4220 meters - Tajumulco (highest volcano of Centralamerica)

This 2-day hike was made by a group of I.C.A. students and me the 19th and 20th of February. We started the Saturday very early in the morning, we met at 6 and drove to San Marcos to have some breakfast there, of course rice, bean, platanos, eggs and tortillas. We continued with another bus to the village, where the hike starts. Our guide Perro (Miguel, but nicknamed Perro, which means dog) organised a pick up who drove our stuff the first 3 kilometers up the hill, I jumped on the car and also 3 others of our group, so we saved some energy.

just before the sunrise

sunrise, on the right side: other volcanoes

We hiked then 4 hours to the base camp, put the tents and collected firewood. As soon as we had the fire made, it started to hail and clouds covered the base camp. We unfortunately couldn´t see the sunset, it was too cloudy, but at 8 we could see the stars and the summit of Tajumulco shining because of the fullmoon.


As on top of Santa Maria, I couldn´t sleep again, because of the cold and the snores from Nelton. The sleeping bag was so much better (thanks again Marcus), but my feet were cold.

We started climbing the last 150 meters to the top at 4:45am. Sometimes I didn´t need a flashlight, the fullmoon was very bright. It was very beautiful to see the lights of the villges to far away, it was cold and hard, and I was very slow... I were also the last who stood up. The soil sounded like walking on snow, it reminded me of winter in Germany, haha, I love the sound of walking on fresh snow. On the summit were a lot of people, it was cold and windy, around 0°C, brrr. I made some pictures and then went to Eugen with his tiny group of ´we warm each other´.

fullmoon

too cold, brrrrrr

The view was amazing, we were waiting apprx. 20 min to the sunrise, the skycolors were awesome and the view to other volcanoes. As soon as the sun came out, Eugen asked: And where is the heat? Yeah, the heat came two hours later, but everybody was freezing, so, some last group pictures and back to the base camp.

We had breakfast, took the tents, packed, cleaned up our space and walked down Tajumulco (started at 9:30am) and drove back to Xela. We arived at home at around 3:30pm and the only two things we wanted to do: take a shower and sleep ;)

his shadow during the sunrise

view to Tajumulco from the base camp