, I got to know a local better than I perhaps would’ve and I think it made things easier for Leo too, that he didn’t have
Cathedral de Santiago
With Volcan de Agua in the background. to try and speak English. Leo’s dad – at seventy years old – met us at the top, and many of the guides are Leo’s brothers. It really was a family affair.
Leo, like many of countrymen, is short, dark-skinned and polite. I wouldn’t necessarily call Guatemalans friendly, but they are certainly polite. An example of this was when I was back in Guatemala City and crammed on one of the fullest buses I have ever been on. People had the courtesy to let people out before entering the TransMetro (a bus system with set stops and special lanes on the road, much like a metro system and similar to bus systems in
Lima and
Quito) and would not board buses that were too full – in other words, busloads/trainloads that would still have had people cramming themselves on in London.
One gripe that I will have about Guatemalans however, is the fact that they don’t accept big bills. I was on a constant mission to break up big bills and then try in vain to hold on to my small change. It’s a ball-ache. OK, so maybe it is more a gripe about ATMs rather than Guatemalans but
why can’t ATMs give out smaller bills in places where they usually deal in small change?
And that, was my introduction to Guatemala. Guatemala City was a bit drab but Antigua and then Volcan Acatenango have more than made up for it. And I still had two of the big three to go in Lake Atitlan and Tikal – the first of which will be coming up in my next blog entry.
Hasta luego,
Derek
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Alexis M Spencer
Ah-mazing
So jealous of your trek up to and seeing the erupting volcano!