Acetenango Volcano Hike Part 2 (Success)

By this time it was precipitating freezing rain and hail, but we made it back down Acetenango and up Fuego in about 2 hours. I was personally having a hard time sliding down the rocks but the tour guide was really nice and let me hold his hand to keep balance.

Somehow, we survived and the rain clouds lifted in time for us to see some amazing views of the eruptions, which happen about every twenty minutes. Then as the sun was setting and it started to get cold we climbed back down Fuego and back up Acetenango.

Even from Acetenango the views of the volcano were incredible and we enjoyed the group meal the tour guides had prepared for us after a long day of hard hiking.

I was completely exhausted and went to the cabin to try to sleep, but the loud eruptions, cold, and altitude-induced headache made it impossible to sleep more than a couple hours. Sev opted to go on the sunrise summit hike that started around 4am—he was the only one in our group to do both the Fuego and sunrise hike. The sunrise hike was only 2 hours long and Sev came back with some beautiful photos.

The tour guides gave us breakfast and we headed back down the mountain. This was my least favorite part as I was quite unsteady on my feet going down and fell down multiple times. Which was fine, but it was mentally tiring to be trying so hard to keep my balance. Sev is a far more experienced hiker and didn’t have the same kind of problems though.

We had a feeling of accomplishment after finishing the hike and celebrated with some beer locals were selling at the bottom of the mountain.

I don’t think I’ll ever forget seeing a volcano that close up. Totally worth the time and effort.

We thought Witcho and Charlie’s was a good tour company and would recommend it to our readers. The tour and included gear rentals cost about $50 and then an additional $30 for the optional hike up Fuego.