I climbed a Volcano with an altitude higher than I sky dived!

We were only in Guatemala for three days but I spent the first two days climbing Mount Acatenango, the third highest peak in Central America and also an inactive volcano. Our trip had to leave almost as soon as the diplomatic briefing was finished. They warned us a great deal before going into Guatemala about not riding the "Chicken Buses" and going to Guatemala City because of the high rate of violence. This was probably one of the most intense diplomatic briefings and warnings overall from SAS that we have had on the whole trip. Our bus drove for about an hour before we stopped at a gas station to get some food, water, and switch to our chartered Chicken Bus! This was an intricately decorated school bus that is used as public transportation in Guatemala and we were warned not to use publicly, but this one was apparently alright because SAS set up the bus for us privately. If you ever want the full definition of what a chicken bus is let me know! We rode the Chicken bus up to about 7,000 feet along winding dirt roads to reach the point where we would start our climb. The climb started off with a slight incline through some fields until we reached the lookout point where we had a really good packed lunch. This took us a little over an hour to do and the views were fantastic but they just kept getting better from then on. We hung out and ate there for a while before starting the hard portion of that day. This was through a forest of bamboo and trees covered in moss, but the hills were much steeper than they had been previously. This made us take lots of breaks overall and made us take around 2.5 hours to finally reach our camp. We almost wanted to run to it when we saw camp but we were way too tired for that. We camped at around 10,000 feet so most of us got altitude sickness because we have obviously been at sea level for the majority of the past 3-4 months. We had to wear much warmed clothes as well because our altitude was so high. Our camp was really nice, no big surprise considering it was a SAS trip, but we had police officers following us up the entire hike, including the next day, a bunch of local farmers who own the fields on the volcano, and our guides, Emmanuel and Oscar. Everyone went to bed early because we had to get up at 4 AM to start our climb to the summit, but for the most part our altitude sickness was so bad that none of us got any sleep that night whatsoever. Before we went to bed we did have a good time just hanging out by the campfire and eating snacks or dinner ranging from Pineapple, Chips with salsa and guacamole, or burgers. We were drinking a ton of water to stay hydrated because apparently that helped a good deal with the sickness. Needless to say most of us stayed up all night trying to go to sleep unsuccessfully and hoping to not get sicker.

 

Emmanuel woke us up at 4 AM and we ate come corn flakes before leaving for the summit. We hiked for about an hour before we got a break. I almost didn't make it through this section because the altitude and the corn flakes did not sit well in my stomach. I pushed through still though and we climbed for about another hour in a single file fashion up a pathway right before we hit a portion in-between the two peaks of Acatenango called the saddle. The views were incredibly unreal up there because we were above the skyline and we got to watch the sun rise from just below that spot. The climb to the summit was really difficult because on the one side it almost dropped directly off and it was incredibly steep and only gravel to step in. I definitely started getting a bit of vertigo while I was up there. It took us a while to climb this last section but one of the police officers that was with us kept encouraged myself and my friend Elise to make it up. It was absolutely beautiful views and it was neat seeing the giant crater that used to be an active volcano. The neat part was that there is an active volcano right next to Acatenango called fuego, how appropriate. While we were up there we saw it erupt several times which was really neat, but the air was really thin so it became really difficult to stay up there the whole time. The overall summit of Acatenango is 13,000 feet and I sky dived in Hawaii at 12,000 feet, CRAZY! Towards the end we picked up some light colored rocks and spelled out SAS 09 for some pictures and to leave for the next group to hike up the volcano as incentive. We finally then started the descent which was mainly sliding down to the saddle. This was actually really scary before of the steep hill and the fact that one girl fell down the side and our guides had to run after her to catch her. She was fine but it was pretty scary. Once we got back to the camp they had us pack up our stuff and get some pancakes before heading out for the final section of our intense descent. This took a while but we got to go by the other group and warn them and tell them how much it was worth it. Unfortunately, they had to deal with a pretty bad thunderstorm that night so I was definitely not envious of them. I fell around 6 times while sliding down the volcano before we finally got back to "Esmerelda", our Chicken Bus, which took us to our regular bus that we took into Antigua. Once in Antigua we had a really great lunch that consisted of 3 portions of meat and one of potatoes in addition to a really yummy tortilla soup and CHEESECAKE!! Elise and I then did a little bit of exploring around the markets before getting the bus back to the ship. that night we had dinner on the ship before going to explore the port a little bit more but we had a curfew of 11 PM every night in Guatemala and there really wasn't too much around the port so we just went out for a little bit before heading back to bed to make up for not getting any sleep the night before.

 

The last day I woke up with my roomie, Megan and tried to get on her trip to Antigua for some bike riding but it was full so I went and did a little shopping with some other girls that also couldn't get on the trip. We ate lunch on the ship and I met up with some more people to try to find stamps, which was overall an unsuccessful venture but we still did a little more exploring of markets. It sounds like I bought a lot but I really didn't get too much at each turn so don't worry too much Mom about the bank account! Actually quite a few of the vendors offered to trade me my bag that I bought in Spain for various items but it was never worth enough in the amount that I spent on it for it to actually be worth me trading my bag. We then hung out at an outdoor restaurant in the port before heading back onto the ship for the last time in a port. We had a really good barbeque on the ship that night and we had meetings for the Ambassador's Ball which should hopefully be pretty fun. I also was invited by my World Dance professor to show one of my papers in the Academic Gallery because she liked it so much apparently. This was a really neat compliment but I'm feeling a little too stressed right now for having all of my classes done with except my final performance in World Dance tomorrow. Hopefully all goes well, but I should post another blog entry before I am back in the states on the 6th. It’s really crazy to think that all of this is almost over. I'm not quite sure if I want it to be or not. I really enjoy the traveling and the people I have met, but I also miss so much of what I regularly knew and what I have at home. I think as soon as I am actually home I'll wish I was still on the ship but I guess that’s just the way things normally end up. See everyone soon!