Volcán Tajumulco

This past weekend, 3 friends, Michelle, Lisa, and Aaron, and I went with a trekking company, Quetzaltrekkers, up to the top of the tallest Volcano in Central America: Tajumuclo. The peak is 4,223 m (13,854 feet) . Quetzaltrekkers is a non-profit organization that runs a health clinic, school for street children, among other various projects in Guatemala and Nicaragua. The quetzal is a national symbol of Guatemala and is supposedly a beautiful bird. When I was living in Costa Rica, I temporally took up birding and wanted desperately to see the famed bird, but alas it was not meant to be.

The hike was quite hard due to the altitude rather than the actual trail. I was a bit worried because I had experienced altitude sickness in Perú, which is probably the worst I´ve ever felt in my life. I had a pounding headache, nausea, vomiting, malaise, and I honestly thought I was going to get cerebral edema and die. Obviously, I ended up being fine, but it was still a horrendous experience. Luckily, we hiked the mountain at a moderate pace and I didn´t really feel sick. Although during the night a few times, I woke up out of breath.

Quetzaltrekkers is great, not just because of the work they are doing with the local communities, but also because they have all the gear one would need for camping overnight on a frigid mountain. It was so cold that it was actually hailing when we were setting up our tents.

The following day, we woke up again at 4am, and hiked up to the peak to watch the sunrise. It was an amazing and beautiful experience (rest of the pics are at the link).