Guatemala: In search of nature's fireworks

 10/31 Halloween

We didn't do too much. Got the tail end of the town trick or treating

11/1 Dia de los muertos

Went to work really early to work on rounds, then drove to Denver. Halfway up Cottonwood Pass, I realized I'd forgotten my passport! So sped back in the CB direction and Tom grabbed it and drove towards us, meeting up a bit past CB South. Ended up making it to DIA no problem.

We had an Aeromexico flight to Mexico CIty. Took the air train to the other terminal and then it was a short walk to our hostal. Then took the subway downtown to meet up with Chris Fahrenholz (and acquaintance from Antarctica, year 1). We met a the famous Mariachi square for tacos. As you would expect, there were mariachis playing. As it was Dia de los Muertos (Day of the dead), there were so many costumed people. They have more of a death theme to their costumes than us though. The traditional face painting costumes were really cool. There were lots of kids out like U.S. trick or treating. 

After dinner we went to Zocalo, the main square, where the presidential palace, main (giant) cathedral, and other colonial buildings reside. Also in the area is templo mayor, an old Aztec temple (ruin). On this day, even late a night, there were crowds of people for the holiday. In the square, there were offerings and fancily decorated stations for each Mexican state arranged in a circle. And also, most stunningly, were these giant women skeletons dressed up in traditional clothing looking over the square. We took an uber back to the hostal as the subway closed at midnight. There were "bomb" noises going off all night...fireworks.

11/2

Morning flight to Guatemala City. Then from there we took a small plain to Flores. The plane was decorated for Dia de los Muertos and then had a special skeleton cake for the airplane snack. After we arrived, we got in a shuttle for the drive to our lodge in Tikal; however, 10 minutes into the drive, the driver got a call that the national park was closing due to hurricane Lisa's approach. So we were driven to its sister lodge in the small town of Flores. We spent a bunch of time on the internet trying to figure things out and what to do so that we could still see Tikal. We also moved to a nice hospedaje on the 4th floor of a building with a nice terrace. We went for a traditional lunch and cocktails before the storm was to hit. It started raining hard now. 

We spent a lot of time doing business, trying to figure out what to do and trying to cancel and change flights. Not much luck cancelling and not sure when the park would open up again. We had tacos for dinner and cocktails on a rooftop terrace restaurant overlooking the lake. While here we booked 2 sets of flights (24 hours to cancel). We then found out the great news that the park would be opening on Friday. We celebrated with more tacos and ice cream. Rain and wind picked up overnight. 

11/3

The storm had passed. We had a nice and big lakeside breakfast, then we explored Flores. It's a tiny little island on a fairly large lake. (It was cool flying in over it the previous day). It has colonial style architecture and narrow, cobbled streets. We walked up to a viewpoint at the center of the island, where we saw a student using a typewriter! We then took the bridge off the island to the shopping center off the island to buy our national park tickets. Back in Flores we had smoothies on a rooftop terrace. Then we caught our shuttle to Tikal. 

After we arrived to our cool jungle lodge, we took a walk in the jungle where we saw some gators, turtles, lizards, frogs, and tropical birds. We're staying at a cool lodge in the jungle on the site of the ancient city of Tikal. We went to the pool and then had cocktails before watching a Mayan documentary video in the theater and having dinner.

11/4

Before dawn we woke up for the sunrise tour of the Tikal ruins. It was eerie to see the ruins in the mist by flashlight while the howler monkeys cried and woke the jungle up. We climbed up Templo IV (?) in the dark to watch the dawn arrive and the sunrise. From the top, above the trees, we could hear the jungle animals wake up. We could see various temple pyramids in the distance that were often shrouded in the morning mist as the sun rose. We finished the morning tour with the guide by going to the main acropolis. We had the whole place to ourselves, especially when we stayed there after the tour left. We walked around the whole place by ourselves. We were pretty much alone at each complex. This was one of the benefits of staying at the lodge is you had the whole morning in Tikal to yourself before the tourists groups from Flores arrived in the later morning. 

We saw coati (sorta similar to racoon I guess), spider monkeys, and 2 species of toucans. When the other tour group arrived, we headed back to the lodge for a packed lunch and a dip in the pool to cool off. After lunch we explored some of the more distant complexes. During our time there we climbed lots of the structures including Templo # ??. Templo V was really cool!

We had a quick swim before our shuttle back to Flores and then flight to Guatemala City. Had a bit of trouble getting an uber to Antigua, so we ended up taking a taxi. Traffic was just terrible in Guatemala City and the short distance to Antigua took forever. We had dinner upon arrival at a local taco spot near our airbnb.

11/5

Our airbnb is on the outskirts of the old central town of Antigua. It has a little deck with views of Agua volcano. It's a cute little apartment. In the morning we walked around the city, but first stopped on our way for pastries and a drink at a nice cafe. It's an old colonial city (maybe capital at some point)with cobbled streets and colorful buildings. We strolled down to the plaza central, the market (got some fruits that were new to me as well as lychee and baby bananas). We of course got smoothies and ice cream and had a local lunch. We visited the famous archway over a street near the main plaza which frames the Agua volcano. Nuns used the arch to move from one building to building without having to be on the street where they would be seen by other people. One other thing worth noting is that even the fast food chain places are really fancy, like taco bell. But the one that stood out the most was starbucks. It was by far the fanciest starbucks we've ever seen. In fact locals were there getting their bridal pictures there. Because of how fancy it was, we did stop in so Elisha could get a drink and tell her applehill girls about it via video. During the day we were also walking around checking out various volcano tours because one of the main reasons for going to Guatemala was to climb Volcan Acatenango and watch Volcan Fuego erupt. 

At night we watched a dia de los muertos/semana santa (holy week) procession around the main square. It was pretty impressive, and everyone was given candles. We had some street food, but then went to dinner at a taco place.

11/6

We started our Acatenango volcano tour with Ox Adventures. We had breakfast as a group at a boutique restaurant, which had a view of Agua volcano through one of its windows (from Antigua Agua volcano is the big dominating volcano, but you can also see Fuego and Acatenango). We then drove to the trailhead where we were given walking sticks and started the hike up.

It was a steep and straight up hike. We went through different ecotypes such as cloud forest, pine, and alpine. It was beautiful and there were flowers everywhere (where are we, in Crested Butte!?). We hiked through the clouds and then the clouds rose above us and we were hiking a bit in the rain. We arrived to camp where we would all would be nestled into cool little huts that were clinging to the side of the mountain. Each hut had 5 sleeping mats laid shoulder to shoulder and had a big window to view Volcan Fuego. It started to clear a bit so that we could see Fuego and its ash eruptions and of course hear the BOOMS. 

After a bit of a rest, we hiked down to the saddle between Acatenango and Fuego, and then up the Fuego ridge on the other side to watch the sunset and Fuego erupt. AMAZING!! We could see the eruption up close, and as it got darker, we started to see the glowing lava in the eruption. It was also lightning all around from distant thunderheads. And we even had the amazing luck of seeing a meteor fly over the volcano as it was erupting that lasted a really long time, so that everyone saw it. It was all so cool and powerful. Fog rolled in and out as we were up there. While watching the "show", the guides passed out wine that we had all carried up..well, I had certainly been tasked with carrying 2 of the bottles b/c they figured I was one of the more fit mtn climbers. As part of the tour everyone had been assigned to carry some sorts of food items up for the group. We stayed past dark and then headed on the hike back to camp.

At camp we sat by the fire and watched the lava eruptions from Fuego (fuego = fire in Spanish) and drank hot cocoa (chilly at that elevation of roughly 11,000 feet). Most folks went to bed, but Elisha and I stayed by the fire watching the volcano and shared in some local tacos with the guides.

When we retired to the hut, I stayed up the entire night watching the eruptions, save for about an hour while it rained. Sometimes there would be really huge eruptions that came with a corresponding very loud boom that would wake people. I remember during the hour that I slept, one such boom occurred and it caused me to wake up and sit up in a start. 

11/7

We got up at 3:30 a.m. to begin the climb up to the summit of Acatenango volcano. As we hiked up the slopes, there were many HUGE eruptions. We reached the summit (13,045 ft) to watch the sunrise and look down at Volcan Fuego erupting. On top there were great 360 degree views of many volcanoes, the enormous Lago (Lake) Atitlan, and even Antigua and Guatemala City. It's hard to describe how cool it was to look down on Fuego as it erupted and seeing the lava come shooting upwards and in a sense towards us.

There was a wide trail around the crater rim that went up and down as it circumnavigated the crater and was maybe 1/3 of a mile in circumference. As is tradition they do a race around the crater. If you're able to run the entire way without walking or stopping, you are given a free t-shirt. This can be challenging due to the elevation, terrain, and ups and downs. At the start of the "gun" people took off really fast, but I have a knowledge of how altitude works and started off at a more gradual pace. Eventually I passed everyone on the rather steep middle climb portion and won the race. In fact, I was only 20 seconds off the record, which I think I might have been able to do if I had really pushed it. 

After the race we took one last look and then descended down to camp by "skiing" straight down through the black lava sand. At camp we were treated to a big and delicious breakfast as the fog started to rise up to camp level. Then it was the long slog back to the trailhead and shuttle ride to Antigua. We had lunch at a tipico Guatemala restaurant and walked around a bit. We picked up our rental car for the next day and then had drinks on a rooftop bar looking down on the streets of Antigua and out at the 3 volcanoes. Then of course a taco dinner.

11/8

Drove the little rental car to Lago Atitlan. The roads were pretty crazy with all their up and down and winding around. And driving through a few of the towns was pretty challenging due to one-way roads and such. At one point a sign said "puente destruido" (bridge destroyed), so we had to ford a small river in the little car. 

The lake is a giant old caldera. We stopped at the rim to take photos and take in the vista. We then drove down to Panajachel town where we parked and had breakfast. We then caught a ferry boat to San Pablo village. From there we took a public truck shuttle to Santa Clara village. From here we started the Indian Nose trek. The trail climbed steeply up Indian Nose mountain (looks like an Indian head from a distance) arriving at fantastic views of the lake and surrounding volcanoes. It was then a very steep and long downhill hik to San Juan Village located on the lake shore. Along the way we stopped at a much lower viewpoint where there were quite a few local tourists and some nice painted murals on the ground. From here there was a good view of the Indian Nose. We then took a tuk-tuk to San Pedro village. We had lunch here and then walked around the village before hopping back on a dusk boat to Panajachel. On the lake we had beautiful views of Acatenango and erupting Fuego as well as other volcanoes. 

Drove in the night back to Antigua where I went out and got street tacos.

11/9

I took an early morning walk through Antigua. It was super clear this morning. I texted Elisha to come out and we met up on a rooftop cafe to enjoy breakfast and views of Agua, Acatenango and erupting Fuego volcanoes. After breakfast we did more walking around Antigua. We stopped in a shop for chocolate tasting and then went to the market for shopping for gifts. We had a tipico guatemala meal in the market for lunch. 

In the evening we hiked up to Cerro Cruz (mountain cross) for views looking down at Antigua and up at Agua Volcano. We treated ourselves that night to a yummy Indian dinner.

11/10

3:30am shuttle to Guatemala city to avoid the traffic. We used our Star Alliance lounge pass from a credit card bonus to hang out in the nice airport lounge. Plenty of food as well as cocktails (Mimosas and White Russians) all for free. And then, as is the them of Guatemala, out the window you could watch the planes and then Agua, Acatenango, and steaming Fuego in the background. 

Flight to LA in which we had some nice views of the volcanoes as we flew past them (as well as a big Mexican volcano). Then from LA we flew to Denver where we stayed the night at Nate Dub's place.