We leave the US after much airport screening (take off your shoes, full body scan), and arrive in Guatemala City at 6am on the 2nd Feb (after leaving melbourne about 36 hours or so prior on the 1st of Feb at about 1pm - ahhh I think we went back in time...). Grabbed our bags and headed to meet our driver, who conveniently didn't show, so after some help from a friedly airport guard with a mobile phone (and of course a $5 tip) we ended up in a "safe" airport cab to Antigua. Guatemala City is a dodgy looking place where the second most dangerous job after being a policeman is to drive a chicken bus, due to all the shootings that occur each year! We finally arrived in Antigua and with a few helping directions from a local lady, found our hotel. We stayed at a slightly more expensive hotel with a private bathroom and HOT WATER!, just for the first couple of nights till we got our bearings. After a shower we headed out to get some breakfast. We quickly learnt that our non-existent Spanish was going to be a big problem, as many of the menus didn't have any English on them whatsoever (apparently Antigua is very English in Latin American terms). The next few days we spent just hanging about the town, eating, and sleeping to get over our jetlag. The town of Antigua is a beautiful old Colonial town with cobblestone streets and colourful houses (The buildings are only allowed to be one of five colours). Most of the buildings were built in the 17th and 18th centuries when it was a Spanish outpost. There are heaps of restaurants, coffee shops, spanish schools and jewellery stores selling jade. On one of our walks to investigate a couple of spanish schools, we meandered past a sign offering overnight trips to volcanoes for $89, which sounded like a good idea, so we signed up. The trip was up a volcano called Acatenango. Acatenango has an altitude of 3976 meters above sea level (over 13000 ft), and is a dormant volcano which had it's last major erruption in 1972. It over looks one of Antigua's two active volcanoes, Pacaya. The same day we also signed up for Spanish school, for one week starting on the Monday. We are staying in the student accomodation, situated 5 minutes from the school in town. We get 3 meals a day cooked for us Mon to Sat. - 7am, 1pm, 7pm.
The Volcano!
The volcano trip started at 6am on Sat, we all met at the store and loaded our packs (about 15kg each, icluding food, tents, sleeping gear, and a minimum of 4.5 litres of water) into the van, grabbed some coffee and bagels for brekky and headed to the base of the mountain. Antigua is situated at about 1500m above sealevel to begin with and we took the van to I think about 2000m. We started out hike from the side of the road in amongst some farm land. We were met by the porters who a few people in the group had hired for 300Q (~$40). We grabbed a stick each (nicely pre-whittled) and off we went. We had been told the first 2 hours were the worst.... and they were pretty tough. We were hiking pretty well up a 45 degree slope in a deep slidy mix of gravel, dirt, and very fine volcanic ash. After about 10 mins I was starting to wonder what I had gotten myself in for.......
The hike took us through farmland, Cloud Forest, then an old burnt alpine forest. Once through the trees we just had patches of grass and dirt for company and then finally rocks and ash. So many rocks and ash. We were allowed to stop for a few minutes rest maybe every hour or two. It was the hardest thing I have ever done. I was soooo hot and at one point checked my pulse which was racing at about 160 bpm. Hew was faring a lot better than myself, his superior fitness at this point shining through! The porters were amazing, they shot up the mountain at an unbelievable pace and then could just about have a sleep at each rest point waiting for the rest of us to struggle our ways up. We had a group of 12 people plus our guide Ben and the few porters. At about 2/3rds of the way up in the alpine forest we stopped for an hour (thank god) for lunch. The view was spectacular, you could see for miles and at this point we were about level with the tops of the clouds, some of which were whipping past through us all as we ate. The sun was searingly hot, but when we were in amongst a cloud the air was freezing cold. Most people had a quick nap here. The lunch stop was when a lot of us started to feel the altitude, mainly just some headaches, but it was just sooo much harder to exhert yourself. There was a group of locals heading up the mountain as well. They didn't even look tired. They were just sitting about drinking softdrink and eating a few bags of chips. Meanwhile we were meant to have drunk at least 1.5L of water at this point and could barely stomach our food!
After lunch the walking just got harder and harder. The mountain is too steep to go straight up for most of the way so we zig-zagged our way slowly up. Acetenango had a sort of double peak with a saddle in the middle. By the time we reached the first lower of the two peaks we were literally, taking a few steps, rest and breath, 4 steps, rest, 3 steps, rest. It was gruelling. We finally made it to the first peak, we were well above the tops of the clouds at this point. This is where the guides and the porters decide whether the weather is good enough for us to camp in the crater or whether we need to set up camp in the saddle. Luckily the weather was very clear and the wind was not too strong, so on we went. We all ran down the dusty ashy slope to the saddle, and prepeared ourselves for the last climb. This last hour and a half was amazingly brutal. Each step you took, the gravelly ash was soo soft and deep, your foot would slide back half the distance you just stepped. It was very very slow going. We followed a ridge and a small rocky outcrop to the top of the crater. Finally we made it to the top, just as the sun was beginning to set. Over 8 hours of hiking had finally led us to this. It was amazing, like being on the moon, just rocks and dust and the most amazing view I've ever seen. From one side of the crater we could look down over Pacaya, who would periodically creak, groan, and blow volcanic debris all over the place. Our camp was in the bottom of the crater. Once we stopped moving we started to feel the cold instantly. On went every piece of clothing we had taken with us, and we quickly setup camp before watching the sunset next to Pacaya. It was breathtaking. The wind was picking up and it was like ice. After the sun vanished from the horizon it quickly got very dark and very cold. There was only a slither of moon, but so so many stars. By now a lot of people are beginning to feel the altitude and many were feeling nauseous and headachy. I was feeling pretty good after a mix of asprin and stemetil, and was looking forward to our vegetable curry. It was so unbelievebly cold that everybody after dinner stayed at the rim of the crater watching the volcanoe shoot red into the sky for only a short time before we headed to bed. The tents were 4 man. We shared with another couple, Georgina and James from England and Wales. Don't think anybody really slept all night, especially with the camp of drunk Guatemalans singing and yelling next to us! (they apparently just rolled themselves up in blankets and passed out up on the rim of the crater.. crazy guys) Some time in the middle of the night I finally gave in to my bladder and wrestled myself out of my sleeping bag to go to the loo. It was eerily still and quiet, but amazingly beautiful. Just before sunrise we get up and head back up the crater to the opposite side to the night before to watch the sunrise ( It had been so cold during the night a water bottle we left outside the tent had frozen solid!!!!) . It was still bitterly cold. After a quick coffee and bagel for breakfast we pack up and say goodbye to the crater. The nearly 9 hours it took us to get up the mountain was reduced to just over 2 on the way down. The downhill technique was a combination of running, sliding and scrambling. We had one break on the way down and Hew managed to get himself some ripper blisters on his heels... mmmmmmm. We arrived back in Antigua very tired, very very dirty and smelly, but with a sense of achievement that I was not expecting! (have a look at the slide show for photos!)
Next we moved into the student house for the spanish school. Spanish Academy Sevilla. There are 5 others in the house already, 3 young Dutch people ( Daan, Jasmyne and Jessamyne), Cristina, from Zurich and Sereta. Sereta is from New York and is celebrating her 70th birthday the day we move in, so we all go out to dinner to celebrate.
HAPPY BIRTHDAY HEW! (Mon 7th Feb) - oh my god we are getting old.
Throughout the rest of this week we have been attending class in the mornings for 4 hours then usually joining in with one of the activities that the school puts on in the afternoons. Monday was salsa classes, tues I tried to do some study while Hew went to a Local Football derby with his Spanish Teacher, Axel... Wed we decided catching up with some people for a beer was a good idea.
Thursday was a special trip to the beach for valentines day (next mon). We all headed to the coast to Puerto San Jose. The beaches along the Pacific coast all have black volcanic sand. It was amazing, my black thongs were barely visible! On the way in the bus we had some lessons with our teachers and then when we got to the beach we had a section of a hotel (including the pool) hired out. We did some more lessons before heading over to the beach. The sand was so hot you had to wear your shoes down to the water, which was like a bath, around 30 degrees. It was a surf beach with reasonably large waves, however they were fun and were not too pounding like back home. At the beach we had all you can drink cerveza (beer) and ron y coca cola (rum & coke). We had lunch at the hotel and then hung about in the hotel pool, playing volleyball with all the teachers... some of who were getting fairly toasted by this point. On the way home a few of the guys and the teachers preceeded to polish off another bottle of rum and were 'rather excited' - with bad techno music blaring, dancing, yelling and luaghing all the way home! was very funny.
This weekend we are not doing anything much, just chilling and attempting to study! We have decided to stay another week at the school, the house is getting pretty full now! There is also an extra dutch girl, Gretchen, two Chris's (one german one belgian), Alynn, from Canada and Seretas husband, making 12 of us all together, plus the two housekeepers, Ana and Angela - AND ONLY ONE WARM SHOWER. Ana also has a two month old baby that lives here the majority of the time.
Anyway bye for now and we'll see you soon, hasta luego! (promise next time it won't be sooo long :))
