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!