T
here’s an unnerving tranquillity to
Guatemala’s cloud forest, arrayed as it is
here across the slopes of a towering volcano.
Its beauty is delicate, ripped from the pages
of a fairytale: boughs drip with tangled
beards of moss; thick, glassy droplets hang from pine
needles; and fingers of ferns are glossy-wet. Shifting
mists blot the sky and half-obscure my path, forcing
the foreground into focus; amid the black soil at my
feet, I spot minute white blooms, like pinpricks of
light. There’s a stillness and silence in this glade that
belies the molten lava seething somewhere deep, deep
beneath the earth — and the chaotic scene lower down
the steep mud road.
I hear a distant shout — “Vamos! Let’s go!” — and retrace
my steps out of the wood to where our 4x4 is still wedged,
at a tilt, in a pothole. Members of our camping expedition
are wiping sweat from their foreheads and throwing
dirt-caked shovels into the trailer; I hurriedly wedge the
branches I’ve gathered under the tyres and jump in.
At the wheel, my guide, Vinicio Peña (Rambo, to his
friends), revs the engine. “Come on, my son,” he whispers
affectionately to the truck, eyeing the rutted incline
ahead. A crucifix dangles from the rear-view mirror.
The wheels spin and then we shoot forward, the truck
careening over the track’s ditches like a wild thing
possessed. “Yeehaw!” Rambo shouts, shifting through
the gearbox. The forest’s outstretched limbs batter the
bonnet and scrape at the windows, as if warning us to
turn back. I spy a hairpin bend ahead, and acres of open
sky over the verge, and screw my eyes shut.
When I open them again it’s because he’s switched
the engine off. The forest has spat us out onto a rubbly
plateau, wrapped in clouds and crowned by skeletal
vegetation. “You have to be a little mad to come here,”
Rambo laughs. And then, clutching his chest: “It’s like
I have two hearts! Do you feel that?” I don’t know if he’s
referring to the thrill of the ascent or the effects of high
altitude. The air is noticeably thinner: we’re around
10,500ft up. From here we’ll hike to the trailhead and
pitch camp; at dawn, we’ll make our ascent to the summit
of Acatenango, Guatemala’s third-highest peak.
There’s a flash of light, an air-splitting peel of thunder
and the first drops of rain. We grab our kit bags from the
truck; Emeralindo and Fernando, the porters, using a
forehead strap to balance giant bundles on their backs.
Raphael Chicojay Diaz, another guide and the trip’smountaineering expert, falls into step with me at the
rear as the storm breaks in earnest. The path beneath
our feet is black: ash and pumice. “This is Guatemala,”
he says. “Fire and water.” There’s another distant rumble,
but this time it travels through the earth; I can feel the
percussion in my bones. Raphael raises an eyebrow and
grins at me. “I don’t think that one was thunder,” he says.
We’ve been unlucky with the weather — typically,
between late October and April there’d be nothing but
warm days and clear vistas. But our team makes the best
of it, cheerfully gathering inside the kitchen tent to share
stewed chicken, hot chocolate and stories. Rambo has
been guiding for 30 years, he tells us; before that, he was
in the Guatemalan army during the country’s brutal civil
war (1960-1996). “In that life, I was a soldier, a paramedic,
a paratrooper, and I worked on anti-narcotics projects
too,” he says. “But becoming a guide, learning more about
our history and culture, has been the best thing that
ever happened to me. I understand better both sides of
the conflict, and what happened to the people caught in
the middle.” Raphael, in turn, speaks about expeditions
and adventures across Guatemala. “Acatenango is my
favourite volcano — I like a challenge. I’ve climbed 12 of
Guatemala’s 37,” he says. “None of the three active ones,
though,” he adds, ruefully.
When we exit the kitchen to return to our own tents,
the sun has set and the clouds have cleared. The villages
of the valley below are lit up like Christmas but the
night seems unusually dark. There’s not a star in sight
— the sky is concealed behind a hulking volcano. Fuego,
Acatenango’s noisy neighbour, just three miles to the
south, fires off a flaming volley of rocks. Neon-red ash
and boulders spew into the sky, tinting the remaining
clouds apocalypse rouge, then tumble earthwards,
illuminating the upper cone. The sound of the explosion
— just like the rumble heard on our walk — reaches us a
moment later. “That was a big one!” Raphael cheers. “Try
to get some sleep before the climb, if you can.”
The ‘climb’ turns out to be an undignified two-hour
scramble in volcanic scree. For every stride I manage
— heart-pounding, leg muscles screaming — I slide
two back. As dawn breaks, Raphael and I switch off
our headlamps, soak up the view and catch our breath.
(We’d left a poorly Rambo behind. “The volcano wasn’t
the only one exploding in the night,” he’d joked,
clutching his stomach and nodding to the latrine pit
apologetically.) The undulating landscape of Guatemala’sCLOCKWISE FROM
TOP: Sunrise from
Acatenango; Fuego
erupts; guide Raphael
Chicojay Diaz takes in the
view through binoculars
PREVIOUS PAGE: A
lone hiker stands atop
Acatenango, part of a
chain of volcanoes that
stretches through the
Western Highlands
May/Jun 2020 75GUATEMALA