For my second entry of the “Favorite Moments” section, I will take you back to November 2014 when I climbed 3,976m high volcano Acatenango in Guatemala and spent the night on it’s summit while watching nearby volcano Fuego erupt all night long – simply incredible! 

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Volcano eruption in Guatemala

German version

Central America’s small country Guatamela is located within the Ring of Fire and features three active volcanoes. One of them is Fuego and it will put on a show you will never forget if you decide to take on the challenge of hiking up to the top of 3,976m high volcano Acatenango! The hike is not easy and the loose rock will take it’s toll on your condition, but the view from your campsite just below the summit will make you forget about it all and reward  you with a stunning close up view on the constantly active Fuego.

Choosing a good guide for this adventure is a crucial part. I have used a local young men from the Alotenango village near the starting point of the hike. Usually I would go on my own, but for this hike I have read a few bad stories about people getting robbed, which apparently happens on a regular basis. My guide told me that they target the big tours starting from Antigua though and I felt really safe with him and his dog.

After a slow start and some people already starting to cry out of exhaustion, we quickly made progress up to the top in record speed. My guide actually had to ask for some breaks in between to catch his breath, guess I couldn’t wait getting to the top! The views from the top of Volcán Acatenango are amazing and the huge crater of the non-active volcano is impressive as well. The main highlight comes at night though. After descending down the slopes to a lower position, we finally reach the camp site where his father already had a fire going and it was time to sit down and enjoy the show.

Every 20 minutes or so, Fuego was erupting in a huge explosion, throwing big lava stones in all directions. I was sitting in a safe distance next to my tent on nearly 4000m and could not help but watching for hours and hours as every eruption could have been a bit better than the last. Luckily, there was no wind at all and it wasn’t cold.

In the end, I had an amazing experience that I will never forget and am sad that I did not have a tripod with me to take some better pictures! Hopefully the ones I have are enough to give you an idea and I also put up a small clip below from my full length video about this trip.

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>> I will use the Favorite Moments Page to collect all my travel highlights. <<

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