Hiking Volcan Acatenango

Hiking a volcano is definitely a thing to do in Guatemala, and I couldn’t believe my luck when I had the opportunity to do it within my first month thanks to NPH! The home organized a trip to hike Volcan Acatenango as a youth ministry activity. The adventure started a few days before we left with preparing the first aid kits (los botiquines). I was in charge of them, but boy, let me tell you there was a lot of external input on and verification of those bad boys. At one point, we had multiple foil blankets, a neck brace, sutures, and a bajillion and one ACE bandages. (I thought this was a first aid kit, not a mini-hospital…) Eventually, I whittled everything down to a reasonable amount and variety of supplies and got the official stamp of approval on them.

First aid mockery, complete with neck brace.

The volcano hike had been the main topic of conversation all week. Whenever I told someone I was going on it, I generally got comments about how steep it was, how people got robbed, how someone almost froze to death, and so on. You know, real uppers. I figured it would certainly be tough, but it couldn’t be that bad if teenagers from the home were going on it. Even still, I was a little nervous when we left NPH bright and early at 4 AM on Saturday morning. Tía Rosa from the clinic sent Kyra (the other clinic volunteer) and me away on the hike with one of her rosaries though so I was hoping for the best! The reggaeton was of course blaring on the bus when we left- so much for sleeping on the way there. I had to laugh hearing all the boys belting out the lyrics to songs though. We started climbing around 5:45 AM.

Provisions.

At the beginning of the hike. Not bad, right?

The hike definitely was quite challenging, but it wasn’t impossible. It took 6 hours to finally reach the peak and it was very much an uphill climb. It was really neat to see the vegetation change as we went up, up, and up some more. First there were corn fields, then jungle, then grass, and then a very arid environment. The temperature also changed quite drastically as well. At the bottom of the volcano, I was sweating through my athletic t-shirt. By the time I reached the top, I was still pretty cold in four layers- the wind was freezing and fiercely strong at 13,000 feet. We were in the clouds! Kyra and I had packed avocadoes to eat on top of the volcano. We ripped them open with our hands (just like we had learned to do in the clinic) and ate them with what else but tongue depressors from the clinic! It would was a pretty dang good avocado, I have to say. On top of the crater, we got a motivational talk about how climbing Volcan Acatenango is similar to overcoming challenges in life. Awesome views, awesome time.

Funny moment when we thought this was the top. Nope, still another two and a half hours!

THE CRATER!!!

Victory avocados and Tía Rosa's rosary :)

Just casually IN THE CLOUDS. TOO COOL.

Here I am being cold and whatnot.

And now I'm trying to act like I'm not cold, yaaay!

Surfing and sliding the whole time down, we finally reached the buses again after another 3 hours. I was pretty beat- my leg muscles were shaking even just standing still. There’s a phrase in Spanish called “vale la pena” (“worth the pain”). Although I was completely exhausted by the end of the day, hiking Volcan Acatenango was definitely vale la pena. It was a wonderful life experience. So, what did you do this weekend? ;)