Our first stop after leaving the United States was Guatemala in Central America.
As soon as we set foot out of the airport, taxi drivers rushed us.
We decided to take the safer route and waited 30 minutes to hop on a shuttle.
When the ride to Antigua we met Andy and Paulina from London who had been traveling for two
months and going to the same hostel.
We immediately thought, hey, we can get some advice.
They were only planning to stay in Antigua for two days.
We were originally planning to be there for a few weeks to attend Spanish language school.
We ditched the Spanish lessons temporarily and mapped out our next 10 days around Guatemala
with them.
Our first stop was to see the volcanoes surrounding Lake Athlat.
After two hours we arrived in Panahachel.
We struggled to find our hostel, but eventually found a tour operator that stuffed all of
our bags and all of us into his little two door prelude.
The trunk wouldn't even shut.
La Jungla Hostel was about five minutes off the main strip.
Sorry, sorry, where are you going?
Panahachel, Guatemala.
Our hostel is kind of out there.
Yeah, our hostel is in an alley.
We came to start our trek here, we want to go up to maybe one of the volcanoes or tour
around Lake Athlat.
All right, so right now we're looking at the volcano that we're going to head to tomorrow.
Can you see the volcano?
It's cloudy.
Oh.
It's cloudy.
It's about 6.15 and we just picked up some, 6.30, we just picked up some fruit from the
market and we're waiting for the bakery to open so we can get some bread.
We need to start again.
I know.
We start.
This is all right.
Yeah, it is.
It keeps going up.
It's not hard at all.
I can't act like I'm in shape right now because I'm dying.
Here's our cello, she seems to be leading the whole pack.
Well, the guide is leading the whole pack.
Yeah, he's not even breathing heavy.
No, not even a little bit.
We're at a rest stop, we're about halfway now, definitely halfway.
A little further up.
We're taking a little break, get some nuts from what we bought last night and drink some
water and our cello is going to feed me, actually.
We got about an hour left.
About an hour.
This is hard.
Yeah, I got his knees.
We're getting into cold weather.
Bless you.
Thank you.
It actually changed pretty quickly.
It was funny, it was right when we went through that change, we were all breathing smoke,
like the steam.
Yeah, not anymore.
Not anymore.
And the sweat coming off your shirts and stuff started smoking, it was pretty neat.
Piece of cake there, no worries.
As cool as we were, about 10 minutes from the top, we got a lot of steps with a world
thing to have because it's American.
Looks like we're near the top, I don't see many trees and seems to have flattened out.
Oh my gosh, I am a one out of shape person.
We did it.
It was definitely not an easy trek and I think I might pack much later if I ever do something
like this again.
Yeah, his backpack was very heavy, his day pack.
It was funny because we started off in the front and I was the last one to make it up.
But it's well worth it.
What do you mean by your backpack?
I don't know.
I don't know.
Too much.
But it was well worth it, it always happens when you get to the very top if you get all
the pain that you just went through and try to forget the fact you got to go back down.
It's beautiful up here.
It took us three hours.
Not bad.
We could have camped up here if we knew any better and had a day's rest.
Yeah.
We didn't know.
We're just starting out.
What do you think Andy?
An experience.
An experience, yeah.
I've had a stomach cramp and had to go for an emergency bushman's so I've never done
that up over a volcano.
But we're here now.
First time for everything.
First time for everything.
First time for everything.
It's turned out that I think I may be one of the weakest in the group, it's a shame.
That means I'm really out of shape.
