Antigua

Such a pretty colonial town with loads of cute little cafés and boutiques.
I stayed at La Quinta Santa Lucia hotel right in front of the big market, overlooking Volcano de Agua.
There are 3 volcanoes around Antigua, all above 3,000m and I was pretty excited to start my volcano trail in Central America, so I booked a hike up the Acatenango volcano (3,976m) for the next day.

We drove to the village of La Soledad at 4am where we started our hike to the top of Acatenango. After a 30min climb up, the decrease in atmospheric pressure started to make my breathing difficult, followed by headache, nausea and dizziness. I seemed to have an acute mountain sickness which made it a nightmare to climb up the Acatenango volcano. The higher we would go, the more I would experience fainting episodes which was pretty scary but I had no choice but continue upwards. The volcano trail didn't seem as exciting anymore...

After surviving the Acatenango volcano, it was time to get back to Antigua for a long overdue shower and a hearty meal to lift my spirits.Read more