Antigua and Pacaya

In Guatemala On  24/04/2013  7 comments

I wanted to visit Antigua because of Pacaya volcano. It was in my imaginary this Guatemalan small town surrounded by active volcanoes. I had in my mind the image of colorful houses and the triangular mountain in the background. Unfortunately, it was not easy to see this image because there was a lot of fog. Antigua reminded me the images of Licancabur volcano, one can see it from almost everywhere in San Pedro Atacama.

Even though without Pacaya in the background, I loved Antigua. A small town, organized, grounded with cafes, cultural activities and good restaurants. I spent my days walking around, stopping in one café or another, reading, photographing. I enjoy reading in cafes.

On my last day I decided to do a trekking tour to climb Pacaya. We left the hotel around 5 am. When we where picking up everybody, far away I saw the volcano, timidly appearing on the fog. I asked the driver to stop the van so we could enjoy the landscape and take a photo. It was magic to see Pacaya on that smooth light of early morning. Soon after that, the fog got stronger and we could not see the mountain tip anymore.

We arrived at the base of the volcano by car, and from there started to walk up. It was easy, not so steep as I’ve imagined. In the beginning of the walk, men with horses accompanied us in case someone get tired and wanted to hire the ride. Our group was adventures, we all wanted to walk the 2 hours up the hill.

The trekking was great; we did not get to the tip of the volcano because it is dangerous according to our guide. Our goal was to get near the top. Up there I remembered other volcanoes in Indonesia where I had been up. Now the walk got more difficult with volcano rocks and dry lava, it was like walking up on sand dunes. Up the hill, we sat down to enjoy the landscape and heard a few sounds of the lava and rocks sliding down, a very strong “boom”. It was amazing the noise, I’ll keep with me this sound of the volcano.

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Check out other posts on Central America trip (April 2013):

• The arrival in Guatemala – Guatemala City
• Chichicastenango and Atitlan Lake
• Antigua and Pacaya
• Flores and Tikal