Lets start where i left you guys.Which was In Huehuetenango(locally just known as Huehue).
I had been emailing a while with this Danish Guy called Emil, who is biking around in central America, and he asked me if I wanted to come hike with him on Vulcano Tajumulco. I thought the idea sounded great, so instead of going on from Huehue to Panjachel, as planned I instead decided to go to Quetzaltenango(known as Xela).
I went to some random bus in Huehue which said "Terminal" on the front, believing that it would take me to the bus terminal. And it did, just not the 1st class, but instead the "Chicken Bus" Terminal. Having no clue how I ended up there or what to do now, a guy yelled "XELA XELA" and pointed at me whereas I answered "si" and was pointed in direction of a bus. "Chicken Buses" are basically old American school buses, painted in different colors - that go everywhere in Guatemala for very very cheap. Think I paid 20 Quetzales(13kr) for a 2 hour trip.
After 5 min. ride the driver suddenly pulled of to the side, and went out of the bus indicating that he needed to visit the bathroom. So the entire bus had to sit and wait for 20 min, until he was done. In the mean time we had the chance to buy something from one of the fifteen salesmen who came in and held great speeches about their amazing products, such as "the pen with built in Calendar", or an "anatomy-book"(don't ask me why the heck a guy thought he could sell and anatomy book on a chicken bus, but the situation itself was quite entertaining)
.
Eventually the bus driver came back, and we made our way to Xela.
In Xela, I found a cab and went by a nice Hostel.
Later that evening(Tuesday) i meet up with Emil. He told me that the tour he had been talking about had been cancelled due to too few sign ups, bus if I wanted to we could do the tour on our own. Since I was already there, I thought it would be stupid not to try to climb the volcano, so we agreed to meet next morning to see if we could find a place where we could rent sleeping bags, and sleeping mats(since I didn't bring any).
Next day, after renting sleeping bags and packing, we headed of to Volcano Tajumulco.
It took us around 3 hours to get to the starting point, with two different chicken buses. So at 4 o´clock we started the hike. After almost 3 hours hike, it became dark and we decided to camp at something that looked like an actual camping place. (at least it was filled with trash...so someone must have been there before us).
Due to the high altitude, we were unable to lit a fire so we had to survive on the bread and tuna we had brought. In the night it was freezing cold(below 0 Celsius), so I praised myself lucky for bringing my skiing underwear, which kept me warm.
Next morning at 5,00, Emil woke me up and we spent another hour climbing the rest of the way to the top of Tajumulco(4200 Meters). The view at sunrise was amazing! Really fantastic!
On our way back, we got lost on our way down, but ended up finding the right way anyway. There were no buses from the starting point, so we hitchhiked one hour to the nearest city, from where we caught the chicken bus back to Xela.
Yesterday(Friday), I took the bus to Panajachel, on the shore of Lago de Atitlan, where I meet up with Eva and Laura(from UWC). It was fantastic to see the two again, especially here in Guatemala.
We spent the day sailing back and forth across the Lake to see the small villages. Tomorrow we're going to Chichi, to check out a gigantic market. It'll be lots of fun.
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