Climbing up Acatenango

Hi Guys!
Our next project was to climb Acatenango (3976 m), part of a string of stratovolcanoes just outside of Antigua. Volcan Fuego is still dramatically spewing hot magma into the sky, which is why you can do overnight tours and watch the night sky lit up in red.

We started in a little hillside town, and started climbing up.

The vegetation got sparse after a few hours of hiking, and grass gave way to scree. Luckily it wasn't too steep, so it's wasn't that '2 steps up, 1 slide down' kind of nonsense.

Seeing a few puffs already on our way up the mountain.

That night, we all set up tents and watched the volcano spew over a roaring campfire.

The sound of the volcano erupting was absolutely thundering. We had such a great time waiting around for the next one to blow- which was followed by our whole group shouting "WHOOOOOOOAAAAAAA''

As we slept in the tents, the ground shook so hard it woke us up! 

The next morning started before the sun came up. We hiked the remaining 300 m up to the top of Acatenango, so we could watch the sun rise over Fuego.

Some friends we had met in Atitlan, which we happened to run into on top of this windy volcano!

This was one of those things you do that sticks with you for a long time. The intensity of the red magma exploding all over the mountainside at night is something I will never forget. 

Until Next Time! 

Lago Atitlán, the Chichicastenango market and Antigua

Hey Guys!
After the beautiful Semuc Champey, we were treated to another gem of Guatemala- Lago Atitlán. In a Mayan language, Atitlán means 'at the water/ where the rainbow gets its colour.' How beautiful is that?  It's the deepest lake in Central America, and is fantastically surrounded by volcanoes on most sides.

For this reason, we climbed up the San Pedro Volcano the next morning to be above it all and appreciate the view. We were definitely above the lake, the mountains, the people and the noise.......but not the clouds, unfortunately. However, we snuck a few good views in here and there on the way up.
And there was also this random swing we could have a gander on

As you can see from the top, there were a few clouds, but when it did peek through the view was spectacular.

Early morning fishermen going out on Lago Atitlan
San Pedro Volcano


We had planned on staying in the area for a few days, but there was a market the next day in Chichicastenango, and we wanted to check it out. It was halfway to our next destination (Antigua), so we decided to just make a day of stopping there and continuing on. I am really glad we got to see this market in full swing. It runs on Thursdays and Sundays, where indigenous people (Mayans) descend from the surrounding hills to sell pretty much everything. The result is a crazy winding labyrinth of plastic tarp alleys filled with vibrant textiles, masks, sacks of rice, incense, chickens, hardware supplies, the list goes on!

Iglesia Santo Tomas- a very interesting place indeed. Although technically a Catholic church, there were people burning incense and carrying out rather Mayan rituals on the front steps (along with a cacophony of flower sellers, beggars, hawkers, etc.) Even inside the church, there were large stone blocks on the ground in the aisles, and people were lighting candles and sprinkling flower petals on them in specific arrangements. Much more Mayan than Catholic. The fusion of the two religions was very interesting to see.

We also went to a shrine out in the country, and were introduced to more than our fair share of Mayan beliefs out there. Out of respect for the locals performing these rituals, we have chosen not to go into all the details here out on the big bad internet. However, if you run into us down the line, ask us about the Pascual Abaj shrine and we promise to tell you our version of the events. 

After Chichi, we bussed into Antigua, one of my favourite cities in Central America. Technically Antigua is Jared's turn, but I know he is just going to launch into Acatenango and probably won't want to talk about the architecture in Antigua. Just a hunch.

Antigua was founded in 1542 by the Spanish and built in the Spanish Baroque style. Although practically leveled by an earthquake in 1773, it was rebuilt, only this time much squatter and stouter. There are still many ruins scattered around the city, which I found quite beautiful in the afternoon sun. 

 Those fantastic volcano views come at a cost

 As you can see, the rebuit buildings are all single storey

 The arch of Santa Catalina

 Iglesia la Merced

A church left in ruins, but still strikingly beautiful with the tree growing out of it. As a North American, I never get tired of seeing old stuff- ancient ruins, buildings, etc. I know there is a lot of ancient history on my continent, but it was built primarily with wood, and now you really need your imagination to bring it to life. Seeing the stone in person is always a treat for me.

Until Next Time!

Semuc Champey with a Little More Detail

Hey all. After getting our fix of ruins at Tikal, it was time to head on. We packed up the tent and jumped on a shuttle to the little town of Flores. We stayed in a hostel out on a peninsula on the lake. The peninsula was quite a little tourist center with many hostels and gift shops, but there wasn't that many tourists around.

We decided we needed to go on a little money hunt. It was a similar affair after each country we entered. First of all, see what the exchange rate was. If it was good then that made things easy as at this point, we still had US cash from the car sale. It wasn't too bad, so we waited in the long ass bank line only to find out they only took perfect $100 bills. They can basically find a flaw in any bill no matter how tiny, so then we just withdraw some money and move on. Next job was to find a bus south. We hadn't decided where to go next so we decided to get the prices for a few different routes from multiple tour shops. We decided on one that stopped at Semuc Champey and you could continue to Lago Atitlan after as many days as you wanted. The price wasn't that cheap but offered us to do something we heard was great, so we went for it. We had ourselves some good street food and called it a night.

Early the next morning, we jumped on a bus headed for Lanquin. It was around 250 kms and took us about 9 hours to get there. You can imagine what the roads were like. There were many times where we were launched off our seats while hitting bumps. After making a large descent into a valley and an old gravel road, we arrived in Lanquin. Like usual, we hadn't booked anywhere to stay. Most of the great places to stay were outside of the town, but there were 4x4 trucks ready to take us to one hostel we heard great things about. We threw our stuff in the back as the sun sets and start cruising down an old dirt path. After about a hour, we arrived at a cool-looking hostel. We set up our tent and had some dinner. The unfortunate part of this place was you couldn't use the kitchen and all the meals were vegan. I wish that these types of places had more choice of meals. A mix of vegan and ordinary. Anyways, moving on. We spent the night chit-chatting with our fellow travelers.

In the morning, we awoke to this great view. Since we arrived in the dark, we had no idea what the view was. Roberta had gotten up real early for a yoga session which she thoroughly enjoyed.

After some breakfast, we headed out on a tour of Semuc Champey with a
Kiwi couple and a couple from Switzerland . It wasn't very far down the road. Upon arrival in the hostel truck, we were greeted by a dozen kids ranging from 6-15 years old. They were all trying to sell us beer. They could actually speak English pretty well. They would ask your name and where you were from and then tell you their name. Always then it was "Buy from me later." Roberta and I rarely buy things from kids when we are traveling. It sounds like we don't have hearts, but it is for good reason. A lot of people in poorer countries exploit their children to sell stuff as they often do better than adults. But, often this is at the expense of schooling. Instead of buying things, we try to always talk about the importance of school. In this case they said they were on a break. (Later that night we learned they had lied and were not going to school.)

The first activity was candle-lit caving. We have explored quite a few caves in our day, but not by candlelight. It was quite fun. Trying to swim and crawl through small waterfalls and keep your candle dry was quite the task at times. Many times they went out and you'd have to go to the nearest person to light it.

After that, we went on a big swing that launched you into the river. We didn't take any pictures which is just as well because I had a very awkward belly flop entry into the water. Not my most graceful moment.

Next, we jumped into the truck again that took us to the trailhead for a hike up to the main viewpoint. It was a scramble up slippery rocks and tree roots, but it was worth it.

Semuc Champey is a very unique place. The main river called the Cahabón plunges into the limestone where it exits the rock some hundreds of meters downstream creating a "bridge." Right where this land bridge is located, there are several water springs coming out of the mountains creating crystal clear waters.

We spent some time swimming around in the pools which was very relaxing and it reminded us of a place in Laos.

Next, it was back to where the caves were to grab a tube and head downriver
to our hostel. Before this, we gathered up the courage to jump off a high bridge into the water. Roberta made me go first, but after a little squealing, she also jumped. The tubing was why the kids had done their groundwork earlier as everyone wanted a beer while floating down the river. One particular kid remembered my name and where I was from, so I decided to buy one from him. This was before I found out they skip school for this and lied that they were on a school break. Tubing down the river was fun as there were some rapids to go through. Before long we had a bunch of kids trailing us on tubes, trying to sell beer the whole way.

That night I will admit the vegan food was quite tasty at the hostel. But some cheese added would have made it much better. We had talked to the volunteers before our tour about setting our bus trip up for the next day to Lake Atitlan. They said at the time they had some trouble with this tour company in the past and people had gotten stranded. But they said they would try and make it work. At supper they gave us the news that this guy had done the same thing and we didn't have the bus. We were a bit upset. After a couple hours, the one guy said he got it figured out and we would be good to go. We sighed in relief. We had to leave at 7 am in the back of the 4x4 back to Lanquin, so it was an early rise to get our camping stuff taken down. It was nice to see the area in the light as it was dark on the way there.
Once in town, we were dropped off by the buses. We showed our ticket around and found the bus headed to Lake Atitlan but they said we weren't on the list. We told them that our hostel had figured things out the night before. He left, came back, and took our ticket and told us to get on. Perfect we thought. Next thing we know they are trying to find our bags and kick us off the bus. We were a bit perplexed. They told us we had to pay a ridiculous sum of money to go. We didn't really understand. We weren't sure whether the bus company was being shady or that the agency was. After some time, we were told that the agency we bought the ticket from had not paid the bus company and just pocketed the money. Apparently the guy had recently changed the name of the company because he got caught doing this before. We bartered them down to a fair price and gave them the money. We apologized to the rest of the bus as we had held them up for the last 20 mins, but they were all saying that they would have done the same thing. At one of the towns, the bus company set up a meeting with the tourist police. Apparently some other couple had the same thing happen to them that day on a different bus. They took our info and said they would get our money back. We knew we would never hear from them again and we didn't. We just paid a little extra tourist tax that day.
I thought it would be good to go into a little more detail about what our day-to-day life was like. On Instagram and Facebook all you see is the amazing places, but sometimes there is a lot more to it. We put ourselves in awkward situations sometimes but in those times we do learn a lot of life's lessons. Until next time....



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