Marshmallows Roasting on a Volcanoooooo

Ready for volcano action

One of my life dreams has been to SEE a volcano, let alone climb one and roast marshmallows on top of one.   Luckily beautiful, active volcanoes surround Antigua, Guatemala.  On Wednesday we took a mini shuttle bus to climb an active volcano, Volcan Pacaya.  A windy, but lovely bus ride as it was on actual roads (step up from the Hondi) later we reached the bottom of the volcano.  We were immediately assaulted by children shouting “Estick! Estick!”  We all said pshhhh who needs a stick?!?!  Ha ha.  Little did we know we would be legit climbing a volcano in a few minutes.

Thus we began our summit of the volcano.  At first the hike was a little stressful as we all headed up a narrow path with the kids yelling “Estick!” and walking legit right next to horses with their owners constantly offering taxi rides.  I love horses, rode them for many years, but I’m not a huge fan of walking next to a horse in a confined space in which I could be kicked or pooped on, not by choice, but just by sheer proximity with no where to turn.  Plus with Katie’s recent horse bite, surprise surprise, walking next to horses wasn’t her cup of tea. 

Arbol de hormigas

The hike up was cloudy, but beautiful.  We passed trees and saw farms and every once in awhile we would pause at a scenic lookout point.  At one point we saw arboles de hormigas or Ant Trees (?)  I don’t know in English but those trees are the wood used to make marimbas, which is a traditional instrument here that’s like a xylophone. 

The hike up was an hour and half long, but totally worth as the trees began to thin out and the earth began to change from stone to forest pathway to volcanic ash.  Suddenly after hiking uphill for ever and ever the trees went away and all that was before us was one last uphill climb of volcanic rock.  After the last push up, we arrived at the top, and man, holy cow we were standing on a volcano.  In front of us was the very peak covered in fog and clouds and all around us was volcano. 

Approaching the volcano

ahhhh.... volcano

We then continued to hike up the volcano and around the volcano a bit more.  The volcano we hiked is an active volcano so in certain parts you could feel the heat coming from the Earth and the volcano.  At one area our tour guide was like all right, who’s ready for marshmallows?!!?!?!  He legit pulled out marshmallows and sticks and we roasted marshmallows in the various “hot pockets” of the volcano.  Let me tell you after an 1 ½ of hiking  up a volcano, roasting marshmallows in natural, Earth-made hot pockets of sorts produces the best marshmallows I’ve ever had.  An adorable father-daughter duo from the states that we hiked with were seasoned volcano-ers and they brought their leftover Italian lunch to heat up, clearly we had a lot to learn about the art of volcano-ing, but I’ll take the marshmallows.

hiking around

 roasting marshmallows 

Honduran lip point a volcano!!!!!

The volcano, by far, is one of the coolest things I’ve ever done.  I climbed, hiked, gawked at, and roasted marshmallows on a VOLCANO.  The whole time I was up there I was like, I. Am. On. A. Volcano.  A VOLCANO!  Totally worth the hike up.  Volcanoes might be my new favorite thing.