Year 2025 was quite challenging for me. And Guatemala did change it. 14 days in Central America and I have to say I did not go to Guatemala with huge expectations. But in terms of experiences and everything I saw, it turned out to be one of the best trips I have had in years, maybe ever.
Even a week later, while recording these memories, I was still genuinely blown away by what I had seen and experienced. It was only two weeks, yet when I wrote it all down, there were seven truly massive highlights. The kind of moments that stay in your head long after you come home.
| Table of contents |
|---|
| Watching Volcán Fuego erupt |
| Sunrise on Acetenango |
| Giant kite festival |
| Urban downhill |
| Riding down the volcanic ash |
| Antigua Guatemala |
| People |
1. Watching Volcán Fuego erupt
This was probably the biggest one.
Originally, I did not even plan to go to Fuego. The trip was supposed to be mainly a mountain bike holiday. I had booked eight days with a biking company in Guatemala, planning to ride through the mountains around Lake Atitlán and back. Then I got a tip that many people hike up at night to watch Volcán Fuego erupt.
So I went after the bike trip, and it became one of the most unforgettable things I have ever seen.
The hike starts at around 2,400 meters and is no joke. You climb roughly 1,200 vertical meters over about 12 kilometers to reach the main basecamp on Acatenango. From there, if conditions allow, you can descend a bit and then climb toward Fuego itself. The two volcanoes sit next to each other almost like two letter A’s connected by a saddle.
When we headed up, the weather was terrible. We could barely see three meters ahead. We were walking in cloud the whole time, it was cold, and by the time we reached basecamp, nobody was very motivated to continue. Even the guides were hesitant. But four of us decided to go anyway. Sitting in camp freezing did not seem like a better plan.
We pushed on toward Fuego in the fog, but once we got there, nothing. The volcano was quiet, the visibility was awful, and the whole thing felt like a gamble that was not going to pay off. You could only see other hikers’ headlamps in the steep darkness, little cones of light moving up the slope. That climb is brutally steep. At that point we were around 3,500 to 3,600 meters, and after waiting with no reward, we headed back to camp. By the end of the day I had done about 1,900 meters of ascent.
Then at 1:30 in the morning, someone from our group woke us up.
Clear sky. Full moon. Fuego was erupting.
I opened the shelter where I had been sleeping, still in my sleeping bag, and suddenly there it was right in front of me. A huge volcano I had not even been able to see the evening before. And now it was alive.
From 1:30 until about 4:00, it kept erupting. There were two enormous explosions and several smaller ones in between. I have seen Stromboli before, but this was on another level. The explosions shot maybe 200 to 300 meters above the crater. Lava covered the entire summit area. First you saw the eruption, and only a few seconds later the sound arrived. That delay made it even more dramatic. Then came the deep thunder, followed by the noise of rocks falling and loose debris shifting down the slopes.
It was absolutely unreal.
2. Sunrise on Acatenango
That same night barely allowed any sleep. After watching Fuego erupt, we got up again at 4:00 to climb higher for sunrise on Acatenango.
The summit is just under 4,000 meters, around 3,970. The climb was steep again, but the conditions had completely changed. Fuego was still erupting in the distance, the full moon was out, and we made it in time for sunrise.
The colors were incredible, but what struck me even more was something I had never seen before.
As the sun came up behind me, I cast a giant shadow onto the clouds below. It must have stretched 300 meters or more, and around my head there was a glowing halo effect. It looked surreal, almost religious. As we walked around the volcano, I could see this giant figure moving across the mist. It felt like seeing some strange image from a church painting, except it was happening live, right there in the mountains.
I had never seen anything like it.
3. The giant kite festival in Sumpango
Another huge surprise was a local festival in Sumpango that we stumbled into almost by accident.
For the local people, this is not just entertainment. It is deeply spiritual. They spend five months building these giant kites, often working on them for hours every day. The kites are beautifully colorful and often include references to family members who have passed away. When the kites rise into the sky, it is seen as something symbolic, almost a connection to the heavens.
When we arrived at the stadium, it was packed. Completely packed. Imagine a football field surrounded by thousands of people, shoulder to shoulder, with barely any space around you. At one end stood enormous kites waiting to be launched. The ones that actually fly were about five meters across, while behind them were even larger display kites, some around 30 meters in size.
We ended up helping one guy who wanted to get his kite into the air. He had won the competition the year before and apparently had also had help from tourists then, so he hoped for the same luck again.
We held the kite from behind using the bamboo structure while he worked the line. The rope must have been around 200 meters long. On the field, officials had created a corridor down the middle using whistles and temporary barriers so there was enough space to run the full length of the pitch.
Then he pulled hard, and we all started running.
We ran across the entire field, helping manage the line and keep the kite stable as it caught the wind. All around us were thousands of people cheering, filming, watching. It was one of those situations where you suddenly realize you are part of something you never could have planned.
An absolutely wild experience.
4. Urban downhill above the lake
One of the best mountain bike moments came on a descent from the hills down through a village toward the lake.
At first we were riding proper mountain terrain, but then the route dropped straight into a steep settlement built into the hillside. The paths there were incredibly narrow, maybe 50 to 70 centimeters wide in places, just enough for the handlebars to fit. The whole village is built on steep slopes, so gravity just keeps pulling you downward through endless stairs, tight alleys, and tiny passages.
And of course, you are not alone. These are not bike park trails. These are everyday routes for local people. We passed villagers carrying things in baskets, dogs running across the way, chickens, people walking up and down the same stairs, and at one point even locals holding machetes. It was chaotic, real, and unforgettable.
This is the kind of riding you usually only see in Red Bull videos. But here we were, doing it for real, rolling down through the village all the way toward the lake.
At the bottom we stopped for coffee, and the coffee in Guatemala was excellent everywhere. Then we continued to the lakeshore, loaded the bikes onto a small motorboat, and crossed to a hotel on the other side.
What a day.
5. Riding down volcanic ash and scree
Another amazing bike day took us onto the slopes of an inactive volcano.
Even getting there was memorable. We drove up in an old Toyota Land Cruiser from the 1970s, with the guide using four-wheel drive as the terrain got rougher. The landscape changed completely. It started to look more volcanic and raw, full of odd-shaped rocks and loose material, more like Iceland in places than the tropical scenery lower down.
Once we unloaded the bikes, we still had to hike higher on foot. That was hard work. In the loose ash and scree, every step forward could slide half a step back. In some places we had to cross old lava fields and drag the bikes through material that swallowed your feet. Just moving the bike five meters could feel exhausting.
We did not go all the way to the top, only high enough to start the descent.
And then the fun began.
Riding down that loose volcanic surface felt like biking on deep sand for kilometers. There was almost no traction. You had to keep your body centered over the bike all the time. If you leaned too much left or right, you were gone. In fact, after two meters I crashed and immediately understood the lesson.
Stay centered. Let the bike move under you.
The faster it went, the better it worked. That sounds wrong, but it was true. Speed gave stability. The bike floated more, even though it was still sinking and drifting in its own direction. You had to relax, trust the movement, and let yourself weave down through the loose volcanic scree. In places we even had to pedal through it, which was brutally hard.
Such a good day. Pure fun.
6. Antigua Guatemala
The city where I spent most of my time was Antigua Guatemala, a UNESCO World Heritage site, and it was one of the nicest towns I have visited.
The first thing you notice is the streets. They are not asphalt. They are made from rounded cobblestones, not flat stones like at home, but uneven stones that force every car to slow down. Nobody drives fast there. The roads slope slightly toward the middle, and when it rains, the water simply runs down the center. The whole system feels old, simple, and different.
The buildings are low, usually just one storey, and painted in strong colors: red, yellow, green, orange. From the outside, they already look beautiful. But inside many of them are hidden courtyards and gardens. You step in from the street and suddenly there is a calm inner world with plants, cafés, restaurants, and shaded spaces. That contrast makes the city even more special.
I kept getting lost there, partly by accident and partly on purpose. The streets run in a grid, with numbered avenues and streets, yet so much of it looks similar at first that I found myself walking the same blocks from different directions without even noticing. But I did not mind. The whole city is pleasant to wander through. Historical buildings, lovely corners, beautiful lighting at night, good cafés everywhere.
I spent maybe five or six days there in total, which is unusual for me in one town. By the sixth day it finally felt like I had seen it from every angle. But the fact that I was happy to stay that long says enough. Antigua is a very beautiful city.
7. The people
The final highlight was the people I met during the trip, especially on the mountain bike section.
There were six of us in total. Four Americans and two Europeans, including me. In Antigua I had also spent time alone with a guide, but on the bike trip the group dynamic became part of the experience.
And the Americans were completely crazy. In the best possible way.
One of them was 65 years old, had beaten tough things twice, and had only started cycling at 54. Before that, he used to ride a unicycle. Not casually, but mountain biking on a unicycle. I still cannot fully process that.
The other three were from Colorado, around my age, and their whole approach to life was basically YOLO. Full commitment, full speed, no hesitation, just send it. On the first day all of them crashed at least a few times. On the second day it happened again, and one of them injured his knee badly enough that his trip was effectively over.
But even then, their mentality was still: go all in. Guys were used to bike parks, where everything is controlled and relatively safe. Here, the trails were very different. These were old local paths, used by villagers heading to fields or higher mountain areas. Many were overgrown, slippery, muddy, and not maintained much at all. That made a big difference. In Colorado they are used to dry dirt. Here the trails could be slick with wet leaves, mud, and sand. They improved as the trip went on, but the conditions were completely different from what they knew.
Still, the whole group added so much to the experience. So many strong personalities, so much energy, and more than enough stories.
What a trip
Seven huge highlights in just 14 days.
Fuego erupting at night was absolutely massive. The sunrise on Acatenango, with that giant shadow and halo effect, is still in front of my eyes. Helping launch a giant kite at a local spiritual festival was something I never expected to experience. Then there were the mountain bike descents through steep villages, down stairs, through narrow alleys, and across volcanic scree. Add Antigua, with its color, coffee, and atmosphere, and finally the unforgettable people I met along the way.
Guatemala 2025 was simply one of the best trips and one of the best collections of experiences I have had so far. Perfect, really. One of those journeys that stays with you.
