Our first post on the road - Antigua Guatemala
We arrived in Antigua on Friday night (Dec 3rd) with no complications and were dropped off at our host family´s casa. We´ll put some pictures of them up later.
On Saturday we took it easy and just wandered around Antigua - here´s a couple pics from the town.
For Sunday, we decided to get a little adventurous and signed up for a trek up Volcan Pacaya - the closest active volcano to Antigua. You heard me - active.
In hindsight, maybe not the brightest of ideas, but we made it back safe and sound so it worked out ok.
This was our first real view of the volcano - at the time we figured it was way too far off to be the one we were climbing. But we were wrong.
This next one was taken maybe a quarter of the way up the cone. I was starting to question whether we were going to make it to the top at this point, but it only got worse.
This one was about half way up - those little specks on that ridge are the people just starting up the cone.
And this one is from roughly the same spot looking up - still a ways to go.
This is the top of the cone. Concerns over safety in Guatemala are somewhat lacking - people were encouraged to climb right up into the crater.
And this is actually looking into the crater - if you look closely you can actually see flames coming out of the crater. And it was extremely warm near the edge (as you might expect).
On Saturday we took it easy and just wandered around Antigua - here´s a couple pics from the town.
For Sunday, we decided to get a little adventurous and signed up for a trek up Volcan Pacaya - the closest active volcano to Antigua. You heard me - active.
In hindsight, maybe not the brightest of ideas, but we made it back safe and sound so it worked out ok.
This was our first real view of the volcano - at the time we figured it was way too far off to be the one we were climbing. But we were wrong.
This next one was taken maybe a quarter of the way up the cone. I was starting to question whether we were going to make it to the top at this point, but it only got worse.
This one was about half way up - those little specks on that ridge are the people just starting up the cone.
And this one is from roughly the same spot looking up - still a ways to go.
This is the top of the cone. Concerns over safety in Guatemala are somewhat lacking - people were encouraged to climb right up into the crater.
And this is actually looking into the crater - if you look closely you can actually see flames coming out of the crater. And it was extremely warm near the edge (as you might expect).
Here we are after coming down from the cone - victorious.
And one of the nicer shots we got from the hike. Looking back towards Antigua you can see the three other volcanoes that surround Antigua.
posted by Tanis & Casey at 2:18 PM
2 Comments:
Hey guys....looks awesome! Now you can add Volcano hunters to your list of daring activities!!! Can't wait to meet up with you in Chile. Not much happening in Cayman right now apart from trying to pack everything up to leave. Ran into a bunch of your old KPMG friends last night at the Captive Conference and they were asking how you were doing. So I'm going to pass along your blog to them. Take care. Rena
There are a surprising amount of people vacationing here that actually are volcano "hunters". What is also amazing is that the majority of people seem to be on permanent vacation. One couple we met from England have been on vacation for a year. And our "house mate" in Antigua was just starting a 6 month vacation. Some of them are in Antigua to learn Spanish and others are there to volunteer. At the hospital or building housing for the poor. Much more admirable than us!
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