Outtatown - Site 1: Guatemala

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Heidi’s Small Group inside their Habitat house

Sabrina’s small group with the family and workers in front of their almost finished house!

The small group of Justin Krushel

On the morning of February 2, nine site one guys left for volcano Acatenango, the second tallest in Central America. In a last minute change of plans after a few emergency phone calls, we picked up a few
tents and were driven in a hurry to the base of Acatenango. The volcano was a quick 45 minute truck drive from Antigua. We arrived later than we had hoped, so we picked up our guide, and started the climb right away. Our guide said it might take us until 8:00 to reach
the summit. The guide set a pretty fast pace, since we didn’t want to be stuck climbing in the dark. We managed to hike up in about 4 hours, reaching camp at about 5:00. It was probably the toughest, most challenging 4 hours of my life, but the climb was very beautiful. We walked through fields where farmers climbed to work every day, as well as through some thick rainforests. We stayed the night in the crater out of the wind. First we set up camp, then climbed a while further to watch the sun set from 14000 feet. From the highest point we got a
good view and some great pictures of many of the other volcanos in the country. It was incredible to see a bunch of them peeking out of the clouds, with one of them, Fuego, constantly smoking out of its top.
The night got fairly cold, close to zero, but we were mostly out of the wind. We stayed pretty warm, but nobody really slept more than an hour or two. In the morning some of the guys made it to the peak again
to watch the sunrise. Descending the volcano was awesome. It took us about and hour and a half to get down, sliding through the volcanic rock. Apparently, the guide had another group to take up again the same day…unbelievable. We managed to catch a ride with a friendly guy with a truck, and we had an uncomfortable, but beautiful ride back
to Antigua.

Mike Harms

Group shot after our weekend long Basketball Tournament against 3 other teams in eastern Guatemala. We lost by 3 three points in the final but still had the time of our lives building relationships with the local youth in Rio Hondo Guatemala.

Dales small group with the neighborhood kids at their Habitat work site.

These are some the guys that ran the show….and did they did an amazing job. They cared for every need, gave a fun two weeks and were extremely organized. They are our friends and will be greatly missed.

You can now see a detailed calendar of events for Site 1, semester 2 here. There is also a link to the calendar from the “Where We Go” section of the Outtatown website.

At the Summit of Volcano Acatenango, with Volcano Agua in the Background