Acatenango Volcano Hike

Around 3:30 am, someone abruptly wakes me up. That is if I had managed to get any sleep at all. Christmas Eve is a big fireworks night here in Guatemala. Our guide begins rallying the troops, but he makes it clear that visibility is limited due to cloud cover. People start to bail and head back to bed. Still, I’m here now (and awake), so I decided to push on. About half of us do.

It’s cold!

The sort of bitterness that the great explorers faced in the Arctic.  At least, that’s what I tell myself to push through it all. It’s freezing, or at least close to it. In my current state of consciousness, everything remains the same. This time, I borrowed an actual headlamp from someone who chose to stay behind.

Note to self: Always bring spare flashlight batteries. At least I can see now.

Our Ascent.

We start the climb to the summit. It’s steep, and it’s dark, and I’m only driven by some vague idea of the sort of satisfaction I will get when I say I succeeded.

I don’t remember much of this time—it was all instinct, and I think I managed to suppress every ounce of pain that I was feeling.

But eventually, we summitted!

Great success. It was at this point that the guide decided it would be beneficial to tell us that people had died trying to camp up here. It was well below freezing at this altitude, and I didn’t need anything else to distract me.

And now the view…

Unfortunately, on a night like this, there was nothing to see but clouds. I later learned that the last time I saw the volcano before the new year was one or two nights ago. (See featured photo.)

We sat on the dirt for a bit and tried to take in what we could. To be honest, I was thankfully too exhausted to be disappointed. Nevertheless, I must experience the sight of lava at some point in my life.

It was time to descend.

We bombed our way down that hill on the soft dirt, chasing the rising sun. I destroyed my Salomons, but at least they saw an actual trail, right? We had breakfast and then started the rest of the descent.

I didn’t see anything, and yet I had a wonderful time.

We had excellent guides and enjoyed the company during our Christmas Eve adventure in Guatemala!

I have included a few additional photos from our trip to Guatemala City. 

Author and photo credit: Neal