Chris came to visit over Labor Day
weekend and we had a great time. He could only stay from Friday to Tuesday but
we packed a good trip into the few days we had. After a retirement dinner in
Guatemala City for my boss, we went back to Antigua with a couple of friends
and had a great night out. In the morning we headed out to Panajachel and took
a boat across Lake Atitlan where we stayed in an open air tree house on the
lake. It is an A-frame house with no front or back walls and lots of
mosquitoes, pretty classy. A couple of friends came to join us on the lake and
the group grew to about 12. In the evening we went into the Mayan temascal,
which is like a stone igloo looking sauna or sweat lodge. The Mayan people use
the temascal about once or twice a week to bathe. They are pretty intense, the
first time I went into one I got sick and my friend feinted. Luckily we had no
such incident and were able to keep the party going out on a couple of boats
under the moon and stars. We had great weather the whole time and the volcanoes
looked amazing surrounding the lake. After another night on the lake we headed
back to Antigua so that Chris could catch his flight in the morning. We went
out to a couple of bars and ended up on a rooftop bar at the end of the night
with a couple of new friends. At around 12:30am one of the surrounding
volcanoes began erupting and it was one of the coolest things I have seen. The
bright orange lava was exploding out the top and running down the sides of the
volcano and was clearly visible to the naked eye. The owner of the joint also
had a pair of binoculars which he let us borrow so we could get an even better
view. I have seen lots of volcanoes smoking and spitting ash during the day but
the bright orange lava in the middle of the night was amazing. Chris and I both
forgot to set our alarms and woke up 20 minutes after we were supposed to meet
the airport shuttle. Miraculously, after freaking out for a while and trying to
figure out what to do the airport shuttle came back to our hostel to see if we
were there… Needless to say the other people on the shuttle were not very
enthused, but Chris did make it home.
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| Chris, Me and Eric in Antigua |
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| Chris on the boat with 2 of the volcanoes in the background |
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| Chris and I on the dock |
I had another great adventure two nights ago. Six friends
and I set out to climb Volcan Santa Maria, which is not the highest volcano in
Guatemala but we were told that it is the hardest climb in Guatemala (and in
all of Central America, but who knows). We took a taxi to the end of the road
arriving at 3:50am so that we could get a little ways up before sunrise and
also so that we could summit before the clouds rolled in like they do every day
during the rainy season. Out of the seven of us, only one person had climbed
Santa Maria in the past and she had never done so at night. Even with
headlamps, things look much different at night, but we’ll get there. The moon
and stars were almost bright enough to lead the way but as soon as we entered
the forest we had to turn on our headlamps. There is a ‘base camp’ which should
take a little over an hour to reach where we were planning to eat breakfast and
watch the sunrise. After one run in with a wild dog pack, and about an hour and
a half of hiking we realized we had missed the turn we were looking for. The
bottom third of the mountain is covered with small footpaths as many farmers
have corn and bean fields planted on the side of the volcano. (Nothing makes
you feel manlier going up a volcano in all of your hiking gear than a five
foot, sixty year old man or woman with no shoes on and a wheel barrel load of
wood tied to their forehead cruising up the same path.) We turned back to find
our mistake and took the first turn we came across. After a while we realized
we had taken the wrong path but not wanting to backtrack all the way down we
decided to trailblaze and ended up way off track. We stopped and watched the
sunrise, which was the most beautiful sunrise I have ever seen. There were
clouds over the city of Xelaju, where it was still dark, and you could see
lights from the city poking through the clouds and the sun rising above the
clouds painting the sky pink, orange and yellow. After the sunrise we kept up
with the Oregon Trail routine and ended up finding the base camp, or meadow,
after two and a half hours or nearly pitch black hiking through the forest. We
all left from the meadow and slowly split up as we continued up the final leg.
It took me and Casey a little less than 2 hours to reach the top from the
meadow and it was beautiful. The clouds were coming in pretty quickly but we
could see the whole of Xelaju to the south east and we could see all the way to
the Pacific Ocean out to the west. The rest of the view was blocked by clouds
which took over the sky breaking to give us one minute views here and there. It
had rained most of the night before we started the hike so by the time we reached
the top we were soaked. Casey and I started a fire to warm up and dry our
clothes and ate some more food. We spent a couple of hours on the summit around
the fire and resting in a hammock that Chris gave me for my birthday the
weekend before. After sleeping for 3 hours and hiking for ten I slept for a
record of 12 and a half hours last night and am still exhausted today.
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| Cow on top of the volcano |
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| Drying my clothes on the top |
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| Setting up the hammock |
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| relaxing |
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| 12,375 Feet |
I had a recent influx of packages due to well put to use
Irish guilt tripping that I have learned at home over the years. I want to
thank Mom, Dad, Ira, Carrie, ira, Claire, Noah, Erin, Ray, raryray,
Christopher, Biz, Marie, Brian, Tim, Tina, Kiera, Sean, Beth, John, Pat and
Aunt Liz for some great letters, pictures, drawings, cookies and other goodies
that you all put together and shipped down south to me. It always means so much
to have some things from home. Apart from the joy, all of the letters, drawings
and pictures help to decorate my cement walls and the cookies and goodies keep
me nice and plump.
