The next day we woke up, had some food at the central market and then we moved on to the next stop: Antigua. To get there we needed to walk four bloacks with our backpacks to the bus stop. Just like in Bogota they have a bus system with guarded bus stops. Those busses are considered safe, while other hop-on busses aren’t and are targets of robbers.
We jumped on the bus to get to the place where the chicken busses to Antigua depart from. The bus got very crowded so it was a hassle to get off the bus with our big backpacks. From there we found ourselves in a mayhem of people and dirty old American school busses. Men were shouting the places where the busses were headed. We found the bus to Antigua and hopped on.
These busses are generally used by locals. The seats, meant for two people, are used for three persons. Within not too long we were crammed in our seats with our big backpacks next to us. The worker of the bus shouted we had to put the big backpacks in the luggage compartments, but that really didn’t fit. I decided to keep the bag on my lap. The man didn’t agree, ran out of the bus while the bus was still driving, opened up the backdoor and climbed on the roof of the bus shouting to give him my backpack. I was hessitant to give him my bag, but he persisted. While the bus was still driving he grabbed my 18KG bag and threw it on the roof.
I was a bit scared this would be the last time I would see my clothes, but it turned out fine thankfully. After about 90 minutes we arrived in Antigua, a beautiful old Colonial city with cobble stone streets. We grabbed our bags and walked to the hostel. From there we had a strawl through town. The city looked really beautiful and we took some photos. Unfortunately we didn’t remember the address of the hostel, and the streets all look the same so then we were lost.
It was getting dark too, so we weren’t too happy that we didn’t know where to go anymore. We decided to ask in a little cafe whether they knew directions. They lended their smartphone to look up the address. It turned out we were just around the corner of the hostel. Later on Jannik and I went out for some food with two girls in the hsotel. Afterwards we had some drinks in the different bars in the city, as it was a Saturday night.
The weird thing is that all bars and clubs close around midnight in Guatemala. Most people party from 21.00 till midnight and then there are only one or two places that pay off the police to stay open longer.
The next day Jannik and I had a little look around town. We took some photos, walked to a viewing point overlooking the city and tried some local food on the square. We also booked us on a volano hike for the next two days. That night we went to sleep early, because the next day we were getting up early for the hike.
We were being picked up from the hostel around 8am. We then had a 2 hour drive to the actual volcano, called Acatenango. Once we stopped we grabbed our bags, added the tents and sleeping bags that were given to us and we started walking.
The hike turned out to be must tougher than expected. My backpack was too heavy and the walk turned out to be a six hour walk up the volano. After about 20 minutes I started to struggle and I needed a little break. I wasn’t the only one, an Indian-Australian guy called Nick had the same problem. Perhaps also due to the high altitude, we had problems getting enough oxygen. Every 10 minutes we were completely out of breath. The moment we took a break we were fine again.
It took about six hours to get to the campsite. Jannik was a lot faster and arrived half an hour earlier. He had already setup the tent, which was a relieve once I finally got up thee too. In those six hours we climbed about 1.8km. Even though it turned out to be a struggle, the views were rewarding and totally worth it. We were opposite of volcano Fuego, an active volcano that spits lava on average every hour.
When darkness set in we had a campfire and we ate our instant noodles and drank tea. The lava was incredible in the dark and definitely something I had never seen before. We stayed up till midnight around the campfire and then went to sleep.
The next morning we woke up very early again. The alarm was set to 4am. Jannik got up to climb another hour to the summit of the volcano. I decided, after the struggle of the day before, to stay in bed and watch the sunrise from the point we already were. The guide also told us the views weren’t much different anyway.
I got up an hour later and the sunrise turned out to be amazing. We were above the clouds and we could see volcano Agua sticking out of them. The sun slow came up and the shadow of the volcano was on top of the clouds. Afterwards we had breakfast and then it took another three hours to hike back down, which went a lot better since we could leave the tent and sleeping bag at the campsite for the next group.
Once back at the hostel we had a shower and relaxed for the rest of the day. My muscles were sore and my feet hurt, but it was all worth it. Afterwards we booked a mountain biking trip for the next day at the hostel, so the action didn’t stop there,
Jan 17th 2015 – Jan 20th 2015
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