We just made it to Costa Rica and now I need to play catch up on the blog. I started writing this post two weeks or so ago, then got busy plus crappy wifi. So, anyway, here it is!
The weather here these last few days has been freeeeezing, and by freezing I mean like 65, but it’s cloudy and windy. I had to wear a light jacket twice this week! This is punishment for rubbing in all the amazing weather we were enjoying here while my family back home in the states were all freezing. I know, you all feel so bad for me but you won’t soon when you read the next paragraph! 😉
Antigua has all your fast food options, and seriously, these places are so beautiful. You could straight up get married in the McDonald’s courtyard. The clown sitting on the bench could be a little weird, but besides that, totally wedding worthy. This first picture below, the one with the beautiful fountain; that’s Taco Bell, which, OMG, Best Taco Bell ever, which is also saying something because all Taco Bells are the best ever. I think I’m going to set a goal to hit up every fast food restaurant this town has to offer. So far we’ve done:
Little Caesars, McDonalds, Taco Bell, and Pollo Campero. Still soooo many to check off the list.
In between Taco Bell runs we have managed to find other activities to fill the time until the next meal there. The other day, for example, we booked a chocolate cooking class at the Chocomuseo. The first half an hour was mostly just talking, but after that, the real fun began. We all had an absolute blast making chocolates, and eating them, trying various chocolate drinks, etc. I 100% recommend doing this with kids. Do just be aware that the first bit is somewhat boring for children to sit through, although I found it incredibly informative.
These lasted a total of .00001 seconds. So. Dang. Good. Now go make some chocolate!
I’m getting behind on this blog already! I wanted to get a post about my hike up to Volcan de Fuego while the details are still fresh, though, so time to get all out of order.
I don’t know when I became so obsessed with volcanoes, but for as long as I can remember, I have been absolutely fascinated and drawn to them.
Last year I had the opportunity to do an overnight hike with the fam up to Volcan de Pacaya and got my first taste of seeing lava. I’ve been addicted ever since. I had heard from our guide, Romeo, on the Pacaya hike that Volcan de Fuego was roughly 10 trillion times more amazing than Pacaya, so at that point I knew hiking it was a must.
Fast forward a year later and the day started bright and early. We headed over to OX expeditions where Nathan and the kids dropped me off and I got packed up for the trip. We drove up to the trailhead, which was only about an hour, and right off the bat the trail starts going up. Up up and up we went through farmlands, cloud forest, and all kinds of breathtaking scenery. The incline does not relent for several hours.
I was actually surprised at how exhausted I was because I consider myself in fairly decent shape and had been working out pretty hard every day all the way up until the hike. This hike KICKED my butt, though.
We finally made it to basecamp, high on the side of Acatenango, and had a quick rest before we began making our way up to Fuego, where the actual hard part started. The first 45 minutes or so weren’t too bad. We didn’t have packs this time around and it was mostly downhill since Fuego is actually lower than Acatenango.
Then all of a sudden, the hike goes from a solid downhill slope to straight up. At several points, the grade is around 25%. We slowlllly made our way up the side of the volcano. Everyone was dragging by now as we had already been hiking for 7+ hours. Our young guide, Carlos, and I became good friends at this point trying to chit chat with one another to keep our minds off of how tired we were. We climbed and climbed for about 1.5km and suddenly emerged on what felt like the top of the world.
Fog surrounded us at the top, and the stark contrast from the white fog against the black volcanic ash and sand covering the ground was unearthly feeling. We stood for several minutes in the windy and wet cold waiting for the fog to clear so we could take the next steps closer to the highest point of Fuego.
Our guides, Romeo and Carlos, decided to take a jog over to see if we could safely pass through the fog to watch the volcano more closely. After what seemed like forever, we saw them running back waving their arms at us. We weren’t quite sure at first if they signaling us to come closer or run for dear life, but we finally figured it out and headed towards the volcano. Everyone took off running, which I was only able to do for a solid 20 seconds of before I figured I was fine letting the fumes just kill me rather than try and run another step. Note, I would not survive a zombie apocalypse.
As soon as we got up to the volcano, the fog quickly, and eerily started to clear. For a second, it looked as if the sky was falling towards us. My heart stopped for a second watching the weird sensation. Then all at once, the heavens cleared and Fuego erupted, shooting lava high into the sky! We all screamed and cheered. The clouds quickly moved back in, but we were still so happy from the quick show Fuego performed. After waiting a while longer, we decided it was time to turn back.
By now it was pitch black and we had only headlamps to guide us back down the mountain. I didn’t mention earlier, but the width of the path on the knife ridge is not wide at all and if you fall, the drop is around 500m straight down! So, falling equals imminent death. As we started our decent, for the first time, I was legitimately scared. It was so dark and so steep that I had no idea how I was going to get down. I took the tiniest steps and just prayed I wouldn’t lose my balance and plummet to my death. At one point, I sat down and did some weird sliding maneuver to work my way down. After about 10 minutes, we made it past the really scary stuff, though, and then the way down just became incredibly tedious. I fell over and over. It took us longer to get down the mountain than it took to make our way up. I thought it would never end.
We finally made it down, and I’m just beat to death at this point, only to look up and see that we now have to climb all the way back up to basecamp. My knee and shoulder are killing at this point from my fall. Somehow I mustered up the motivation to start climbing again. One insanely slow step at a time, I started making my way up the mountain. Just when I thought I was ready to sit down and die, I heard a loud BOOM and looked over. The night sky was as clear as can be and Fuego was going crazy. Just like that, I had all the energy in the world again! I couldn’t believe my eyes. It was hands down the most incredible thing I have ever seen. The sound of the boom, watching the lava fly high into the sky, and then the entire mountain light up in red molten lava was beyond amazing.
We watched explosion after explosion and jumped and cheered with each one. Taking pictures of the eruptions was complicated here. My hands were freezing but I couldn’t hit the buttons and adjust my settings correctly with them on. So, I would take my gloves off, wait for an explosion, but get too cold, so stick my gloves on, then grab my iPhone instead thinking I wanted a video but then changing my mind and grabbing my wet cold camera and trying to get a shot on that.
Somehow, we were able to take our eyes away from the eruptions long enough to finish climbing back up to camp.
We made it to our tents and sat around the camp fire for dinner while continuing to watch Fuego erupt.
I finally crawled into bed and slowly fell asleep. Now, I will say that sleeping next to a very active volcano is not exactly conducive to a good nights sleep. There were so many times that night I nearly jumped out of the tent from the explosion. Imagine being dead asleep and then KABOOM!
The next morning we woke up bright and early and enjoyed the incredible views of Guatemala from camp. We quickly took camp down and then headed back down the mountain. Note, this downhill portion destroyed my knees. Two days later and I’m still feeling the pain, and I don’t have bad knees. I guess sacrificing my knees to the volcano gods was the price I had to pay to get the amazing opportunity of seeing Fuego erupt! I would happily do it all over again, too! Who wants to destroy their knees and hike Fuego with me again next year?
My insurance claim turned out so much better than I could have hoped for. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, check out this post here
End Result:
Allianz paid out $375 for our hotel and food expenses, which were already covered by AA, and clearly showed on the receipts I submitted, as well.
Allianz also paid out $666.XX for travel expenses. Say what?
AA gave us $175 vouchers PER person for the delay. Since we only paid 12.5k AA miles per person plus about $5.00 in taxes and fees to get here, I’d say $175 was a more than adequate comp.
Of course, I’m sad I didn’t push harder. They would have covered up to like $475 per person per day or something, but I chickened out! Oh well. Hopefully I’ll get another delay soon. 😉
On this specific day, I met up with a friend’s sister, who was like the most amazing person I have ever met and is doing so much great work here in Guatemala helping those displaced by the volcano. You can checkout her work here and here . We spent the morning roaming around Antigua, eating ice cream, checking out ruins and all that fun stuff.
While we were at the Central Park, a bunch of young teenagers came up to us and asked if the could take pictures with my kids. It was pretty hilarious and everyone had a good laugh, as you can see above.
I can’t seem to get a steady internet connection to get pictures up on my blog. These ruins’ pictures took almost 2 days to get up!!! What can you do?
We had such a great time meeting up with my friend, Aly, who is from Guatemala but resides in the states. We happened to randomly meet on an airplane two years ago and have stayed in touch since. I’m so excited we got to get together and hang. We had an absolute blast!
Anyway, pretty unexciting post. I just wanted to document this super fun day. I have tons more pictures from the day, but can’t get them to upload, so I’ll save them for another post!
Also also, isn’t that colorful wall the best? Aly found it and we just had to get pictures by it.
Yesterday we nearly died of boredom due to being stuck in the house. Loo woke up that morning with her stomach hurting. She started puking soon after. She threw-up a few more times and then slept the rest of the day. By that evening, she was back to her old self and this morning she was ready to party, and so we did.
Not Hobbitenango ^
Crazy steep hill of death
We hopped in an Uber, which I have found to be the most cost effective method of transportation around here with my big fam, and headed up up up to Hobbitenango.
Side note on Uber, of course I am saving money on them. I have the Discover It card and the quarterly bonus right now is Uber and Lyft rides, so 5% cash back. Since my account is new, Discover actually doubles all of your cash back for the first year, so I am saving 10% on Uber! I should add that I am not 100% sure if rides outside of the US are excluded, like they are for Amex offers, but I searched over the terms and conditions and didn’t see any location exclusions, so I guess we shall see!
Now back to Hobbitenango: The suffix “-tenango” is used often here in Guatemala and from my understanding means “wall or side of the gods.” Hobbitenango was just that, a little shire on the side of the mountain. I honestly didn’t really know what to expect but living in a house full of nerds, I knew that we just had to go.
Uber took us to the parking lot and we hiked the last 800ish meters straight up to the site. That was some serious climmage.
Anyway, the kids loved it. I loved it. It was very laid back and had a great relaxed vibe. It didn’t have a cheap tourist trap feel to it and the food was super good, which is always what matters the most.
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