Guatemala: Volcán De Fuego

I've been traveling all over the country since I arrived last week, but for now I'll just post pics of Antigua, which has been more or less my home base between treks. Much of what I'm doing elsewhere involves stories I'm not ready to share yet.

Here in Antigua, one of the nearby volcanoes (specifically, the Volcán De Fuego, 3763 m and S/SW of town) has been belching humo y polvo for a few days. I overheard some local residents saying there was lava action, too, but I haven't gone up there to see first-hand.

This activity is pretty mellow. But one resident explained to me that whenever it acts up more seriously, the most vulnerable community is a little village called Yepocapa, which sits at the volcano's northwest slope (it's on the opposite side of the volcano from Antigua, and much closer to the lava source).

We saw a lot of smoke on Wednesday, even when we were traveling through the lowlands and sugar cane plantations further south... azucarero country.

This pic above from today is kind of a crappy snapshot, but you can see that there's a steady, grey stream of smoke rising from the peak, even in full light at midday. Link.

The volcano is about the warmest thing in town right now. There's been an extreme cold wave in Guatemala this past week -- the coldest in 15 years, with really strong winds. On Thursday, some places dropped as low as 32 degrees. Places like Huehuetenango, Sololá, and Quetzaltenango were hit the worst, and the capital was pretty bad, too. One resident told me today that like 10 or so people have died from the cold -- some of the worst hit are urban poor who live on the streets or in makeshift "casas de carton," shelters from cardboard and plastic sheeting, no real protection from the elements.

Here's an article about the cold wave in Prensa Libre: "El día más frío de noviembre," Link.

FWIW, it's night now, and I'm really frickin' cold. (Image: Xeni Jardin)