PowerCycle

Today was pretty crazy. Woke up at 5am (blah) so I’d have time to drink some coffee before the tour van was supposed to pick me up at 6am. At 6:15am some guy comes walking up the street and ask if I’m Scott to which I confirm that I am Scott and I’m going to the volcano. Then he says uno momento and leaves. Knowing that uno momento can be anywhere from a minute to an hour I sat back down. A few minutes later a van pulls up and basically kidnaps me right off the street. We drove around the city for 20 minutes before they realize that I was not the one they wanted. The dropped me back off at the hotel where another van was there waiting for me. These guys drove me out of town to a gas station where a bus was waiting to take me and many other people to the volcano. And that’s how my first organized tour in Guatemala went.

When we arrived at the volcano we stopped on the street and piled into the back up a pickup with a cage on the back and drove up a windy dirt road to the entrance. Things got a little confusing then. We all kind of milled about for 10 minutes not knowing what to do. It was supposed to be a guided tour but there was no guide. He showed up after a bit and we set off on what I thought would be a relaxed couple hour hike.

Our guide was toting a shotgun due to the ongoing robberies in the area. We only saw cows though. They seemed a bit wary of us but posed no immediate threat. We walked up a hill to the first lava flow and marveled at how well it had cooled into a nice black lumpy mess. We walked across that, careful to avoid the couple spots that felt a bit warm.

The second lava field we didn’t cross because we probably would have died. There was no red, flowing lava pouring down from the crater but it looked much more active than the the other area (steam and such). After that we walked nearly the entire length of the hardened lava flow, crossed over it, walked to a pond where the guide caught a spider and tried to make a girl fall in the water by shaking the tree she was using as a bridge to cross the pond. We then walked back the way we came, chased a 79 year old guy that was trying to go to the bathroom, climbed up the side of the mountain through a jungle and nearly attacked the lead guide (not the one with the shotgun) for taking on us a hike that was twice as long as anyone expected. In total we probably hiked 15 miles but it could have just been 10–it felt like 15 though.

I did meet some pretty cool people on the tour. Rachel was my bus seat companion and we chatted it up the whole way there. She’s from Australia living in London. She was there with Judy, Derek and his wife and another girl but I can’t remember her name. They are all in Guatemala as part of an eco tour group that is spending thirty-something days traveling around Central America. Rachel mentioned that they were meeting up for drinks later so I got back, grabbed a late lunch and headed over to Reilly’s Irish Tavern. After that it was dinner at a very-gringoy bar/restaurant with everyone else on the eco tour. Great night and a not so bad day. It didn’t even rain.