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Photo: Murray Foubister, CC BY-SA 2.0 via Wikimedia Commons
This is usually reached from Acatenango, as part of the same trip for an extra charge to get closer to eruptions. This is only worth doing on clear evenings and may be too dangerous to do at all. From the basecamps, you walk down a steep trail from Acatenango (-300m altitude) and up (+300m altitude) onto Fuego, as well very steep, taking about 2 hours one way. From the viewing point, you'll watch the eruptions at a distance of a few hundred meters to the crater of Fuego.
Volcán de Fuego or Chi Q'aq' is an active stratovolcano in Guatemala, on the borders of Chimaltenango, Escuintla and Sacatepéquez departments.
© OpenStreetMap contributors
Acatenango (3976m) is a strenuous hike which can be done in one day or overnight. Camping overnight on Acatenango lets you watch the spectacular explosions of the active Fuego volcano from your camp site.
A nursery of macadamia trees with an interesting environmental and economic agenda. Valhalla has donated over 250,000 macadamia trees to indigenous communities in Guatemala. Macadamia nuts are a cash crop, with the potential to provide a better livelihood for Guatemalan peasants than does coffee. The shells can be used for street paving, and Valhalla have found a way to provide the trees as genetically diverse complete plants, instead of as grafts. This allows natural selection to adapt the trees to changing environmental conditions. The station turns macadamia nuts into snacks, chocolates, a fine skin cream, a pure oil, and a flour that can be made into pancakes. Pancake breakfasts are served every day until 15:30. The breakfast includes 3 pancakes made of macadamia flour, served with macadamia butter, homemade blueberry jam and a drink of your choice. No reservation required. The station offers tours in Spanish, English, and sometimes other languages. At the end of a tour they offer samples of their various products. To get there, try taking a chicken bus, which run every 30 minutes; the fare is around Q3.50 one way.
The dormant volcano stretches up invitingly to the south of Antigua. Some tourists recommend climbing as part of a tour with a police escort to avoid problems as robberies are frequent. Some unaccompanied tourists have been kidnapped. Definitely take the security situation seriously. Ask at the Inguat office for advice, and go with a tour that has armed security that you trust.
Ex As Green as It Gets
Learn how to pick, process and roast your own coffee. Spend a day with a coffee farmer, on the base of Volcán Agua, and learn what a day in the life of a small independent coffee farmer is like. The tour will take you up the volcano to pick coffee from their fields. They will then take you to their homes to demonstrate how to separate the coffee fruit by density, husk the fruit, ferment and wash the beans, dry, remove the inner hull, sort by size and grade, roast, and of course taste. Costs Q200 for the day, and includes a pound of coffee as well as English translation and guide services. Tours begin and end at Plaza de San Miguel Escobar in Ciudad Vieja, and must be booked at least 24 hours in advance.
Built in 1708 as a church and monastery for friars from the Order of the Recollects, La Recolección sustained heavy damage in the earthquakes of 1717 and 1753 before meeting its final destruction in the massive Santa Marta Earthquake of 1773 that claimed most of the rest of the city along with it. Today it's among the largest ruins in Antigua, but it's also far off the well-trodden circuit (hidden away past the bus station at the west end of town) and not particularly well-preserved either: damage to La Recolección continued even after the quake, when much of the remaining material was plundered for other construction projects and structurally stable portions of the complex were altered for use as a soap factory, a horse stable, and other purposes. Still, visitors can take advantage of the quiet tranquility and lack of crowds to enjoy a peaceful walk through the garden. As for the ruins themselves, the former church building is the best-preserved portion of the complex; the cloisters, former infirmary building, and other remains less so.
Founded in 1998, the Casa del Tejido Antiguo is a museum dedicated to the craft of weaving as practiced for centuries by the native Mayans of Guatemala. Tucked away in an out-of-the-way corner of central Antigua, you'll be taken on a brief (30- to 40-minute) guided tour through about a half-dozen rooms of museum exhibits detailing the history, tools and techniques of traditional Mayan weaving. Then you'll be set loose into an even larger section containing artisans hard at work on garments, mats and artistic pieces. You can (and will be emphatically encouraged to) buy some of their work; whilst the quality is decent the cost is several times what a decent haggler would pay for similar pieces at the Mercado. All exhibits are in Spanish only, and only some of the staff speak English, so those who don't speak good Spanish should ask in advance for an English-speaking tour guide.