Hiking one of the biggest volcanoes in Latin America - With stray dogs!

I couldn't sleep well last night due to lot of expectations. I was about to hike my first volcano ever. Even though I am no stranger to hiking I was a little nervous. After all I have close to zero equipment and the hike is known for not being the easiest around. In the Xela municipality there are many volcanoes both active and not. We have decided to go to the volcano Santa Maria which is 3772 meters high.

My alarm goes off at 4:45 AM but I am already awake as I have heard others opening doors and getting ready as well. At five o'clock we had meeting in the hostel's courtyard and everybody was on time. The plan was to take Uber to the beginning of the trail. The driver arrived in five minutes, we have jumped in and cruised through the half empty city like magic.

The moment we get of the car street dogs approach us. They must be smelling that bacon and eggs we all have stored in our backpacks. They jump on us full of excitement and we are a little worried at first, but soon enough we realize that they are no threat to us.

Local tourist agencies are offering guided tours to this volcano - however it is absolutely not needed. The stray dogs know their way. At first I thought it was a joke but one of us saw a review mentioning them as a useful indicator of where to go. And so we did. Following their footsteps we started our hike. It was expected to take us about four hours to reach the summit and three hours to come back down.

In short time we have split the group according to our abilities and pace. On the other hand one Englishman and Austrian girl joined us for a while.

It is important to feel your body and not push so hard on yourself as you can get an attitude sickness. Wouldn't recommend that to anyone. Somewhere in the middle of our trip I felt it myself. Slight headache and difficulty breathing are clear signs.

Luckily some views started to appear and we had plenty of chances to stop for a picture and drink some water to catch the breath again.

As we were progressing higher clouds started to chase us. We knew that around lunch time there was a chance of rain and we planned accordingly. This pushed us to speed up the tempo a little. Although when at 3000 meters you can do only as much as your body allows you.

At some point have heard other humans. One immediately imagines local gang with machetes. It sounded as a group of Spanish speakers and the fact that there were signs of a cartel territory marked with a red spray didn't help to mute my imagination. It turned out however that it was a group of local tourists. They welcomed us on the summit with all openness.

At this point only one dog was with us - the leading group. All the way up we have abstained from giving them anything although I have tried to offer a little cereals and somebody threw them a piece of banana. I have promised myself that if they stick with us to the very top I will share my boiled eggs with them.

"Our" dogs really did stick with us to the summit to feast and chill with us on the rocks. The views were spectacular. If we would be a little bit faster or should I say if we would started even an hour earlier we would have a chance of seeing a small active volcano next to Santa Maria. But that is with no guarantee really. One has to be just lucky or go and hike the mountain again. Which I have no plan of doing as some kind of gray smoke was visible and the trail was no joke. Some people would definitely drop out before reaching the top. That being said with right kind of motivation it is doable by almost anybody. For the way down it is recommended to have a walking stick to save your knees a little. I have found one at the very last two kilometers or so and it really came handy...

All the best,

Global Local