Rey, Devon and I decided to do Tajumulco, as things tend to go in Peace Corps, at nearly the last minute. Rey and Devon are two awesome fellow GAD ladies (GAD is the Gender and Development Committee of Peace Corps Guatemala of which I am the newly elected Project Representative for Youth Development, taking the place of Rey who will soon be finishing her service) and both from the Verapaces. Since we all had to travel about 12 hours across the country to attend the GAD meeting on Friday, we thought we'd take advantage of our time in Quetzaltenango and do a little volcano climbing. Most people climb Tajumulco with a guide company, but we decided to go it alone, mostly in the interest of saving money. And luckily, we proved ourselves more than capable of surviving a night on a volcano.
We started off early from Xela on Saturday, and made it to the base of the climb after a few bumpy bus rides and a stop to buy what ended up being an extreme oversupply of water ("better safe than sorry" is what we had in mind). We paid a somewhat shady Guatemalan Q100 to drive us, in his pick-up truck that might as well have been held together by duck tape, up to the start of the hike, about 2 km up from the highway. And off we went. The climb took us about 4 hours, which is impressive when you factor in how slowly we were climbing. It's amazing how big of an effect altitude can have on the body, and for me (I live at 2,844 feet), the altitude was utterly exhausting. Five steps feel like half a mile when there's no oxygen to breathe.
Just around 5pm that day, we found ourselves at the summit, somewhat accidentally (we had planned on stopping at the base camp and going up to summit the next morning to catch the sunrise.) But there we were, and with the sun about to set, we didn't have much choice but to pitch our tent and hope for the best. And the best is what we got. Sure, it was cold and incredibly windy (I didn't sleep much with the wind beating at our tent all night long), but we got a campfire going, watched the sunset, made bean tortillas and Oreo S'mores, and got in our sleeping bags at around 7:30pm. And when we woke up the following morning, and stepped out of the tent, there we were, at the top of the world.
We ran into a few hikers that had come with a guided hike and had climbed up to summit that morning. "You guys camped there? Just the three of you?"
Sí hombre.
On the way up
Our serendipitous campsite
Exploring the summit the next morning
It looks fabulous, Hannah. Next time- I'll pay for the guide :)
ReplyDeleteTHAT IS AWESOME!!!!!!
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