Above the Clouds

Now that my body is less sore I can share our story of climbing a 4,000 meter volcano!!!

When we first arrived here in Antigua I had no idea that this climbing adventure was even a thing. But as the guest trickled in and out of the hostel we heard the stories of the "most difficult thing I've done in my life, but it was totally worth it" trip up Acatenango. Antigua has three volcanos surrounding it's city center, Acatenango, Fugoe, and Agua, the latter being active. The idea of the climb is to hike up Acatenango and look down onto Fugoe as it errupts. Fun yeah?!?!

For starters we got on our bus and I was the only girl. There also happened to be a few ex army guys on the trip that were itching to do the climb quickly. If you know me I'm not really the athletic type, so I was pretty nervous of bringing the team climb time down by a few hours.... but my personal coach said he'd stick at the back with me. What a guy! Anyway we arrived at the base greeted by chilly winds and locals awaiting to sell hats, gloves, and alcohol! All bundled up we started the trek, straight up. Literally straight up, there was no break in this seemingly never ending loose dirt hill. 10 minutes into the 5-6 hour hike I was ready to throw in the towel, but my trusty coach wouldn't let me! I'd like to say that the climb got easier but it really didn't. When we got to the easiest most flat spot, the weather turned and we got proper soaked in a chilly rain storm. Imagine scrambling up a dirt path with a waterfall a muddy water rushing underneath you. That was us! Don't get me wrong the hike up was beautiful, but the rain storm was rather discouraging. But hey we had a warm cozy tent and fire to look forward to at base camp right? WRONG!!!!

The team reached base camp in a record breaking four hour time! The fastest time our guide had ever done. Woooooo go Lily! I didnt even cry! Thanks coach Lewis! But once again we were greeted with the threatening sound of thunder. We all hurried to set up our tents. But Lewis and I quickly learned that we were missing a key ingredient, the third supporting pole to our tent. After our guide said, sorry there's nothing I can do to help you, we had a laugh at our situation and made the best of our slowly collapsing home. Overall our guide was pretty worthless. He never managed to make a fire for the group and in the morning left a majority of the team behind!!!! But on a better note we watched a few good eruptions that night and we didn't freeze to death.

3:30 in the morning our guide starts to whistle at the team to wake up and shout words in Spanish. Giving us about a 10 minute window to wake up and follow him into the darkness of the last 500 meter steep steep steep climb to the top. So yeah he left more than half of the group asleep in their tents.  It was dark, cold, and windy. But Fugoe put on a great show as we climbed to the summit. We were lucky to see about five eruptions on the way up, and we caught a beautiful sunrise 100 meters from the top. But in those last 100 meters our guide turned around and said we could do the rest if we wanted, but he was going back to camp!!!!!!! I struggled HARD to reach the top. I've never felt wind so strong and my feet slipped in the loose rock. But after some strong words of encouragement from my coach we made it!!!!!!!! We were on top of the world and above the clouds. We could even see the lake we had visited the week before. After we took in the views and hung out with another tour guide's dog that completed the climb, we "skied" to the base camp. That loose rock I despised on the way up, I loved on the way down. 

Our untrusty guide did welcome us back with hot chocolate, which was exactly what I needed! The hike down was extra beautiful because we could actually see how high we were. Since there was only blue skies and no rain clouds!!!! With sore bodies we made it to the bottom, headed back in town and treated ourselves to boozy drinks and Guatemalan Thai food.

This hike was definitely the most difficult thing I've ever done, but it was totally worth it.