Little did we know...

This weekend provided an adventure I will never forget. It began at 5:15 AM Saturday morning. We woke up at that insane hour in order to walk 15 minutes to town to catch a microbus (shuttle) at 6:00AM. Apparently Pana does sleep in the early morning. It seems like Pana is always busy with taxis, people, dogs, buses, markets,etc. When we walked to town, the streets were silent with one exception. There is a dog couple that is always sleeping on the side of the road near our house. Apparently, they are nocturnal. When we walked by in the morning they were up wondering the streets and barking very loudly at us.

We then had our first experience with latin american time. We arrive to the arrange stop at 6:00AM. The guy at the agency where we bought the tickets made it seem like it was very important to arrive at 6:00 on the dot. Well, we waited until 6:30 for our shuttle arrive.

We had an uneventful ride to Antigua and arrived mid morning. We ate the traditional breakfast (scrambled eggs, black beans, plantains, and tortillas). We then arranged a 2:00 tour of Pacaya, the active volcano. We arrived to the travel agency at 2:00 and were picked up by the shuttle bus driver. We then drove around Antigua in about 5 circles until we had picked up all the others going on the tour. After driving for about 1.5 hours we arrived at the trail head for Pacaya. There we were met by a guide named Melvin. Melvin gave our group the name Tigre (tiger). He then proceeded to walk up a steep incline at a very rapid pace. Keep in mind, we are already at a high elevation. I asked him how often he climbs the volcano. He stated that he climbs it once or twice a day. Therefore, he is in very good shape. Lena, Kathyrn and I who are in descent shape were out of breath within 5 minutes. I thought, ¨oh no, I do not think I will be able to keep up with the group.¨ One girl could not keep up the pace and had to ride a horse up to the base of the volcano. I noticed that our guide did not stop at the same places that the other guides stopped and that he did not have a polo shirt or name tag identifying him as a guide like the others. Oh well, it is what it is.

We continued walking rapidly in the woods until we came to the base of the volcano. We all just stared at it and thought, ¨how in the world will we be able to climb that¨ From where we were we saw little specks climbing up the steep volcano but there did not appear to be a trail of any type. Oh well, we did sign up for this and paid money. We most certainly would not be allowed to do this in the US. So off we went.

We began the ascent through lava that had been pounded and treaded upon until it was like sand. We would take a few steps forward but not make much forward progress because we would lose half the ground we had just gained. After taking 10 to 20 steps, we would take a break. The need for the break was not due to poor cardiovascluar shape, rather muscle fatigue.

As we got closer to the top, the lava pieces got bigger and bigger. Keep in mind that the lava pieces were simply resting on top of each other and would roll or fall down the mountain with a miss step or perturbation. In order to maintain safety we resorted to climbing with our hands and feet. For you physical therapists, we lower our center of mass and widened our base of support as much as possible. I really did think about this while we were climbing an active volcano. Every move was carefully planned in order to not cause the lava rocks to rapidly descend the mountain and perhaps hit other people on the way down.
As we neared the top of the lava flow, heat waves could be seen in the air and the rocks were warm to the touch. The terrain luckily was flatter now. Some rocks were white, others were red. In between the cracks of the harden lava a red orange glow could be seen. Well, today I had to fight panic. I will try my best to describe to you the situation and feelings and thoughts it stimulated.

The only person in my direct view was Kathryn. If you stand in one place too long, your shoes begin to melt and you feel intense heat. If you yell for your guide, who is no where in sight, he cannot hear you secondary to all the heat waves. If you make one wrong move or step on a loose rock, you would end up burning in lava and no one would hear your cries for help. As bad as it is to say, this gave me a very real mental picture of what many people describe hell to be.

Kathryn and I did make our way to the side of the lava flow and to the side of the caldren where is was much cooler. Here we were able to collect ourselves and decide if we wanted to continue. There were people out on the lava river. I made it part way out there before the fear got to me and I turned back. Brave Kathryn made it all the way out to the lava river.

As this blog is getting very long I will reference Kathryn's blog for the details of the descent. The highlights are that hundreds of people appeared that were not at the top. The sun was setting. The terrain was very dangerous.

Once we had safely made our descent to the level ground, we turned around to see a bright orange lava river flowing down the mountain, away from the people. It was a magnificent sight that made the whole trip worth it.

Once we returned to the beginning of the trail, I saw our driver hand our so called guide some money. This confirmed my suspicion that he was not a trained guide. Oh well, it was denfinitely a once in a life time experience!
I still do not think the reality of what we did has set in.

Please go to Kathryn's blog for more details and photos of the excursion.
http://katwil23.wordpress.com