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.

Pacaya

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="401" caption="Approaching Pacaya"][/caption]

The next day we rose early to catch the shuttle with a bunch of other tourist to Volcan de Pacaya, an active volcano about half an hour from Antigua. On the way up we were told that there had been a major eruption in 2004, and then ten days ago there had been a spurt in activity with new flows of lava arising.

The journey to the volcano itself was a little obscene. First there was the bus. It broke down twice costing us what seemed like forever each time. Then there was the dispute about whether or not we would all hike all the way. Apparently the guide wanted us to remain as a group and if some people couldn't make it to the top we would all hang back. People made a big stink of it which turned out to be for nothing because there were enough tour groups coming and going that the guides could sort of share the load.

Children accosted us trying to sell us walking sticks, and on the trail through the woods, men kept appearing out of nowhere with horses in hopes that we would be too weak or lazy to keep hiking and would buy a horse ride. After about twenty minutes of hiking we reached a black, crumbly talus that seemed to want to give way under our every step. Another five hundred yards and the trail turned straight up the slope.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Looking down to the northwest"][/caption]

From this point on, the climb consisted mainly of resting one's weight as delicately as possible on ever-shifting, razor-sharp rocks and darting precariously from one foothold to the next without looking down. The higher we got, the hotter it got until with were standing mere feet from oozing liquid stone that made a sound like squishing mud. It was so hot that it hurt to stand for long in any one place and I found myself playing hot potato with our entire body, bouncing from one foot to the next, shielding myself with one arm and then the other.

Once everyone who made it all the way was satisfied and had taken enough pictures, we all went back down to the edge of vegetation and ate lunch near under the watch of two men with shotguns. After that it was back to the bus where we were told very brazenly to pony up a tip. For one last time, our stalwart bus bit the dust. After switching buses such that some people had to sit in the aisle we took the underwhelming industrial road back to just outside Antigua.

For all the B.S., I would say it was a worthwhile experience. I would recommend that anyone who does it bring sturdy leather gloves and boots that lace up to mid-ankle because otherwise you wind up digging tiny shards of volcanic rock out of your hands and emptying rocks from your shoes repeatedly.

[caption id="" align="aligncenter" width="400" caption="Molten Rock"][/caption]