Geology ! Ah...what a feast for the eyes here with the town of Antigua being surrounded by three volcanoes. Guatemala sits at the confluence of three tectonic plates and has 30 volcanoes ! Three of them are active and include Volcan Pucaya and Volcano Fuego which can be seen from town !
I decided to take a hiking tour up to one of them. When traveling, there are multiple tour companies and guides wanting your business. I knew I didn`t need much assistance to hike up there, but booked a tour with a hostel. It was a fairly large group with some college girls from Florida and nobody really had any idea what was going on, but there were still lots of laughs!
A short but steep 5 km hike brought us up to the clouds and lava fields. We literally could feel the heat steaming from the ground ! Our guide brought marshmallows, dug a little pit, and just like that in a few minutes, oozing marshmallows !
We also visited The Lava Store at the volcano, which is a small, locally run shop that produces jewelry and art made with lava ! Proceeds benefit the local communities that have been destroyed in the past by the volcanoes.
Read this interesting article about how it started: http://mayanrebirth.com/about
Had no idea that Guatemala sat on 3 tectonic plates and wa surrounded by 3 active volcanoes!! What an incredible experience! Thanks so much for sharing and letting us see the world through your eyes! Susan
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