Guatemalan Volcanos

As a hydrogeologist, one of the things I was really looking forward to in Guatemala was seeing the volcanos.Guatemala has 35 official volcanos, forming a rim west-east across the country.

The ones that I´ve seen are Fuego (6), Acatenango (3), Agua (5), Pacaya (15), Atitlán (8), Tolimán (10), San Pedro (11), and Ipala (28).  The red numbers above indicate still active volcanoes.  Fuego, Acatenango, Agua surround the city of Antigu, but currently all are too dangerous to climb, not due to volcanic activity but to human threats. There are villages up the entire slopes of many of the volcanos and have been cases of robbery and worse.


I could see Fuego and Acatenango from the patio outside my room in Antigua; Aqua is the south direction marker for everywhere in Antigua. Aqua is also the one we ran part way down with a torch for Guatemalan Independence Day.

Volcan Aqua

Volcan Fuego

Although this area of Guatemala is mountainous, these volcanos can be seen from hundreds of kilometres away.  (Fuego and Acatenango seen below)

Aqua in the foreground, Fuego and Acatenangoint he background, with lava on Pacaya framing the foreground.

Pacaya has been made a national park recently and is now secure for people to climb.  This is the one I climbed first.  The first hour is just a climb through the forest, villages, and corn fields. And then suddenly you emerge on a field of black. A steep, rough climb over new rock leads you as close to the lava as your skin and shoes can stand. The lava is quite different each day, somedays flowing like a river.  Unfortunately when we went it was not quite as strong.

The second volcano I climbed involved 11 hours of driving in the same day, but was very interesting as it is not visited by tourists, is inactive and the small crater is filled with a lake.

And in strange, not understood Guatemala reasoning we had a picnic at the top with 2 large pots of chicken, about 30 avocados, 30 tomatos, 4 litres of pop, 2 litres of rum, plastic tables.  I couldn´t resist a picture of my friend Nora carrying a pot and strainer while climbing a volcano in 35degree heat.

The lat set of volcanos that I saw are at Lago Atitlan. Lago Atitlan actually fills an enormas crater of a former volcano that collasped. Now, the lake is rimmed by 3 smaller, young volcanos.  The rim of the massive old volcano is still evident around the lake and the 3 volcanos are evident all around the lake. Although the three volcanos are labelled as inactive, there is still is evidence of a significant amount of heat. I went diving here and the sediments are so hot in some places you can´t keep your fingers in for more than 20 seconds. And in other places it is possible to see the hot water discharging from the bottom, mixing with the cooler lake water.