Guatemala – Where I discovered I was stronger than I thought

I loved everything about Antigua – the family I lived with, the new friends that I made, my Spanish teacher, the staff at Maximo Nivel (the language institute, which I highly recommend) and all of the colonial buildings, old churches and beautiful old doors. And one of my most favorite things about Antigua was looking at Volcan de Fuego as I walked from ‘mi casa’ into the town center. It is an active volcano 16 kms west of Antigua and it has fully erupted 3 times since 2021. But it is constantly active at a low level, with small puffs of gas and ash every 20-30 minutes and I would watch for it every time I walked down the steep, rocky road into town each morning. Coming from Saskatchewan, Canada, it was just so out of my normal realm of existence to see an active volcano that it never ceased to make me gasp out loud like a child and before you ask, it was so freaking cool that I never thought to be nervous about it. And for this middle age wanderer, it became even more surreal when I signed up to do the Acatenango hike.

The Acatenango hike is an overnight hike up Volcan de Acatenango, which is only 2.5 km from Volcan de Fuego (the erupting one). Acatenango is one of the highest volcanos in Central America, almost 4000 meters high. The hike is 10 km up with an altitude gain of 2950 meters and it already starts at 850 meters above sea level. It is an incredibly challenging hike that traverses through four distinct eco systems. First, you go through agriculture lands which it is quite amazing to see how they farm on the side of a volcano. Then you enter the old growth tropical cloud forest, which is quite magical (and thankfully nice and cool as it is incredibly steep). Then you enter a sparse high-alpine forest and the views open up and you can see 6 other volcanoes (Guatemala is an extraordinary country, home to 37 volcanos, both active and dormant!) And the last micro-climate is above the tree line and it is a windy volcanic terrain with views that seem other worldly.

I was so very lucky to do the hike with my friends, Dan and George, plus 9 amazing young women from Chile, Argentina, Australia, and the US. It was the most wonderful experience but also the hardest thing I have ever done physically and mentally too. I want to add that I have developed this habit the past couple of years of saying ‘Yes, why not?!’ to so many new experiences and it is a beautiful thing that I love about myself and also sometimes it is wildly irrational and ridiculous. So was I in good enough shape to hike Acatenango? No, no I was not 😅 (I also did a portion of the Camino de Santiago with little training and a much too heavy pack and then ran a half marathon, also with little training and this time a too heavy body) But back to hiking Acatenango …I was not properly prepared but honestly if I had known how hard it would be, I might not have done it. But I did do it and I had the most incredible experience so maybe ‘winging it‘ sometimes is the right thing. Actually not maybe – I know for certain that sometimes doing the thing that you are not ready for, the thing that may be too hard, the thing that is wildly outside of your comfort zone, both physically and mentally, is exactly the right thing to do.

I learned so many things on that hike and the first is that there are people that you will randomly meet in life and they will be kind and generous and unbelievably supportive and will somehow become good friends. This is George for me. In our group, George and I had both accumulated more years of living than the rest of the group (AKA we are not so young) so we were bringing up the rear for the whole hike. And honestly, I might have quit if not for George and all of his ‘you can do this’ and ‘you paid for this, you can’t quit’ and ‘I believe in you, we can do it together’ and ‘50 more steps and we can take a break’ and then he would count out loud for me. I am normally hyper independent and rarely accept help (yes, I have recently been told that is a trauma behavior, I’m working on it) but that hike I learned that I can accept help and more, that there are amazing people that will help you for no reason at all. There were others besides George, Emma from California, who not only had a garbage bag attached to her pack to pick up other people’s garbage but also kept checking that I was drinking enough water, and Sigrhe from Australia, who said that I reminded her of her mom and offered me her walking stick and would sometimes double back to check on me, and sweet, sweet Vanessa from New Jersey who kept telling me I was so cool and brave  and she wanted to be like me when she grew up (and I was so happy I could help her the next morning when she didn’t feel well). Their kindness will live in my heart forever and anyone who has anything negative to say about Gen Z – well I will not only fight you but I will kick your *ss, because they are incredibly conscious and kind and so inclusive. 

I also learned to accept that sometimes success and happiness doesn’t look like what you imagine it to be (any young people reading this, this is an excellent lesson to learn as soon as you can). Because the other thing my wonderful friend George did was force me to accept help from our guides, in letting them carry our packs. We had Juan and Luis and they were maybe 18 years old but had grown up on the volcano and they offered to carry our packs (for a fee, of course – not only could they run up that freaking volcano but they were savvy entrepreneurs). I resisted – I wanted to do it on my own and prove something to myself but honestly, I might not have made it. George wisely asked me if I wanted to be miserable the whole way up and that seemed like a very sensible question so Luis made an extra 200 quetzals by carrying my pack 2/3 of the way up and I was not miserable and able to finish. It was still the hardest thing I have ever done physically (at that point) so I am glad I accepted the help and it did not ‘take away’ from the views at the top or the overall experience. 

Other notable things I learned was that I can live completely out of my comfort zone and ‘rough it.’ At the top, we were 6 to a tent, there was no water, no bathrooms, and very few places to sit – plus a tiny, narrow dirt path between tents that dropped off to treacherous fall. It was incredibly freaking cold at the top once the sun went down and we had to huddle around the bonfire, which weirdly was in a lean-to type situation with a tarp overhead, and so it was so very, very smoky. You had to choose between easy-to-breathe air or staying warm. And I had never done something like share a tent with relative strangers (although by the next morning it felt like we were all friends). And a silly memory, one I will never forget, is sitting next to Dan inside the opening of the tent, looking at the incredible views while we flossed, side by side, as there wasn’t much space or water to brush our teeth.

There were more insights from that magical but difficult hike. I watched the most beautiful sunset with relative strangers and felt so connected, which I think nature and travel both can do…. connect strangers, that is. At one point, it was just so beautiful, I had tears in my eyes and Natalie, this amazing young woman from the Netherlands, simply smiled at me and said, ‘My mom cries when she’s happy too.’ And I wish I was a poet so I could write a sonnet about the beautiful, long night listening to Fuego puff and spew and watching nature’s version of fireworks. I also had a transformative morning bearing witness to the most breathtaking sunrise but those thoughts are for another time (maybe I’ll write a book one day and really bare my soul ;)) 

One last lesson to share – after hiking Acatenango, I thought to myself ‘well I can do anything now. I am so strong and brave, I will never feel afraid again. Yeah me!’’ Insert huge belly laugh here, because it turns out that being brave, conquering fears and overcoming negative thought patterns is an ongoing process and there have been many, many times since that hike, where I have been afraid or stuck in a negative thought pattern and worse. Maybe I am a slow learner or maybe the tough lessons are lessons that you have to learn again and again. But when I am really scared or nervous or sad, I go back and I read my journal and I look at my photos and remember the beautiful weekend where I learned I was stronger than I thought.