The Volcano

This is a week after the fact but I wanted to write a little bit about the experience I had climbing a freaking huge volcano. Guatemala is covered in volcanos and they make the highlands where we are right now, high. By high I'm talking about the city where I am right now, Quetzaltenango, is at about 6000 feet. The summit of the volcano we climbed last Saturday is at about 9000 feet. Does that even make sense? We're talking serious altitude for the unaccostomed.
The idea behind the climb was to see an eruption which happen on a 24 hour schedule at about 10am everyday. The climb was about 4 hours long so we started at 6am after a half hour bus ride from the school. This was an early morning. There a walk of about an hour to the base and it was at the base that we met up with a big group of Kiche (this isn't spelled corrently) speaking Mayan people. As we climbed we were continually passed by people in traditional Mayan clothing. There were a TON of people going to the top. Finally in broken Spanish from both parties we figured out that they were going to the top to attend religious services. Wow. I asked one women if they did the climb every week and she kind of laughed and said no, only once every three months (!) A four hour climb every three weeks for religious services, I don't know if I have seen such dedication before.
The climb wasn't easy for any of us; straight up with very few switchbacks for three solid hours, and we were high! But we were contiually passed by the devotional and they came in all forms, kids, eldery, women in high heeled sandals! I was blown away porbably also because I was struggling for my breath.
We finally got to the top and of coursae there were already a ton of people up there waiting around for the services to begin.
Holy Cow!!! What a view! My main motive for going to the top was for the view and to get out of the smog of the city. Mission accomplished! For the tp we could see almost the entire district of Quetzaltenango and some people said that we were looking at Mexico. Had there been fewer clouds we would have been able to see the Pacific Ocean. We could also see two other volcanos, one to the north and on to the south and both were erupting! That was totally crazy. And of course there was the other mountains that are part of the range. I was a little surprised because whe we got to the summit it was clear that we weren't going to fall in to a nearby crate. In fact we kind of had to look for it; it was to the west and actually a couple hundred feet below us. It was quite obviously a crater covered in ash with no vegetation anywhere near it, I'm bad with sizes so until I get photos up I'll just say that it was big. We walked over to the edge of the summit and looked down in anticipation, it was 9:45 and there hadn't been any erupting yet. Then we heard and felt a rumble. It wasn't Earth shattering, the drama was a bit more subdued than the imagination had envisioned but it was awesome none the less. Huge plumes of smoke came up from the crater and soon we couldn't see it anymore. The smoke didn't envelop us or anything and after the first eruption it was quiet.
I think ther was more excitement on within the groups of worshipers. There was one group of Catholics and one of Evangelicals and there were prayers and shouting and crying and candles and insense and no food. I heard prayers in Kiche, Spanish and Latin. The groups were in hearing distance of each other which I thought made for an interesting dyanmic. Apparently the Evangelical thing is relatively new to Guatemala. Evangelical groups from the States were let in to the country by the most evil and genocidal leader, Rios Mont in the eighties. Learning about the influence of religion here makes me want to say bad words, I will save that for another blog topic.
After about an hour and a half of relaxing on the top, we began our descent which of course took about half the time ofthe climb up. On the way down our guide and his dad told us about fighting in the war, their time a refugees in Mexico, the plants that were along the trail, about the Maya and their situation in the area now, they were amazing and so patient with our lack of Spanish skills.
If you are impatient like me and would like to see photos of what we climbed chesk the tourist site:
http://www.visitguatemala.com/nuevo/ver_destino.asp?id=488
Much love, until the next episode....