The Guat Phone: Antigua & Volcano Climbing

So, I have something exciting to report: on Saturday I left Guatemala City for the first time! Actually, I'd left it before, apparently our football pitch is just outside the city limits. But this was an extended time outside doing exciting stuff, so in a frightening break from what you've been used to on The Guat Phone, here's something interesting.

After Saturday classes we got a lift with our director, Bryant, over to the neighbouring town of Antigua. Antigua is a little different to Guatemala. For one, it doesn't have a population of 3 million people. For two, it has things that you might want to see, and for three, you can walk about at night with only a negligible risk of someone trying to shoot you. Antigua was the old Spanish colonial capital until 1776 when the people got fed up with their homes being completely flattened by earthquakes and so gave nascence to my beloved(?) Guatemala City instead. Anyway, it's everything Guate is not: relaxed, pretty with an excellent nightlife. It feels a bit like cheating sometimes though, as it's far too easy to get around not speaking any Spanish at all. Anyway, here are some pictures of it:

The old colonial palace. Not sure who the chap doing The Bartman in the foreground is though.

The fountain in Parque Central.

If you go to Antigua you have to take a picture of this arch. Its like, the LAW.

We didn't really do that much in Antigua, just aprpeciated being able to walk around and breathe without choking on bus fumes. We had a couple of beers in Monoloco (Crazy Monkey) which was very touristy, then a burger at a Tex Mex place, then went to Cafe No Se (Cafe I Don't Know), which is an entertainingly arty self-proclaimed "dive-bar". It's OK, though I think it tries a little too hard, and the Gaelic folk band covering 'Losing My Religion' was trying to say the least. It does publish an excellent free arts magazine though, called La Cuarda. I decide to leave trying their "Illegal Mescal" until next time though, as we'd booked a tour to the Pacaya volcano leaving at 6am.

So, at the appointed hour, Andrea, Tamara and I climb bleary eyed into a minibus and set off in search of hot stuff. The drive to Pacaya is twisty and we probably go up and down several thousand feet. At one point, on the opposite carriageway we see an BMW on its side dangerously close to the edge of a steep drop into the valley below. It looks like it has been in collision with a "chicken-bus". Having seen Guatemalan driving first hand, I suspect this is not uncommon. We turn off the road onto an unmade track winding up through coffee plantations and tiendas (there is seemingly nowhere without one in Guatemala) until we reach the entrance to the national park. We are told our group is called Panteras (will they call the next one Sepelturas I wonder?) and that our guide is called Karina. She doesn't speak any English, which I would have said was fairly essential for guiding tourists through a rapidly shifting landscape of molten rock, but hey ho, up we go.

The climb starts winding up through a forest. There's surprisingly little wildlife here, apart from the dogs which accompany tour groups up the volcano in search of snack foods. Although the forest is quite dense, there's little birdsong or rustlings. Maybe it's a bit high for them, we're about 2,000 metres above sea level here. After this the forest clears out and we are faced with a view of about twenty mobile phone masts. Ah, the romance of the mountains. A few hundred metres on though, and we are faced with our first view of Pacaya. A scorched, black, lifeless landscape which sweeps up to the cone, which is busy belching steam into the sky. We walk down onto the black plain, formed of tiny, lightweight gravel type rocks. The going gets tougher as it's rather like walking through sand. My walking shoes are webbed and quickly fill up with black dust. As we start to ascend, the rocks gradually become bigger and the effect is more like being in a ball-pit. Every step sets off a mini landslide, so you are forced to avoid rocks being dislodged by people in front, as well as trying to keep your footholds. I find, due to my 'scrabbling' technique, that volcanic rock is pretty sharp. Fairly soon there's a fair amount of blood on both hands, but I carry on nonetheless. The guide leads us on to a lava flow, which gets hotter and hotter the further we climb. I wonder what the working tempreature of my soles might be. Eventually though, we reach a point where we can actually see the lava. The heat is searing, robbing the breath from your lungs, but I stand there for long enough to point a camera at it, then escape to a safe distance. This is what we came for.

After a drink and a snack (shared with the dogs) we head back down. This proves to be even more difficult than getting up. A technique which combines surfing, jumping, running and falling over seems to be the choice of most people. I do further damage to my hands, but escape relatively lightly compared to some, who sport quite nasty gashes to the legs. Life tip: If you're climbing a volcano, take gloves and don't wear shorts.

So all in all, a short, but satisfactory expedition. We get the "chicken bus" back to the city and are home eating a resorative salad by 2pm. For my next trick, I plan to climb the highest volcano in Guatemala over Easter...