Hiking Volcano Tajumulco

Day 1 – Santa Cruz to Tajumulco

Kirk is pictured on the left here. He is a younger guy from Utah. I usually find myself avoiding people from the States while traveling, especially the guys recently out of college. I’ve run into way too many ones who give people from the States a bad name. A lot of these guys want to come to these countries for the wrong reasons. They just want somewhere warm and tropical to eat and party for cheap. They travel with a lack of self-awareness and respect for the people around them. There are people from all countries similar to this, but sadly in my experience, this is the stereotype most know of people from the States.

Thankfully, Kirk is one of the good ones. He is still young and transitioning from college to the real world, but he is constantly growing into a more well-rounded man every day. He came here for the right reasons, he wanted to push and challenge himself in a culture and environment entirely different to back home. He wasn’t happy with the typical post-college life and wanted to make a change. I respect anyone who feels that way and makes the move to do it. It’s not easy leaving everything back home and traveling somewhere new and unknown.

I recently learned how to make these interactive maps of my trips. I hope you like them, I think they are so cool. I’ll be working on one for my entire trip and also going through all my past blogs and adding them :).

First, we had to get there. Tajumulco was around 150km away we had to take many chicken buses to get there. Chicken buses are the main public transport buses in Guatemala. They are called that because they are known to have chickens on them as well. While way more common in the past, you can still find an occasional chicken today. They are extremely cheap, fast, and very uncomfortable. We would end up taking 1 boat, 4 chicken buses, and 1 tuk-tuk totaling around 8 hours.

This was my first time taking chicken buses and I was a bit excited about it. The excitement would turn to despair after many many hours of them.

I had prepared some burritos for the ride. I love making breakfast burritos and have been finding any excuse to make them.

As you can see they can be quite crammed. We were all a bit too big for the bus and couldn’t stretch our legs out properly. It was fine for a bit but more and more people would get on the bus and once we were sharing a seat it was pretty tight.

The main bus station in Xela, the city where I had spent two weeks for Spanish classes. This station was pretty wild. Tons of buses coming and going and people yelling at you for where you were going and directing people to the correct bus. It was very efficient and well run for how lawless it seemed to me. There was also heaps of cheap food stalls. We quickly used the bathroom and got a snack before hopping on the next bus to take us to San Marcos.

The chicken buses are old school buses from the United States and are usually very colorful and uniquely designed. This one here is pretty basic compared to some of the others I’ve seen. Here at the San Marcos bus terminal, we ate some Dominoes pizza and then boarded the small collectivo bus to the town near the start of the hike, San Sebastian.

Once in San Sebastion we were let off at a gas station a mere 7km from the hotel we were trying to make it to that was conveniently at the start of the hike. We loaded up on some snacks at the gas station and while there we met two slightly drunk local guys. After a bit of conversation, the local guys kindly offered to take us up to the hotel in their tuk-tuk. They were very kind and helpful but they kept stopping to talk, smoke a cig, and phone their girlfriends to show off their new gringo friends. The road was straight uphill and we were very heavy on a weak tuk-tuk going about 10km/hr. We were all exhausted and didn’t have the energy for them as they were drunk and full of energy. We all just wanted the ride to be over and be at the hotel. They didn’t charge us for the ride at all.

Finally arriving at the hotel in the dark right when a rainstorm started, we were welcomed to what appeared to be a closed and empty hotel. We called the number on the sign and the first one didn’t work but thankfully the second one worked and it was the owner of a restaurant nearby who was coming to let us in.

We were all happy to finally be in the hotel and we all relaxed a bit now. We managed to haggle for Q50 ($6.4) each as well. We chatted for a bit before heading to bed to rest. It rained pretty heavily at night and it was hard to not be worried about getting caught in the rain up at the top of the mountain.

Day 2 – Hotel to Camp

The next morning we woke up and went to the nearby restaurant for some breakfast. It was a delicious full plate of a typical Guatemalan breakfast with coffee and juice. There was also a trampoline in the restaurant strangely enough.

After the breakfast, it was time to start the hike up. It was a pretty short trail, only about 6km (4mi) and 1000m (3250ft) of climbing at a pretty easy incline to the campsite. With a short and steep scramble up to the peak for the morning.

This area was very close to the Mexican border and has had a history of cartel activity and land disputes so there was a large military and police presence. On our first day, we saw loads of police trucks full of kitted-out military guys with armor and full auto guns.

The first section of the trail was up some easy small-town roads.

The first view of the peak of Tajumulco. For being the largest peak in Central America, it was a bit faint looking of a peak. It looks more like a pimple on top of a large hill. I also am spoiled with my daily views of the volcanoes on the lake which are extremely dramatic.

A car full of police drove past us and offered us a ride. They all were smiling and nice so of course we hopped in.

They stopped and let us off at this military lookout station. There were even more military looking guys here which you can see on the left. It was here that my buddy Argo mentioned that he had heard a couple of months ago that some local people had killed a tourist around here. We weren’t letting it get to us too much but it was hard to not feel a little bit of the tension in the area.

Most of the volcano trails we’ve hiked are nearly straight up trails so this was nice and easy. A very steady incline.

Soon we realized that the police were following us up the trail as well. They were going to the summit today. It is a requirement for their job to monitor the whole trail occasionally. They were struggling on the hike as I’m sure it is pretty tough in those hot and heavy uniforms.

After a couple of km of roads, it was nice to be on a hiking trail.

The officers were really nice and it was definitely an interesting experience to hike up with them. We tried to talk to them about why there were so many police and military, but they dodged all the questions.

As usual, the clouds rolled in in the afternoon and took away the visibility.

After around 3.5hrs, we made it to the campsite. It was located shortly before the steep hike up to the summit and crater. First thing first was to set up the tent. This is the same tent we used for Atitlan and is our owner’s nearly 25yr old tent. She was old, but still holding up.

It was only 12:30pm and with nothing else to do, we decided to start drinking our very limited supply of honey cinnamon whiskey. We also tried to get a fire going, but it turned out to be way too much of a hassle since there was practically no good wood around and what was around was soaking wet.

At around 2pm it started raining and forced us into the tent. The rain continued on until after dark, so we were stuck in the tent until sunrise. I had spent many days and hours in tents in my travels so it wasn’t too bad for me, but Argo was struggling a lot with being cooped up in a tent. To pass the time we told stories and listened to a lot of podcasts, A LOT of podcasts.

We even got ourselves a little worked up reading stories online about the cartel activity in this area. The cartel tried every single route to get through the borders and there was a time that they used this very volcano to pass drugs through, hence the reason for all of the military and police checkpoints. We moved our machetes closer to our tent, giving us a false sense of security in case anything happened in the night.

Finally, around 9pm we all decided to try to fall asleep. We would all be in and out of sleep until the sunrise.

Day 3 – Sunrise summit and trip home

At 5am it was finally time to get up and out. We were all excited and ready to see the view. The whole point of traveling so far was to be able to stand on top of Central America and watch the sunrise.

Part of the way up the climb to the summit the sun finally peaked its head out. It was already magnificent.

The last part to the top was a rocky scramble. It was tough. I could really feel the effects of the elevation and all of us were struggling, having to stop every couple of minutes. Our heart rates were through the roof and it took a while to catch our breath.

But man, it was worth it. It’s always worth it. The 8hrs traveling here, trying to get into the hotel at 9pm in the rain, 3hrs hiking up, 12hrs being stuck in a tent, and then all the hours to get back home. All for this sweet, sweet hour of sunrise. You really feel like you are on top of the world in these places. You can see so far in every direction and the colors of the sunrise make it like a painting. All the other volcanoes I’ve climbed can be seen as well, slowly piecing together a view of Guatemala I’ve seen from above.

The best way to celebrate, a summit beer. The wind was blistering cold. Every time I took out my camera with my bare hands to take a photo, it felt like my hands would freeze off.

It wouldn’t be a proper blog post of mine without plenty of photos of my friends enjoying the view.

The shadow of Tajumulco next to Volcán Tacaná. Tacaná is the border of Mexico and Guatemala, it is split right down the middle. All the land off in the distance is Mexico.

The crater of Tajumulco.

Yes, for some reason Kirk decided to bring his machete up to the summit. As if our final battle with the cartel would have taken place on the summit. It would have made for a cinematic fight. The machete sure did make the picture look badass, though.

It was time to begin the trip back home. The trees down below are where we set up camp.

Some nice sun shafts. You can see some volcanoes off on the horizon to the left. The smallest, furthest left one is Atitlan. The larger one to the right of Atitlan is Santa Maria.

Back at camp, it was time for breakfast. I was showing my friends some of my favorite biking / hiking food which meant everything wrapped in a tortilla. This was a Nutella, peanut butter, and Nature Valley bar burrito. The Nutella was the icing on the cake for this one. A banana would have been a nice addition but I wasn’t able to find one the day before.

We were warned of vicious wild coyotes and that we might need some firecrackers to scare them away. None came in the night so we decided to light off the fireworks anyway.

The hike down was quick and beautiful. With clear skies gracing us the whole way down.

A local family walking their sheep.

We made it back down to the main road and enjoyed some cheeseburgers and soda before hopping on the first of many buses back home. It would be another 8hrs or so until we’d be back at La Iguana in the comfort of our beds.

This was a great trip with some great friends, and also my last trip here until I go back to the States to see friends and family.

As of now, I only have a few days of work left before I bus to San Salvador to fly to Dallas to see college friends and then fly to Florida to see my family. I’ll be in the States for about a month and then traveling back to Guatemala in mid November to continue biking, but not before climbing one last, very special, Guatemalan Volcano.

I plan to write a very long blog post sharing the many stories of my time volunteering and becoming a manager of an iconic Central American hostel. I have made many many amazing friends in my time here and I want to share some of those experiences with you all. It will be a couple of weeks until it is ready and will be shared.

Thank you all for reading along. I really enjoy putting together these photos and posts and it makes me extremely happy knowing there are people out there who enjoy reading them :). I love reading and responding to comments so comment away if you have any questions.

Peace and Love,
Zach