Hello all! welcome to my first real post aside from my introduction!

I'd like to tell a bit about a nice hike me and my girlfriend did last summer in Guatemala: the Acatenango volcano. It's a awesome trekking with a rewarding view. Hope you will enjoy this one.

We knew we wanted to do this trekking before we even got on the plane to Guatemala (we're from the Netherlands). We read about a couple who did the trekking with an agency and the price was like $ 150 (US Dollars) a person. Although we like to live on a budget during our travels, we were prepared to pay such an amount for hike because you just can't miss it when you're in Guatemala. During our trip (we did the volcano in the last week) we met people who payed like $ 20 or $ 30 for the hike up there and we were like how can it be so cheap. After a while we figured out what you (certainly) do not get for that price. Stories from instant noodles for dinner without hot water (yep..), tents in very bad shape (it can rain a lot up there) and drunken guides, made us a bit reluctant for the cheap alternative. In the end we ended up with a company a couple we met recommended us: OX Expeditions. The overnight trip is like $ 89 and you get good food, very good guides and proper gear. Also included a briefing about the trip, the weather and what to bring with you. That was definitely a surplus because there are so many people up there unprepared.

So during the overnight trip a bus took us from Antiqua to the base of the volcano in the morning and from there we walked up for 5/6 hours to basecamp. It's a tough but beautiful walk. You pass so many different parts of vegetation. From cloudy forests to jungle to pine forest.

Basecamp is at 3600 meters and gives a pretty good view on the volcano next to Acatenango, the Fuego. This mighty beast is still active and gave us a proper show while we spend the rest of the day and night up at the camp. The volcano on the photo below is the Agua (Antigua is surrounded by 3 volcanoes, the Agua, Fuego and Acatenango).

Basecamp at 3600 meters
Agua

Fuego doing awesome stuff

For the rest of the afternoon we just sat there watching the Fuego spitting out rocks and smoke. We had such good weather and visibility.

At 4 am the guides woke us up to hike the last part up to 3976 meters (top of the volcano). It was an hour/hour and a half walk in the dark and we got up there just before sunrise. Magical. OX had a challenge to run around the crater (40% less oxygen in the air), but we all chickened out because it was pretty cold and we still had to get breakfast ;D

Onces the sunset was finished we went downhill to basecamp. I think we were at the camp in 20 minutes or so! Just flying through the volcanic sand! One thing is for sure, going down through volcanic sand is way better than going up, where every two steps forward will let you slide one back.

Here are some more pictures of the volcanoes. I would definitely recommend hiking the Acatenango if you find yourself in Guatemala one day! Oh and be prepared for some muscle aching the next day ;D

Fuego by night

Agua in the distance

Sunset behind Agua

Has anyone else been up there? Would love to see the pictures and find out if you liked it as much as we did.

Thanks for reading and feel free to follow and/or upvote!

Stephan