Ultra-bagging in Central America

Volcan Agua, from Acatenango - photo Alastair Govan

I love hiking in warm sunny weather and especially enjoy escaping the dark, cold Scottish winters for a few weeks. In the halcyon days when most of us were still oblivious to Covid-19, I headed off on a first visit to Central America and, as I’m now retired, I opted for a long trip of five weeks in total.

Not being very proficient in Spanish nor very familiar with Latin America, I took the easy option of guided trips: two weeks trekking in Guatemala with KE Adventure Travel, then a further two weeks or so of mixed activities with Intrepid Travel, travelling from Guatemala through Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and finishing in Costa Rica.

Many tourists travel independently in Central America but mainly between towns and cities and other attractions, mostly using shuttle buses which are easy to book online or in travel agencies. The local ‘chicken buses’ are very cheap but slow and uncomfortable (there’s no timetable as such, they just go when they are full) and best avoided except perhaps once or twice to get the full local experience! Independent travel in the mountains would be challenging and not always safe.

The roads are often very congested, and we saw a couple of serious accidents. We had police escorts on two of the mountains due to recent robberies! Having said all that, I found the people very friendly and polite and I never felt unsafe. I avoided the big cities of Guatemala City and San Salvador, which have unsavoury reputations.

The mountains in Central America are nearly all volcanos. In Guatemala we summited six, including four Ultras – Tajumulco 4220m, P3980m (high point of Guatemala and of Central America), Atitlan 3537m, P1754m, Acatenango 3975m, P1835m and Agua 3761m, P1981m, plus two other mountains - Santa Maria 3772m, P1052m and Zunil 3542m, P832m.

The mountains here are covered with dense forest almost to the top and the routes use well-trodden paths through the forest which are often steep, slippery and dusty in the dry season. Temperatures in the highlands are pleasant, but the mountains get some cloud and are chilly at night. We had frost on our sunrise ascent of Tajumulco, and Agua got a dusting of snow the day before we went up – but this was the first in at least three years and it quickly disappeared. Central America is not a ‘classic’ trekking destination due to the lack of dramatic ridges and valleys associated with other mountain ranges, and the scarcity of views because of the extensive forest. However, many of the summits involve quite strenuous days with 1200-1800m of ascent.

The big attraction of the Guatemala volcanoes is that some are still highly active. Volcan Fuego 3753m, P463m in particular, is spectacular and the campsite on the adjacent slopes of Volcan Acatenango provides stunning views, especially at night, of the almost continuous eruptions. For this reason Acatenango is probably the most popular mountain climb in Guatemala.

The route to San Christobal involves a very bumpy 10km drive (each way) along an extremely rough dirt road, then a steep climb up loose ash direct to the summit, which was very hard going on the way up but very fast on the way down!

Volcan Concepcion is an attractive mountain located on Ometepe Island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. It’s a popular hike, although quite arduous with 1400m ascent, mostly on steep, dusty, slippery paths. The upper section is on rock and loose stones which my group, unused to mountain walking, found very tough.  We took eleven hours for the round trip, starting before sunrise and returning at dusk.

During the trip we started to become aware of a new virus in other parts of the world, and had our temperatures checked at one of the border crossings. At the time I assumed it would be a storm in a teacup, perhaps like ‘bird’ flu or ‘swine’ flu. How wrong I was.

I feel fortunate to have completed this very successful trip, fortuitously just in time…!

Alastair Govan