Days 100-103. GUATEMALA

GUATEMALA


        How does one express his self when their only way of doing so simply won’t do?

        That’s the question on everybody’s mind after leaving the Central American country of Guatemala.

        This Voyage is one of perspectives. Each country is not looked at through a new sparkling lens, but from an old dusty one, ripe with impressions of 13 other ports-of-call. Such is the situation of the 800 of us who found ourselves in Guatemala on Tuesday morning. At 97 degrees West longitude, we have traveled nearly 345 degrees around the globe- a mere 15 degrees from where we began in Nassau January 19th.

        So, back to the original question: what does one do when they’ve used up all of their words? I’ve used the same adjectives, amazing, incredible, fantastic, beautiful, for so many things. From Table Mountain in South Africa to the Taj Mahal to my latest adventure in Guatemala, the experiences are so starkly different, so independently affective on myself as a person; and yet, I have to choose between a few overused adjectives.

        But we will try nonetheless.

In Guatemala, I climbed the Volcan Acatenango… The Acatenango Volcano. Acatenango stands at an imposing 13,044 feet above sea level. It is the third highest peak in Guatemala, and also the third highest volcano in all of Central America. It is an inactive volcano, and has been dormant for about 10,000 years. However, it stands right near two other volcanoes- Fuego directly next to it and Agua a few miles away. Fuego erupts mildly every 30 minutes or so, and Agua blows once every decade or so. Fuego’s half-hour blast is enough to shake the ground and scare the crap out of ill-prepared tourists (see: me), but you really don’t want to be around when Agua blows her top. She did so about 2 years ago and covered central Guatemala in smoke and ash for a few long weeks.

On our way to Acetanango, the tallest of the three volcanoes in the area, we stopped at an observation area by a gas station. While we were standing there and looking at the peak we were going to scale in the next 36 hours, Fuego erupted. I jumped back as she belched flames and black smoke and asked “esta normal??” (is this normal!?).  Luis, our guide, told me it was. “Es nuestro volcan muy cerca de el eruption?” I asked (how close is our volcano to the one that’s currently erupting). “Muy.” He said with a smile: Very.

We stopped at a gas station to change into a new mode of transportation, Una Camioneta (a chicken bus). It is a old-school school bus that is tricked out in paint and lights and rims. They are common all over Guatemala, and this one, dubbed “Esmerelda” by the name on the windshield, was to take us to the beginning of our climb.

Within an hour or so driving, we had reached the bottom of the Volcano. At 6,900 feet, all we could see was up, and the summit was nowhere to be found in our gazes. What follows is a summary of our climb. With my backpack full of supplies, and my walking stick, I carried my green pocket-log that has been with me most of the voyage. What appears in quotations is exactly as I wrote it during the climb:

29 APRIL 1030: “Here on Volcano. Stacey’s pen works” (I had borrowed a pen from my friend to write for the journey) “Just sprayed bugspray in someone’s eyes. Oops.”

1033: “Started the hike. Altitude: 6900 feet.”

We began the hike up a dirt road that could be driven by a heavy-duty truck. For the first 30 minutes, it was a meandering road that was mostly easy. We all talked while we walked, the difficulty of the road though got worse and worse.

1042: “Got a stick.” I picked up an amazing walking stick and widdled it down while I hiked. It became the centerpiece of the group, and “the staff” was featured in many pictures

1101: “First rest stop. We’re okay. Doing optimistically well, hoping it stays like this.”

1145: “Lunch. Altitude 7200 feet.”

        We ate up. As we finished lunch, the group that had climbed the volcano the day before came running down the trail to the lunch area. We all hugged and exchanged words. They told us of what lied ahead with cautious tones. I could hear in their voices that what lie ahead was nothing I could yet imagine. They told us that they left us a present on the summit “if we made it there.” We left lunch and IMMEDIATELY it was a new game. It was hills the likes of which I had not seen before. I struggled to get enough friction between my feet and the ground. I fell back many times.

        1244: “Hell. Made stop. Altitude: 8450 feet.”

        1315: “Sitting on steep hill trying to get breath. Discussing endurance with group. Altitude: 9045 feet.”

        1500: “Finally made it to camp. Altitude: 10,500 feet.”

        Coming over the last hill to the camp was so great. To know we were done, at least for the day was such a feeling. Camp was such an experience. At over 10,000 feet, we were right at cloud-level, and were reminded of it all the time. It would be clear and sunny, and we’d be sweating profusely. Then, within 60 seconds, a cloud system would roll in and the temperature would drop from near 65 farenheit to around 35. You could soon see your breath in front of your face and were huddling around the 3 campfires we built to stay warm. Then the clouds would move out and you’d be shedding your layers again trying to keep your body temp low. It was a dizzying dance of throwing clothes on and off to accommodate the carousel of weather conditions. So far, though, it was a dry carousel: no rain. That would soon change.

        After chips and salsa snack (provided by our guides), we settled in to our tents and were relieved to see 100% WATERPROOF GUARENTEE written on their sides. All of a sudden, thunder in the distance. Dark clouds were on the horizon… the type that make your stomach turn a bit. We had minutes to prepare, soon our camp was in the center of a violent thunderstorm. Drizzle turned to downpour, which turned to plummeting temperatures. What began as chilly became freezing, and the precipitaiton turned to nickel-sized hail that pelted us and our tents. We did what we could in our “dry” tents and then realized the true horror. There were leaks. Everywhere. We went into immediate damage-control mode. Keeping at least one set of dry clothes was of the utmost priority. Lacking a dry set would be not only inconvenient, but potentially dangerous. Nobody knew how long the weather would stay poor, and at this altitude hypothermia and altitude sickness were always possibilities.

        We did what we could, laughed as much as we could, and suffered through it all. We ate dinner… grilled hamburgers over a campfire and found ourselves going to sleep at the unreasonably early time of 2000 (8pm). Wakeup was slated for 0400 the next morning.

        Me and 5 friends packed into a 3-person tent, thinking that we needed the extra body warmth but soon discovered the problem wasn’t temps, but wetness. Trying to sleep, I soon found my feet wet in a puddle at the bottom of my sleeping bag, and decided a new plan was needed. We found a dryer tent and 3 of us migrated there. At that altitude, nobody slept in the thin air more than a pair of hours or so. At one point, I awoke with the driest mouth I’ve ever had (our guide told us this was normal at the height), and I got out of the tent to get some water. Then I saw it.

        The rain had stopped and the cloud had lifted. Though it was dark out, I could see two things.  First, an expanse of city lights far below us that I had never seen. I had never been this high (altitude-wise… dad…) in my life, and way below us was the lights of Antigua and Guatemala city. They were tiny specks of blue, yellow, green and red dots lying miles beneath us.

        The other thing I saw was not as colorful, but much more incredible. Up. Above me, 3,000 feet above was the shadow of something. A ledge. A top. The summit. For the first time, there it was, three-quarters of a mile above us. I ran back to the tent excited at my discovery and anxious for the challenge that lay above our heads.


        30 APRIL 0430: “We woke up a few minutes ago and prepped. We’re eating some dry cereal now. Starting hike in 30 minutes”

        0605: “Left wide trail for tiny jungle switch-back. Impossible. Struggling to breathe.”

        That’s a pretty accurate description. We could barely put another foot ahead of the other. We had changed to a single-file line, which made stopping impossible. So you just followed the person ahead of you. We proceeded in the jungle, led by a machete-clad guide who cut down any plants that were in our way. The ground beneath us disappeared. It turned to black volcanic ash-sand. With every step forward, you sank and moved 2 steps backward. It was truly impossible. With every movement I found myself metaphor-izing the challenge I found myself in. With every breath of diluted oxygen, I found myself imagining classes, arguments, problems, difficulties and obstacles in my life and with every new step I found myself conquering each of those obstacles one by one mentally. The volcano beneath my feet became a symbol, and I was determined to beat it.

        At 0700 AM, we reached the last plateau, and for the first time, saw the last bit of the trail to the summit. There it was. I had been warned by the first group and by the guides that the last 500 feet were the hardest. It was nearly a vertical climb of pure sand and rocks. I dug my staff straight down and pulled myself up, took a breath, then repeated the process. Every 2 minutes or so, I would reach for my water, take a swig and then motivate myself to keep going. I was making progress, but slowly. Nobody talked. The wind was whipping us and we were bundled in our 4 or 5 layers, hats and gloves. It was pure adrenaline and endurance. Everything, it seemed was working against us, but we refused to give in.

        At 0741 AM on April 30th, I saw it. My memory flashed back to the day before, meeting the first group down at the lunch spot. “We left a present for you at the top,” my friend Elise had told me.

        And there it was. Spelled in rocks directly across from where I was. “ SAS 09.”

        I had made it. We had made it.

        I wiped the small tears that were in my eyes and realized my smile couldn’t have been wider. I grabbed for my water and took a swig when- BOOM! The ground shook. As if on cue, Fuego volcano, now only 600 feet below us and about half a mile away blew its top in its bi-hourly eruption. Fire flew out followed by smoke. It couldn’t have been more perfect timing. We all cheered and hugged. The feeling of accomplishment was greater than I ever could have imagined.

        I looked around. I was on top of the world. Nothing, besides the two smaller volcanoes, as far as the eye could see was even near our height. I could see lake Aticlan to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. The summit was a circular ridge and a crater in the middle where the volcano’s hole once was 10,000 years ago; the black sand a subtle reminder of what lies beneath our feet.

        We spent about 20 minutes before starting our descent. We talked, laughed and just smiled. The sun had risen on our last day in port for Semester At Sea Spring 2009, and the 30 or so of us could not imagine a better ending for a journey around the world. As one person said, “what better a way to end a journey around the world then by being on top of it.”



        We descended back to camp from the peak, literally skiing down the sand on the face of the summit. There, we had pancakes and took a 30 minute rest before finishing the descent.

       


After visiting Antigua for a much-needed lunch, we headed back to Puerto Quetzal. We were hot. We were sweaty. We were tired, and our muscles ached… but our minds had never been better. We beat the Volcano. We beat ourselves.


        --

        At post-port reflections, Professor Jodi Tompson shared with us some of his thoughts. “It seems many of you willingly threw yourselves in adverse conditions, as if to test yourself,” he said. His message was that many times in life, we need to struggle, to know we can do it. Acatenango will forever represent that struggle- and what can happen when the will to succeed overpowers the wish to quit. I will hold that close to me as long as I can.

        --

        As we pulled out of port that night, there were more faces than normal on Deck 7. We knew why. It was our last port, and everybody wanted to feel it, to see the land slipping away. The people of Guatemala, represented to me by our many guides and helpers were so welcoming. There exist many problems with crime in the country… and its debilitating poverty makes it easy to see why. I hope to return to the country one day and see bigger, better changes- a more stable government and a better life for its wonderful people.

        So. Back to the beginning: Words, and their limitations.

        As you may have realized, no adjective can sum up my experience. These 4 pages barely scratch the surface. But I think, more than anything, it’s the experience and the way it changes me as a person that will best express it. Where words fail, I hope my actions will succeed. To communicate the message of SAS, the message of Acatenango.

As always, Thanks for reading,

Greg