After the partying of San Pedro, and a full day spent on chicken buses, Antigua provided a comfortable refuge where we could rest and recharge. 45 minutes outside of the capital Guatemala City, Antigua is a small colonial town littered with cafes and restaurants catering to all types of cuisine. It’s the kind of place you could always stay for one more day.

We used most of our time here for just that - coffee drinking, bagel eating, chocolate sampling, playing cards and also cooking a few meals of our own as we still had our gang from San Pedro together.

On our first night at the hostel, unaware how close we actually were to it, we spotted Volcán de Fuego off in the distance, shooting off some steam and lava. As we stopped what we were doing to enjoy the moment, we decided at that point that climbing up Volcán Acatenango for a better view was our must do activity in Antigua. So, on Thursday we did the rounds of the travel agencies, sussing out the competition and trying to play them off against each other to get the best price. We settled on one and booked it in for the following day.

Come 10:30am on Friday morning, we were still waiting for the tour bus to arrive. When they finally arrived soon after, we told them we wouldn’t be going on the tour as it was too late to begin the trek and we’d miss sunset. We walked over to the tour office and soon found ourselves in the middle of an argument and an unwanted choice over not getting any refund, or taking the tour on Saturday without food included. Still unsatisfied, it wasn’t until we mentioned we’d go to the police until they finally cooperated, and included us on the tour for the next day with all meals included.

Our persistence paid off, as when we woke Saturday morning the weather was clear and we left on time. The hike involved 6 hours of mainly uphill walking through slippery tracks, before we reached our camp and set up our tents and campfire.

Probably the best moments of the whole experience were had during and after sunset, as Victoria, Jorden and I sat out on the grass, witnessing the most surreal (and at times blinding) lightning storm unfold next to Volcán de Fuego, which was shooting off bursts of smoke and lava every so often. The bucket list moment was well and truly cemented when, whilst fiddling around with different exposure settings on my camera, I managed to get this shot:

After much conversation over life, travel and how lucky we were to be sharing, or even just experiencing these moments, we headed back to the campfire where we shared some cheap liquor with our guides and roasted a few marshmallows on the fire.

With 4 of us jammed into a relatively small tent, needless to say there was little sleep had, and any that we managed to get left us with aching bodies from the thin mattresses and cheap sleeping bags.

We were soon up at 3:45am to attempt to climb to the top of Volcán Acatenango, a tempting opportunity if not for the thick cloud and considerable rain that we found ourselves in. As much as I wanted to stay in the tent, I realised it was my only shot at this, so joined the others who were keen enough to brave the conditions and begun the 90 minute uphill climb. Unfortunately for us our efforts weren't rewarded, and as others predicted, the climb was cancelled due to the poor conditions and we ended up turning back.

After a breakfast of an apple and a banana (I ate the rest of my meals the day before after the trek), we descended for 3 hours to where we started the previous day, and our bus took us back to Antigua.

While exhausting, it was an incredible experience that Antigua would have otherwise felt incomplete without enduring. With aching muscles all over, Victoria, Jorden and I then began our 17 hour bus ride across the border into Honduras, a new country to be added to all of our lists.