It's gonna be HOT!

Hey people, stop walking and have a break to enjoy this amazing landscape! We are climbing an active volcano, there is this amazing view of Antigua, and this lake, and everything is so beautiful…

Welcome on the Pacaya volcano! One of the best places to go hiking! Amazing landscapes, fresh air, and it is so exciting to know that the volcano is still active!!

Anyway, at the beginning, I did not really believe that we would see lava. I thought that it was a tourist trap and I was there mostly because hiking is fun and because I wanted some fresh air! It is one of the reasons why we go on vacation, isn’t it?

The first part of the path was the kind of vegetation you expect on a mountain, it was green everywhere! Exactly what I needed! It is a perfect second day of vacation! You cannot feel more on vacation than lost in the middle of nature…

After a while, we saw a change in the landscape. When we could see the villages and the other volcanoes, we also saw a grey thing in the middle of the green trees and corns… OMG, it is an eruption that happened 10 months ago! That is sooo cool! (to see it, I don’t speak about the people who probably lost everything because of it…)

Second kind of vegetation… no vegetation but small pieces of ground lava… Funny, really original, but it goes really easily in your shoes! ; )

It looks like you’re on the moon. There is nothing! I love it! (of course, it is harder to walk on it and we were beginning to be tired, so I think many of us, including me, hated it at this moment.)
Last but not least, the top of the volcano! With hard lava everywhere! I looked like a chaotic landscape. I’ve never seen something like that! The only problem is when the lava just breaks under your feet.

At the beginning, it is funny, you don’t think it can be any dangerous, until you see a small crack that shows far under where you are and… OMG, this is red under all that stuff!! At this moment, you start to freak out and be careful when you walk. You just follow the guide and you try to follow her exact steps… And if it was not a tourist thing? If there is real red lava that you can really go close to? And then, you hear somebody who sounds really excited and surprised, you look up and WHAT THE HELL IS THAT??? It is really hotter here… you can feel hot air coming from the ground! And… NO WAY!!! There is a hole in this block of hard lava and there is a lava flow in it!!! And you can go as close to it as you want (or as close as you can support because it is HOT) That is wicked cool! It is too hot, but you just can’t help it, you want to go closer, you want to touch it with something! Does somebody have a wooden stick or something? :P

This is so great! And the best things is that it is not the biggest surprise this volcano has for you! Some people just pass by this lava flow and go further… what is wrong with these people? This is one of the most impressive thing I have ever seen!

Ok, something is happening over there… what can be more interesting than lava flow? A bigger lava flow! This one is not a hole in a lava block; it is a real huge lava flow! 2 meters large, and I have no idea how long… so hot that we couldn’t stay more than a few minutes looking at it, and you feel that your shoes are getting hot. The air, which was has been smelling like sulfur for the past 30 minutes also smells like rubber and melting shoes… one of the men in my group almost had to go down the volcano with one shoe because the other one melted. Luckily, he could kind of fix it by attaching the sole with a girl’s headband (it sounds funny, but I swear it’s not!)

Anyway, it was a great experience! And I still can’t believe I saw that! The thing that surprised me the most was that there was no security measure. You could go as close to the lava as you wanted to. That is something you would never see in France/developed countries.

In a few words, it was exhausting, and maybe also dangerous. I advise you to do it though! IT IS SO EXCITING!!! It’s wicked cool!!