another volcano story‏

A little preface to the story I am about to write.  Rachael and I had decided to hike Santa Maria a volcano outside of Xela, Guatemala, it was 3,770m.  Ok that was the end of the preface

Thursday November 9, 2006

            Buzz Buzz we were up and out the door by 530am.  Got to the bus station at 550, we had been told that the first bus to Santa Maria left at 6am.  It was closer to 620 when the bus showed up but what is 20 minutes in Central America.  A short bus ride and we were on the trail.  The day before we had been torn as to whether we should do the guided sunrise hike with quetzal trekkers which left at 1am or whether we should do it on our own and just leave early in the morning.  Not being night animals in the least we had chosen to do it solo, but we were looking forward to meeting the other group on the way down as we had made friends with a couple of them.  Contrary to what we had been told by Adralena tours the trail was straight forward and easy to follow.  The pasty white office dude at Adralena had basically told us if we attempted it on our own we would surly get lost and eventually die, I think not, unless your blind or try to do it at night with out a headlamp, I will get to that later. 

            The first hour was cruise, it was steep but not to steep, we were mostly walking though farms in the hills, every farmer we encountered was overly friendly and helpful, we asked every one of them if we were on the right trail, we always were.  Then we found ourselves at a flat football sized grassy field.  The trail description we had was extremely vague so we decided to explore all our options before deciding on a trail.  Immediately upon arriving in the field there was a split to the right which we suspected was the way be we continued on the trail we had been on just to make sure. After crossing a second similarly sized field the trial forked.  The left went down a ridge but the right followed an obviously used gully upwards.  A couple of minutes in the gully and we were sure it was not eh trail as there were hardly any footprints and we knew that twenty people had just hiked the trail five hours earlier.  So back to the first right hand split which after ten feet we were positive it was the one.  The nice gradual uphill did not continue, instead it went from gradual straight to extreme, and not only that but it was muddy and slippery.  Another hour of grueling uphill and we were at a nice look out over the city, which was blanketed in a fluffy white layer of morning clouds.  Puzzling us, it was 9am and we still had not encountered our friends on the guided trip, we were starting to think that we must have missed them the five minutes we had spent looking for the trail.  Then the grueling uphill got even steeper and muddier, fuck it was working us, thank god we did not do this shit in the dark we kept thinking.  A minute and rest a minute and rest.  10am after three hours of walking we approached the summit, 3770m.  There a bizarre sight was awaiting us.  The guided tour was still on top and just starting to pack up.  What was going on, the trip description had said they would summit just before sunrise, at 530am or so, hang around until 6am and then descend, but here it was 4 hours later, hummm.  Turned out they had gotten lost trying to get to the trail and that the 15 minute ride had taken them an hour and a half, mind you they, all 20 of them, were crammed into the back of 2 rusted out pickups, standing room only and it was freezing.  Then some how one of the clients they signed up for the trip took a total of seven and a half hours to make the summit, some of the others make it for sunrise but most of them did not and the girl in the back missed it by 4 hours.  It was supposed to be a sunrise hike, haha, shitty!!

            We said a quick howdy to our friends and then they were gone on their way back down the treacherous ravine.  Double high five for not doing the sunrise accent!!!  Sounded fucking miserable!!!  Perfect timing, we had the summit all to ourselves, the sun was out and there was no wind.  Off the back side it is possible to witness one of the worlds most active volcanoes erupt only a few km away.  Sadly the fluffy white could s had covered the peak of Santiguito but we figured we would wait a while to see if the eruption would be visible thought the clouds.  I asked Rachael if she thought the eruption would be loud and whether we could hear it, she thought it would as a different volcano she had witnessed erupt had been very loud.  Moments later the tranquil atmosphere was split by the most deafening and instantaneous blast.  Instead of from Santiguito, in front of us off in the distance,  the noise was coming from directly behind us, for an instant I was sure that it was Santa Maria erupting and that momentarily we would be smother in hot ash.  Spinning around to catch a glimpse of the eruption before our death we saw that in fact it was not the volcano erupting and instead it was an airplane buzzing the peak only 10 or 15 feet above us.  Even so Rachael screamed while dropping flat onto the ground and my heart stopped.  I am sure the pilot got a good laugh but we certainly did not. 

            After recovering we ate our standard tuna fish sandwich lunch and then laid back to watch for a real eruption.  The clouds had gotten thicker and we suspected we might not see the eruption but all of a sudden the clouds below started to billow upwards towards us and a few seconds later we could hear the rumble of what only could be a volcanic eruption.  Then the billowing clouds parted and we could see the orange-ish steamy particulate climbing high into the sky.  All up the eruption lasted for a couple minutes with steam climbing thousands of feet into the air.  It was awe inspiring to witness an actual volcano erupt, one of those things you only ever expect to see on the  National Geographic channel.  Snapped a few dozen photos, packed up our things and headed back to the summit of Santa Maria.  And there it was again the low rumble of Santiguito, although it was only supposed to erupt every 20 minutes or so it was doing its thing again for us only a few minutes later.  We watched again, snapping a few more shots and then made our way back to the summit where a fresh patch of green grass was calling our names.  An hour of sun baking and we figured it was time to saddle up and start making our way back down.  The trail was steep and muddy but we slowly made our way with out mishap.  Then just a few hundred meters from the football sized field we stopped to take a quick break.  For the second time that day the silence was abruptly broken, this time by a high pitched whistle followed by a females voice shouting out names.  That’s odd we thought but did not thing much of it was she was not yelling our names.  Then from around the bend popped Anna, one of the quetzal trekker guides we made friends with the day before, on of the guides leading the sunrise hike. Besides the fact that she and the others should have returned to Xela hours and hours ago and besides that fact that she was running up the trail with our a pack blasting a whistle and shouting names we could sense something was wrong, call it a 6^th sense, ha.  Turned out that one of their guides in training, along with two clients had managed to take a wrong turn on the way down and had gotten lost. This made no sense as there were not any wrong turns you could make, in fact their were not any splits in the trail at all.  How could a guide kike up the mountain and then not be able to retrace his steps on the way back down, we suspected that maybe quetzals trekkers had hired the fat pasty white dude from adralena for the day.  Later, upon talking with some other people who had done the hike, we learned that no one had bee required to bring a headlamp, let along a flashlight, and that half the people had done the entire hike up in the dark, having no concept as to what the trail even looked like they had come across a gully and decided to follow it down. 

            Luckily both the guide in training and the other guides had cell phone and they were able to communicate.  The lost guide had said that they would retrace their steps to the actual trail and would be on their way.  Only thing, that was a couple hours earlier and since the first call they had been unable to get back in contact, whether a dead battery or out of range no one know.  Had they actually retraced their steps to the trail we should have encountered them on the way down but we did not which meant that they had not found the trail and were still lost on the side of the volcano somewhere. Anna told us that the rest of the hikers along with one guide had returned to Xela while she and the two other guides had stayed.  She continued up the trail blasting her whistle while we walked the few hundred meters to the field where the two other guides were sitting.  Actually they were not sitting they were laying, laying on their backs, heads on their packs, napping in the sun.  What the fuck was going on, shouldn’t they be doing something.  Something other then tanning.  We asked them what was up and they gave us the same story only they seemed completely indifferent as to whether the others were found, they basically said it was their own damn fault for getting lost.  Admittedly they had been awake for the past 36 hours but I still would have been a little worried if three people I was responsible for were lost and looking at facing a night on the mountain. 

            Shortly afterwards Anna returned, empty-handed, and called the office, another guide was on his way and they had contacted the volunteer fire department who was going to come help search as well.  Rather then just sit on our asses, like the other 2, we walked back to the initial gully we had started up thinking it might connect to the one they had gotten lost on.  15 minutes of shouting and whistling and we returned to see what was up.  Anna was still unable to contact the lost party and to make matters worse clouds had come in and it was starting to lightly rain.  Finally, the other guide arrived, but before we came up with a plan and split up into groups of two to search he tried calling one last time.  Miraculously the call went through, the guide claimed that they were not lost, that they had stumbled upon a farmer who was going to bring them to his house and give them a ride back to Xela.  FFFeeewww!!  Looked like all was in order so we said good bye continued down the trail and caught a bus back to Xela. 

            That night over dinner we met one of the girls who was in the lost party.  She retold the whole tale for us.  Turned out that originally it had been just her and the guide who were lost and that they had randomly stumbled upon another guy from the group wondering around lost in the woods as well.  As she put it, he probably would have been better off had they not found him as the guide was so arrogant that not once did he ever even admit that they were lost, he just kept claiming he knew where they were, some guide!

            10 high fives for not doing the night hike!!!!!!

            Eventually, she said, 2 hours after the phone call where he told the others they were fine, they did manage to find a farmer and catch a ride back into the city.  All up the hike, which should have only taken 7 hours round trip had taken them 18 hours.  They were pretty lucky to make it out as Scot free as they did!

tryy number 2‏

Grrd Dary,

Hey i heard this rumor that my last email did not come through.  If it did and you already tried to read it, i know its long, then forget this ever came to your inbox, if not hear it is again

 

 

Hello to anyone who cares to listen.  Usually I´ve been trying to write every week or so but alas E-coli takes it out of you.  2 weeks in bed on antibiotics and I didn´t really do anything else.  Ha ha Mr e-coli you can´t kill me!!  I back now!  So what if I lost 18 lbs and no I weigh 147lbs.  That’s less then Douglas weighs, wouzers.  Padding on my ass is zero.

Well this is a story from a few weeks ago but I thought you might like it so have a go.  

O yes, I keep getting emails from friends asking where we are and what we´re doing.  Mexico it is and we´re driving south to Panama, selling the van later in Costa Rica and then flying our fat asses back to the US.  Get your asses down here and join us!!!!

Monday Oct 9, 2006

            Woke up at 7 or should I say opened our eyes, as we wern´t really asleep to start with.  The moon was high in the sky and it was so dark we still needed our headlamps to see.  Went to the toilet and came back to discover that the whole car was covered in a layer of ice, not exactly what we were expecting from a trip in the mts. 

            What does the day after a typical b-day usually consist of.  I guess usually it involves being rather hung-over, going out to breakfast and then just hanging out with Rachael and friends.  Not this year, we had a 15,000 ft 8 hour ridge loop to hike.  So wiped up some oats, packed our bags and we were on the trail.  I think we´d acclimatized a little overnight as the section we´d done the day before we easier. 

            Got to the ridge and opted to start the loop to the right as opposed to the left which had been recommended because going to the left involved a big decent before going up and we didn´t want to have to climb back up it in the case we had to turn around.  We were feeling pretty good, Rachael had a bit of a headache, but nothing to worry about and mine had going away, maybe it was the aspirin wed taken with breakfast.  Then the real uphill started, it was steep loose sand, and we had to stop ever minute or so the catch our breath.  Now we could feel the effects of the lower O2 levels in the air.  Got to the top of the first peak and stopped for a rest and team meeting.  Had we bitten off something larger then we could chew.  Maybe we should hand out down at base camp for another day and wait for our bodies to acclimatize.  Hell no we decided, today was the day, it was starting to warm up and the sky was totally clear, which we´d been told was a rarity.  We´d go as far as we felt comfortable and then turn around or look for a nice ash slide to bound down.  Pressing on, the loose sand turned to rock which formed a knife edge ridge, that was more like a bread knife then anything other type as it had jagged peaks all over it.  The trail itself became increasing more difficult to follow. 

After a couple hours we got to the base of the tallest peak on the ridge, it didn’t look possible to climb with out ropes but there were little orange flags marking a trail so we followed them.  We both started to feel a little dizzy which was made were by the fact that the trail was step but we decided we had to at least make it to the top of the tallest peak before turning around.  Then the clouds came, we watched them blow up the gullies and flow into the crater like smoke from a dry ice machine.  It was then that I started to get a little worried, we were tired, dizzy, standing on cliffs and we were about to loose our vision, but as quickly as the thick fog rolled in it rolled back out and we could see clearly although it was only a matter of time before the break in the clouds closed in again.  I was thinking to myself, hey well turn around at the top, I’m 27 now, maybe a couple days ago I’d have convinced Rachael we had to go for it but now, now I make wise decisions like my mother taught me.  So we climbed to the top and sat down for a little snack and water break.  A little rest was all we needed to feel better again; it was Rachael’s coaxing not mine that had us pushing on.  Another hour of scrambling and looking back on the ridge wed made significant progress, we certainly weren’t half way yet but we were at least a third, and luckily the clouds had totally vanished, wed just gotten a little taste of how quickly they could descent. We were both feeling worse for wear with headaches, dizziness and unsettled stomachs but hey as soon as we were half way it wouldn’t be worth turning around as going back would be just as far as finishing it up.  So we pressed on some more, only half hour later it hit us, my light headache was now pounding at my skull as was Rachael’s and we were both feeling sick in our stomachs.  It was time to get the fuck off this thing, explanation mark, cant figure any symbols out on this archaic abacus I’m rapping on.  Luckily it appeared as though we could go straight down to the lake instead of retracing our steps back over the arduous peaks.  A little cliff descending had us at the top of a huge sandscree slide.  Descending couldn’t have been easier unless we had skies, what took us hours to get up we dropped off in 10 minutes.  At the lake we had lunch, ate chocolate and napped in the sun.  This had us feeling back at 20 percent so we walked on the pebble beach to the pass.  Only the second we started going up my headache came back, and not just a pounding headache like it had been but hammering at my skull and eyeballs, making me feeling like I was going to throw up, fuck, another explanation mark.  Rachael felt bad too but not quite as bad as I did.  I set goals for myself, like that rock there, 10 feet away Ill get to it then rest.  Over and over 10 feet then rest, 10 feet then rest until we made it to the pass.  Immediately upon descending I started feeling a little better, I still though I might vomit but not as strongly as when we were going up.  Finally we make it back to the car.  Rachael went to use the toilet which I also needed to do but couldn’t face walking the extra couple hundred feet, I rolled up bubbles curtains so that we were ready to GTFO and sat down in the passenger seat. 

On the way down we encounter a strange sight.  There was a dog up ahead of us thought he wasn’t moving like a normal dog, his front legs were flying out at obscure angles as he ran.  Once we got to him it was obvious why, he had a steel chain link leash around his neck and dragging on the ground underneath him.  He clearly had been walking up the volcano road for days as he was absurdly skinny and looked ready to collapse.  Figured wed help him out a little so stopped and took off his cumbersome leash, as we drove away he followed us.  He mush be someone’s dog we figured as he had a leash on, well give him a lift into town, maybe hell find his family there, so loaded filthy stinky charley onto the floor of the passenger seat and we were off again. 

Thought we might just drive back down to the lower camp but once we got there it was in the shade and cold so decided tot drive all way back down into the city.  Stopped in a friendly looking village to drop off our new mate.  Fed him some left over oatmeal, a can of tuna and some water.  He was defiantly better off in his new town then he´d been before in the woods.  Even looked like maybe he could make friends and help out the dogs and farmer herding sheep next to where we left him. 

Probably descended a good 4 or 5 thousand feet by the time we got to town so we were feeling much better.  Now the question was what next, question mark.  We were in Teluca, a not so attractive city.  We could look for some where to camp, not very likely, or get a hotel, nope don’t want to do that or we could drive to Mexico city.  Yes that sounds like a great idea, drive into the biggest city in the world, sleep deprived and still recovering from a nice bout of oxygen deprivation, not to mention that rain clouds were coming in and that it would be rush hour.  Non of that mattered our minds were made up, Mexico City here we come.

            As was usually the case when navigating through the innards of a Mexican city we got a little lost in Toluca, but a little time and harassment of locals gut us out of there and onto the highway.  As would be the case no sooner did we got on the highway then the sky grew dark and it started to rain.  At first it was light and didn’t hinder our driving on the supposed 4 lanes for which there were no painted lines. Then the thunder grew closer and the lightning bolts became visible, tell me again why we decided to drive to the big smoke this afternoon?  The rain got so heavy we could barley see so followed the lead of some wise Mexican drivers and pulled off the highway with our flashers on.  Sat there, fingers crossed, hoping no one would hydroplane off the road into us for 10 long minutes and then pulled back on.  The highway was covered with water and we could see some of the side roads were suffering from flash flooding.  A minute down the road we encountered a very curious thing.  Wait a minute this is Mexico, not NH.  The highway was covered with slush and lots of it, piled up into little walls off the edge of and in the middle lanes.  The bumper to bumper traffic was crawling along and everyone was using their emergency flashers.  30 seconds later no slush and traffic was back to breakneck speed, that was peculiar.  The rest of the hour drive into the city was pretty much uneventful except for the crazy wet roads. 

            Who says Mexico City isn’t full of corrupt cops?  Maybe their not all corrupt but the first ones we came across surly were.  Standing on the side of the road at the first stoplight we encountered were two armed traffic cops, pulled us over for no other reason then because we were gringos.  They preceded to tell us we were in violation because we only had our rear license plate mounted, and it was in the rear window, which by the way had been suggested by more then one person because sometimes the cops we take your license plate if you are parked illegally and then your totally screwed.  What do you think the fine is for incorrect license plate placement is…50, 100 no 150 bucks.  Of course we knew that they were fucking with us and that it wasn’t in the least bit illegal but we were still intimated and dumbly we’d handed over my international license as well as our driving permit, which we weren’t about to get back with our at least a little bribe.  We reluctantly traded 30 bucks for my license and driving papers and then I got out of the car to mount the license plate on the rear gate.  Just to make sure we knew we’d been had the now cheerful cop says, no no you don’t have to move it, its fine right where it is, no problems.  Here Mr. Policeman take that Billy club of yours and sit on it. 

            We both knew that it was eventually going to happen and we’d expected it to occur much sooner in the trip then before Mexico City but the harassment had still shaken our O2 deprived nerves a bit. Back on the crowded, confusing 1 way streets of inner Mexico city.  Rachael played GPS navigation system and I played maniac rally driver.  On a 6 lane street we needed to turn left so we pulled into the bizarly empty most left land which yes">  With a nice smile and in a cheerful voice the policeman informed us we were in violation and that we’d been photographed by telephone pole cameras on both sides of us, bull shit you compulsive lire, Mexico can’t even build a sewage treatment plant let alone install cameras on every light pole, besides if they had than what the hell are you doing standing their waiting for us.  30 bucks was all we were willing to loose for the day and we’d already damn lost it so we decided to draw this on out and see what happened.  For 10 minutes he told us we were in violation, although he never came up with a price, and kept asking to see my license.  We pretended we couldn’t find it and kept telling him it was our first time in the city and he should let us go.  Nothing really changed, he´d just tell us we´d been photographed and ask for my license and wed play dumb over and over.  Finally I looked into the rear-view to see a buss stopping behind us.  Ha-ha Mr Policeman what are you going to do now.  Figured he´d just let us go but he didn´t instead the game continued for another few minutes then it was obvious the buss driver was getting pissed.  So the officer explained to us he’d stop the 6 lanes of traffic so we could pull across and to wait for him on the other side.  We let him stop traffic and then pretended like he´d told us we were free to go, just drove off, gave him a nice smile, waved and hit the gas.  Unluckily  the next light was red and we could see his fat ass power walking after us.  After what seemed like hours the light turned green and we were scott free.  Made dame sure not to go through that intersection again.  Ha-ha, bet you wish you had a car to chase us in, better luck next time dickhead. 

            Shaking with adrenalin, that was only the second time I´d actually run from a cop, we stressfully make our way along back streets finally arriving at the Hotel Embassy.  There was a covered secure parking lot and the lobby was emaculate.  Damn we thought this is going to be way out of our price range.  On the contrary it was 29 bucks for a spotless room filled with a king-size bet, widescreen TV, huge walk in shower and it even had a nice artistic painting.  We were there.

            Showered for half hour then into the city for some exceptional tortas and fresh squeezed orange juice. 

Slept like rocks.