Pacaya: The Return

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="375" caption="Hello, old friend"][/caption]

The trip to Pacaya is much nicer when your bus doesn't keep breaking down. In the morning as we waited for our bus, my heart sank when I saw the same white bus and organizer lady as the one Lori and I had had. To my relief, however, she was beckoning a couple about a block behind us. The "bus" we got was really more of a van, and it operated without a hitch. On it there was myself and Mom, a couple from the Netherlands, and about a dozen Israelis.

The hike up was about as challenging as I remember, except when we reached the talus and barren black boulder portion, we took the better-traveled upper trail to a different part of the lava flow. The guide, it turned out, was a cousin of the guide Lori and I had gotten. I was the only person on the tour who spoke Spanish and thus wound up conversing with him quite a bit and even translating for him some of his explanations to other tourists.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="430" caption="Mom stands in front of recently cooled lava"][/caption]

The lava was every bit as scorching hot, but this time our fellow tourists had brought marshmallows to roast in the heat. I chided myself for not remembering. Also this time there were little dogs that had followed the first group up and followed us, the last group, down patiently and diligently begging all the way, their claws filed down to nubs by the volcanic rock.