Day 22: Up Acatenango, and Goodbye Guatemala

Ramsey's first day of retirement, he looks like a little kid in a candy shop.

We boarded a bus to hike the volcano, and to our surprise there were 27 people hiking with us. A normal size group is close to 10, but a group of 17 Israelis joined todays hike.

We paid 300 Quetzals, or roughly $40 USD, and it included a tent, sleeping bag and food. Below is the food they provided.

I asked this guy, Timo, if he was new to the road because his hair looked so fresh. He has actually been traveling 10 months. He just has really great hair. He is a chef from Switzerland. He likes small brown dogs.

Up and up we went. The hike was about 5 hours up to basecamp. 

We were on our way to summit the 3,976 meter summit. (13,048 feet). 

We set up camp here, and would do one more hour of hiking in the morning to the top. Immediately we were able to see Volcan de Fuego puffing smoke and bursting with lava. It sounded like thunder, and was fairly consistently going off every few minutes.

My sandwich got smooshed.

The sunset was perfect!

We went to bed to the sound of the thundering volcano next door. Also to the sound of real thunder, as a storm blew in. As I laid in my tent, I would try to distinguish the two. They are quite similar.

In the morning, Ramsey and I went to the summit. 

Ramsey is great at posing.

We went back down to the fire and had hot chocolate. It was 100% caocao melted with water. It doesn't sound like it would be amazingly tasty, but it was the nectar of the gods.

Then we headed back down! Here you can see our friends Lyndal, from Australia, and Robert from Germany. Having been asked another 5 times in the last 3 days if I'm German, i asked Robert if he thought I looked German.

"No"

"And why not?"

"You look to relaxed."

Good time, good people, good views.

We all went out for lunch, went home, and then went out for beers together.