Coban is a small city in the centre of the country. It´s not as high as Xela, but it feels colder because of the moist climate. It is about 1500m above sea level and frequently misty and damp although today is nice. Before I came here I spent a couple days in Antigua. It was similar to Xela in that it had a lot of colonial building, cobblestone streets, but it was definately more tourist oriented. The setting was spectacular being surrounded by 3 volcanoes, unfortunately there were no live demonstrations of lava to see! One of the days I did an afternoon trip to the Pacaya volcano. The bus turned out to be an old chicken bus that seemed to be a lot less powerful than the normal ones I've been on. Maybe it was all the gringos. Luckilly it was only about an hour and a half to the 1800m elevation on the volcano, so I only had to suffer for a while. The seats on these buses are always too close together to those with long legs. From the point where we got off the bus, it was about 2 hours to the summit. It was pretty steep most of the way, and we stopped every 15 minutes or so. The path started out paved, then turned to dirt with steps, and then the vegetation disappeared. The winds picked up near the top, and the final few hundred metres of the cone were really steep, and loose. At the top we reached the edge of the crater, but we couldn´t peer into the crater because of the thick smoke. Sometimes the wind would blow the sulfur smoke back at us, but mostly the smoke was headed in the opposite direction. It was hard to stand because of the extremely strong winds. There wasn´t actually a lot to see in the crater, but at least I can say I´ve been on an active volcano. The way down was hard on my knees because we didn´t stop too long for breaks as it was getting dark. Made it back in one piece though.
More photos here.
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