Lava right in front of your nose. That’s Volcano Pacaya in a nutshell. Not for everyone, but honestly? Super cool and an absolutely unique and fascinating experience.
For safety reasons, I would only visit Volcano Pacaya on a tour. I honestly don’t know if you can get to the starting point of the climb by public transport, but I guess so. Nevertheless, I would go with a tour. Mainly to know how to behave on site and what you can and cannot do.

At the beginning of the tour, you will be picked up at a specific point – which will be communicated in advance – and then taken by minibus to the foot of the volcano. From there you will walk through earthy and densely wooded – i.e. shady – terrain. I frankly found the climb relatively easy, but we were also walking quite slowly.
Once at the top, the area becomes more open and shortly afterwards you stand in front of a thick, fat lava flow, grey on the surface, that has flowed down from Volcano Pacaya. It is grey because that is what partially cooled lava looks like. I wouldn’t touch anything though 😀 Because the heat is still really intense and basically radiates from the lava.

Our guide explained things to us on site and also showed us what we could actually do with the lava. On the one hand, the lava is so hot that it is still moving/flowing – which you can see clearly or less clearly depending on where you are/look. Meanwhile you can still do something with it. And our guide showed us how to. He basically showed us how we could poke the lava with sticks – under supervision of course. The poking causes fire and flames erupting at the spot where you poke it. And honestly… it’s just really crazy and really cool. I had the possibility of trying it myself and… it was quite an experience… and really hot! From a distance of less than two metres you really start to notice it…
At one point, the guide even took out a piece of lava with his stick, poured water over it to cool it down, and a few minutes later people roasted marshmallows on it – no joke.

Do it or not? Regardless of whether you generally like playing with fire or not… It’s absolutely fascinating, completely unique, extreme and, to be honest, quite magical in a way. I mean, when do you ever get the chance to get so close to lava and interact with it without being in danger? And even if you don’t want to – which is perfectly legitimate – when do you ever see or do something like this? I know I wouldn’t wanna miss out on the experience of seeing lava that close up in a completely safe environment and even poking in it! And by the way, you also gain a whole new respect for lava, because the heat is really intense and completely different from what you’re used to with fire, for example. So definitely yes!