stop in antigua for a night after a fun ride down from coban. saw some very suicidal uphill overtaking, usually from fully laden trucks. heard more english than spanish in antigua, and managed to pick a hostel full of young poms who had been working with street kids and had all contracted scabies. great. also read in a paper that 3000 people have been reported to the police as assassinated this year in guatemala, makes you wonder how many havent been reported.
route from antigua to quetzaltenango had to take us back through guatemala city and involved seemingly driving round the whole city dropping people off at various bus terminals with ours of course being the last terminal visited. not the smartest way to get there but at least it ensured we had a seat. got to the crazy terminal/market then off to our hostel and settled into our delightful 23 bed dorm.
went to quetzaltenango so i could join a quetzaltrekkers (www.quetzaltrekkers.com) trek to tajumulco-the highest point in central america at 4222m. quetzaltrekkers is a non profit organisation run by foreign volunteers to raise money for a local school and health clinic so by going with them i was basically donating money to the projects as that is where 100% of their profits go.
good group - us/german/canada/aus/uk/turkey/israel about 15 of us. started the trip with a 5am pick up ride to the bus terminal. was really cool to get there that early and see everything setting up for the day. took a couple of chicken buses to the start of the trek and then we were off. was about 6-7 hours up to base camp and most of us felt fine at the altitude. i definetly dont feel as strong as i did with ACE, but having not been lifting heavy rocks around for a month im not really surprised; but was happy to see i was still reasonably hiking fit. set up camp and had dinner before dozing off in our 6 person tents in preparation for our 330am wake up.
scrambled up to the summit in the dark for sunrise which was a little overcast but colours coming through the clouds and the volcanoes smoking in the distance were pretty cool. also interesting that it was so easy to distinguish between what was mexico and what was guatemala as mexico has yellow street lights and guatemala has white.
trekked down, couple more chicken buses and we were back. had to be careful to stray to far off the path on the way down as there still a few landmines unaccounted for from rebel fighting back in the day. locals always seem quite interested in 15 foreigners getting on their bus most of us scraping our heads on the roof as we walked down the aisle.
met up with jo and berkeley again and went off for some awesome street food in the rain. delicious and some very cute kids kept hanging around us wanting their pictures taken which was pretty cool. then off for some drinks with some of the trekkers joining us.
fun end to a very enjoyable day
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