My Acatenango Volcano Overnight Hike – What was I thinking?

I met a lovely Norwegian girl on my bus trip from Belize to Guatemala. Her name is Tune-Lisa but I quickly nicknamed her Tuna. I asked Tuna what her plans were during her time in Guatemala, and she started telling me about this hike up a volcano that she had booked. She told me that you would be able to see a volcano erupting and that it looks pretty cool at night. This piqued my interest, so I promised Tuna to look into it and that I might join her.

I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t able to see any live lava in Hawaii, so this was a great opportunity to get close to an active volcano. I did my research online and it all sounded pretty impressive. There were some posts that hinted at the fact that it might be a tough climb, but I ignored all of it and decided to sign up. So I bought myself some proper hiking shoes (Lucky I was in Guatemala, so I only spend $25 rather than hundreds of dollars), a flash light (I’ve lost my headlamp in Mexico), some thick socks, snacks and 4 liters of water. Mhhh…who is going to carry up all the water for me??? The night before I felt ready to tackle this little volcano.

Before I get to the actually hike, here a few more information about Acatenango. Acatenango is a stratovolcano close to Antigua. The volcano has two peaks, Pico Mayor and Yepocapa which is also known as Tres Hermanas. Acatenango is joined with Volcán de Fuego and collectively the volcano complex is known as La Horqueta. With an elevation of 3976 meters it is the third highest volcano in Central America. The highlight is the proximity to Volcano Fuego which is an active volcano and erupts very regular. I could see the smoke coming out of the top in the morning when I was walking to my pickup location. The hike up Volcano Acatenango starts at about 1500 meters above sea level and ends just under 4000 meters above sea level. Yes that’s pretty bloody high.

Anyway, let’s get to the real story. So here I was packed and ready to go. I wasn’t very nervous the days leading up to the hike, however, the closer we drove to the starting point the more nervous I got. Seeing the large volcano come closer and closer it suddenly dawned on me what was ahead. Remember I hardly ever hike and here I’m about to hike up a 4000 m high volcano. No going back now.

At starting point Tuna and I decided to get a porter to carry all our water and heavy things. For an extra $20 each we didn’t have to lug all this heavy gear. Our porter turned out to be a lovely horse, which almost felt better. Tuna had this very big bag and seeing a little Guatemalan person carry it up would have felt bad.

Ok so first hurdle done. This should be easy now. I haven’t got much weight on my back, I can totally do this. 10 minutes in and I thought ok maybe I can’t do this. There was no easing into it. Right from the start the steep incline began. The ground was very loose in this section so you are sliding and taking small steps. After the first 20 minutes I was ready to go back home. I was thinking how do I survive 4 hours of this? But on we went. Thousands of people have done this, I can do this too.

The hike up was physically challenging, but my biggest hurdle was my head. I had whole conversations going on in there about how this is too hard, I want to turn around and go home. Eventually I decided to do a walking meditation. I put my head down and counted out my steps. It was a good way of stopping all the other less helpful thoughts.People say you learn a lot about yourself when you go travelling, well I had plenty of time to get to know myself and my thoughts. 😉

I had also read somewhere that only the first bit is hard and it gets easier the higher you walk. Mhh I don’t know if they climbed the same volcano. After each stop I thought, ok it’s going to get easier now. Nope, still hard. About 1 hour before the top my migraine decided to make an appearance. Why not, right? So for the last part I walked with a distorted and vision and also being dizzy. The dizziness could have been from the high altitude.

You probably think, geez I would never do this hike, but please make a decision after reading the whole story. Because eventually we made it up the top and wow was it all worth it. Actually that wasn’t my first thought because Fuego was covered in clouds, so we couldn’t see it, and it was freezing. However, the clouds eventually disappeared, and we got so excited about seeing our first bit of smoke escaping the top of Fuego. Soon we started hearing some loud rumbling noises and Fuego started its show for us.

We lit a fire, had marshmallows, dinner and watched as the sun set and the red lava became visible. It’s almost like watching a firework when the volcano erupts. Every 5 minutes or so someone goes oh wow, because there is another eruption, and we all sat in awe of the show in front of us. Eventually it was time to tuck ourselves into the tent and in our 3 sleeping bags each to get some rest after an exhausting day. I think I was asleep by 9pm.

The next morning only one person in our group decided to climb to the very top of Acatenango. It was another 1 hour of slippery rock paths. The rest of us decided to stay at base camp. Nevertheless, we were up at 4.30am as well, because we all woke up when the other girl left. Thank good, because we were able to witness the biggest eruptions we’ve seen so far. It is really hard to describe in words. You have to see and hear it yourself. The sunrise was also spectacular.

After a little snack for breakfast we headed back down the mountain. What took as 4 hours the day before, was a 2 hour ‘easy’ hike back down. It was tricky at some places and super slippery. I might have even landed on my butt a few times, but I really enjoyed this part of the hike. I was the last of our group on the way up. On the way down I was the first. It might have been, because I couldn’t wait to be finished. 😉

It really was a once in a lifetime experience. Will I become a hiker now? No! Am I happy that I decided to do this hike? Yes. Would I recommend it to others? Absolutely!

This concludes my adventure on Volcano Acatenango. Thanks for stopping by. Enjoy the pictures. Until next time, Sabine xxx

Check out the photos and videos below. Click on the thumbnail to enlarge images.