One of the essential experiences in Guatemala for the adventurous is to summit Volcan Acatenango. I’d first heard it suggested as far back as Panama (with Alex knowing two colleagues who have climbed it as well) and it has been firmly on our plans since at least Nicaragua.
Acatenango itself is just under 4000m (13000ft) at the summit and hasn’t erupted since 1972. So far it’s just another volcano in the many volcanoes of Central America. What makes Acatenango interesting is that it is joined to Volcan de Fuego (Volcano of Fire), an extremely active volcano that erupts regularly and had been erupting since early March. It’s also not without danger, as an eruption in 2018 killed hundreds and hiking the optional last climb up Fuego itself can be somewhat controversial due to the potential risk. While Acatenango is comparatively safe, as recently as 2017 six (poorly equipped) hikers died of hypothermia as the camps are just below the summit and regularly drop below freezing overnight.
The hike itself is yet another challenge, starting at 2400m (7875ft) ascending to the basecamp at 3700m (12140ft) in one day.
We’d been loosely discussing coordinating the hike with Laura and her friends Kasper and Nanna and, after meeting up in El Salvador, we’d worked out a date that worked for both groups. The next challenge was finding a tour company who were both reputable and available, as we were booking quite late. It’s possible to pay anything from $40-$200 for the hike, the biggest differences being the quality of the gear that they provide and the group size. Our first choice was a well known, well recommended tour provider who let me book and pay online, only to reveal that they were in fact fully booked and would take nearly a week to send us a refund.
After this disappointment and in a slight state of panic, I found AKT Tours who had availability the day after our preferred date, only cost $80, cheaper than our original choice, and had a USP of a maximum of 12 in a group. Hiking up a volcano is hard enough as it is, and we’d heard stories of groups of 50 or more which didn’t sound like much fun, so the small group size appealed. This all sounded too good to be true but the excellent Google reviews didn’t sound any alarm bells so we committed and booked our trip
On the day of the hike we went to the nominated meeting spot to find nobody there. A helpful staff member pointed out that there were in fact two cafes of that name and we were probably in the wrong one. Five minutes later we met up with the tour group and were on our way to the company’s base at the foot of the volcano. There we collected warm coats, gloves, torches, a bag containing our food for the trek, and finally we received a short briefing. Soon we were on our way down the road to start the hike. Antigua, where we’d spent the previous few days, is around 1500m (4920ft) above sea level and the starting point is around 2400m (7875ft) so immediately the air felt thinner.
The hike started with a climb up a path through agricultural land where we constantly sank into deep volcanic sand. Each step felt like only a half step for the effort of a whole step, it was hot and tiring slow progress. Coming the other way groups from the previous day were coming in the opposite direction kicking up dust. We’d been advised of this by AKT so were ready with our buffs to cover our mouths, but this only enhanced the sense of breathlessness. Luckily the first stop wasn’t too far along the route and we were able to get a drink and a brief rest before continuing.
Another plus for AKT, they have an arrangement with local farmers to take a less well-used path off through some fields, avoiding the crowds for a little while, and having some slightly firmer paths. The agricultural land soon gave way to a dense tropical forest and the steepness increased. By now our group had started to spread out with Laura, Kasper, and Nanna at front, us somewhere in the middle with most of the others, and a few stragglers bringing up the rear. Our guides ensured that one guide was always in front of the fastest people and one always hung back with the slowest. There wasn’t actually a huge spread though and every time we stopped the slowest people had caught up within a few minutes.
In between the rests the path was winding but not too challenging, steep but rarely with any need to make big steps over obstacles, so we were able to continue shuffling forward with small steps as fast as our lungs would allow.
Lung capacity was the key limitation here and knowing that we’d be ascending rapidly and sleeping at altitude we’d bought some Diamox and started taking it 24 hours earlier. While I am ultimately fine with altitude I do take a while to acclimatise, time we didn’t have, and instead of the pounding headache that I’d associate with strenuous activities at altitude I was feeling breathless but okay, focusing on putting one foot ahead of the other and slowly ascending the volcano.
Lunch came quickly and we were all starving so we wolfed down our sandwiches and snacks. While we were eating, Laura and co were talking to a Swedish guy who they’d met previously. He told us that his group was massive and he wasn’t even sure where his guides were, which made us glad of our small group.
A few stops later and before we knew it we’d left the jungle and moved into a more sparse pine forest, every now and then a view caught us by surprise revealing just how far we’d climbed, we’d climbed over 1000m at this point and were feeling tired but focused solely on continuing our ascent. A couple of the women had handed their backpacks to the guides to carry (for a fee) and one of them, a lady from Colombia who was obviously struggling and was no longer catching up to us at each rest stop.
Not much later the path became less steep and we saw the first campsite. We still had further to walk however, as although we were nearly at the right altitude we were still on the the wrong side of the volcano. Over the next 45 minutes we passed many camps hoping each one was ours but finally reached our camp, one of the smallest and highest with a great view of Volcan de Fuego. We’d managed to catch up with Laura, Kasper, and Nanna, and with a few others we arrived at the camp and slumped onto a bench by the firepit gasping for breath.
After a few minutes of recovery the guides asked us if we’d like to take the extra option of walking on Fuego but we were all tired, we had a great view of Fuego from the camp, and we’d heard of the potential danger, so we all decided to skip it. The guides then offered to take us to our huts and Alex and I ended up sharing a four person hut with Sara, a Slovenian woman who we’d already made friends with on our way up the mountain. Our hut was a short scrabble up from the main camp and we settled in. As it happened, Sara had a headache so we shared our Ibuprofen and in return she shared her baby wipes which meant that when we returned to the main camp we felt at least somewhat refreshed.
By this time the slowest members of the group had arrived, a Panamanian guy who had been waiting for his Colombian friend who’d been struggling all day. It turned out that the reason for her struggles was that she’d been ill and only let out of hospital the previous day! The Panamanian, Wallace (his dad was a huge fan of Braveheart!), had brought with him a rather expensive drone and used it to fly over to Fuego, giving us an incredible close up view of the volcano.
Before dinner the guides lit a fire and we toasted marshmallows while drinking hot chocolate and we talked more to our group. There were ten of us, so half being us and the Danes. Our group was completed by Sara our Slovenian cabin mate, a couple from the US who had travelled and lived all over the world, and the Panamanian and Colombian pair.
By the time we’d finished dinner it was dark and we watched the constant glow from Fuego, every few minutes there would be a rumbling and from the volcano that sounded much like a low flying aircraft, and the volcano would get brighter as more lava was ejected. On the side of the volcano we could see a line of light, the light of the torches of the people who had climbed Fuego now descending in the dark. After admiring the stars we took an early night, ready for the next day.
It was very cold away from the comfort of the fire. We climbed fully-clothed into the sleeping bags, wrapped ourselves and the bags up with blankets, and keeping our wooly hats on, we were soon nice and warm and pretty comfortable for a tin hut on a mountain top.
At 4:20am we were awoken by a guide outside our hut telling us that we’d be leaving in 5 minutes. He was supposed to have woken us at 4am, however whether he thought we needed a lie in or just forgot that our hut was occupied I don’t know, but it did mean that we got 20 minutes more sleep than the others and we were still ready to leave a few minutes later. Having said that, Alex does not sleep well at altitude and had been alternating between being awake and having very lucid dreams all night, she had to ask me if we’d actually been woken up as she’d just had three realistic dreams about being woken up!
By torchlight, we slowly worked our way up to the summit of Acatenango, it was only a few hundred metres climb, but it was pretty steep and we started at altitude so it still felt like a hard climb. There was some cloud at the summit of Fuego and we could just see the diffused orange glow of Lava through the cloud.
After an hour we arrived at the summit. Dawn was breaking and Fuego was just starting to be lit up by the pretty pink and orange clouds that indicated sunrise wasn’t far away. Our base camp had been on the sheltered side of the mountain and although it was cold we had no wind. On the summit however we had a strong constant wind so we put on all of our layers and tried to find a spot to sit where we were at least slightly sheltered by a rock. We watched the sun rise snuggled together and shortly after more cloud started to roll in, we were ready to start our descent to base camp for breakfast.
Not all of our group had ascended the summit in the morning and when we returned the other four were getting ready for breakfast. Despite the lack of wind it was still freezing and we were very happy when the guides brought out tea and coffee.
After breakfast we packed up and started our descent. While the ascent was a bit more spread out and you rarely realised how many people were climbing, on the descent it felt like everyone was leaving the mountain at the same time, especially towards the bottom. The sandy slippery ground was even less fun on the way down and it was very easy to slip and fall. Where the terrain and other people allowed, it was actually easier to run down keeping a constant momentum to avoid slipping. This was harder though with the queues and our guide led us down a number of steep shortcuts. As we descended breathing got steadily easier and when we stopped for a break two hours later we were nearly at the bottom. Before we knew it we were back at the AKT base enjoying our reward of a cold beer.
We’d spent around 5.5 hours on the first day climbing the mountain and then a further one hour climb on the second day followed by just over two hours climbing down. We were exhausted but happy to have completed the trek and to have been far from the slowest, despite being the oldest, never feeling like we were holding the group up!
After picking up our backpacks, the AKT’s transport took us back into town. Laura and co had stashed their backpacks at their hostel and we decided go with them to see if we could get a shower. For a small fee their hostel was not only happy to let us shower but even provided towels!
Feeling refreshed we went out for a final lunch with Laura, Kasper, and Nanna to an excellent Italian place that Kasper had found. After walking back to pick up our bags, we said a final goodbye. Having been a few days behind us for a while they were now going to be in front of us in heading North, while we would be branching out to Lake Atitlan for a well earned rest! We both really enjoyed seeing Laura again and meeting her boyfriend Kasper and friend Nanna. They’re all really interesting people and we all got along well, I hope that our paths will cross again!
Writing this a few days later we are still very happy with our Acatenango experience. AKT Tours were excellent, especially when you consider that they’re at the cheaper end of the spectrum and limit group sizes to 12. We heard awful things about the food and campsites from other tours, but we were well fed and comfortable at night, which helped make this trip fantastic. Our small group and small camp felt so much more intimate than the others we saw, and it felt like both the guides and team who run the company really cared about the experience of the tourists who choose to hike Acatenango with them!