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Travel Update #42 |
Hello from El Salvador! 🇸🇻 |
We’re a bit behind on our emails, so we’ve got a lot to get you caught up on! Since our last email, we’ve climbed volcanoes in Guatemala and crossed the border into El Salvador! |
Antigua |
Antigua is the old capital of Guatemala, and the capital of the old Spanish Latin-American empire. The city was severely damaged by an earthquake in the 1700’s, which is when the capital was switched to Guatemala City. Throughout Antigua there are ruins from the buildings that were damaged. Today, the city is a UNESCO world heritage site and it is BEAUTIFUL. The streets are all cobble stones and the buildings are old and colourful. There are many old haciendas and monasteries here that have been repurposed into restaurants and hotels. The famous arch here also used to be a bridge connecting two monasteries on either side of the street. |
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Acatenango Volcano |
While in Antigua, we signed up for our first overnight guided hike. We packed all of our required gear into our back packs and hiked up Acatenango volcano. Acatenango is dormant, but it is connected to the highly active Fuego volcano that erupts every 20 minutes!! This hike was both extremely challenging, but incredibly rewarding for us. |
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We went with a dog friendly tour company, so Finnley got to join in on the experience. |
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The first half of the hike was very steep, which is extra difficult when you have 13kg bags on your back (us, not Finnley)! The second half of the hike levelled off, but it was still difficult since we were at high altitude. |
It took us about five hours to reach base camp. We then had about 20 minutes to drop our gear, catch our breath and take in the views of erupting Fuego. Then we set off on a second hike to the ridge of Fuego for sunset. |
We descended down loose gravel, walked along a valley, and then speed-hiked back up Fuego. This section of the hike was loose volcanic gravel and scrambling around rocks. We had to move quickly so we didn’t miss sunset, which made this section of the hike very challenging. |
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We made it just in time to watch the sunset from above the clouds, and when the sun went down, we had the most epic volcano experience of our lives! We saw the red hot lava erupting from Fuego! |
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Back at basecamp, we stayed up late watching lava erupt from Fuego. |
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The next morning, we woke up early to watch sunrise from basecamp before starting the trek back down. |
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Bike Tour |
Back down in Antigua, we took a few days to let our legs recover. Then we did a bike coffee tour to a local coffee farm. We also visited a local market and tried some local food and learned about Guatemala’s history. |
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The tour was with the same company we hiked Acatenango with. Our guide (who is also the owner) is a local Guatemalan who started a travel tourism company (CA Travelers) as a way to support her mission to help the local community. The profits from the tours go towards building schools and sponsoring children to go on to get further education - something that is very challenging for Guatemalans. |
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El Salvador! |
We left Antigua and made our way to the El Salvador border. The process was a little slow, but over all it went smoothly. |
Ruta de las Flores |
We started our time in El Salvador off with a drive along a windy mountain road that has small pretty towns and quite a few attractions along the way. We visited a cafe with a labyrinth and other extreme sports (zip lines, slides etc) in Apaneca. We did the Seven Waterfalls hike in Juayua and climbed straight up waterfalls! |
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We also visited Juayua’s weekend food fiesta to try some Salvadorian food! We’ve been consuming our weight in Pupusas, the national dish of El Salvador. This is a corn pancake stuffed with beans, cheese and other toppings (They’re only $0.50USD each!). |
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Santa Ana Volcano |
Next we headed to explore more volcanoes! This time we drove up the Santa Ana volcano to a quiet campsite surrounded by volcanoes. |
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We camped for the evening, and the following morning we hiked up to the crater of Santa Ana volcano. It’s an active volcano with a steaming turquoise lake in the crater! This hike was much less challenging that our previous volcano hike. It only took an hour and a half to get to the summit 😄 |
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What’s Next |
We’ll be heading to the Coast of El Salvador for some beach time, then continuing on to Honduras and Nicaragua! |
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What’s New |
We uploaded our next video in our Mainland Mexico series. We leave Lake Chapala and drive up into the nearby mountains to explore waterfalls, mountain towns and the unique geology in the area. We hope you enjoy! |
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That’s all from us this week!
Hayley, Jake and Finnley 🐾 |
P.S. If you know of anyone who would like to receive our updates as we head south, please forward this email on to them so they can use this link to sign up to receive our email 😁👍
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Driven: 20,250 km / 12,582 miles |
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We made it just in time to watch the sunset from above the clouds, and when the sun went down, we had the most epic volcano experience of our lives! We saw the red hot lava erupting from Fuego! |
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