You Thought I was Crazy When I Jumped out of a Plane

This was much crazier.  But I knew what I was getting into when I suited up and was hurled from a plane at 14000 feet.

This story takes place on a little active volcano called Pacaya, an hour southeast of Antigua, Guatemala. Antigua is a beautiful, colonial town where I stayed for a glorious 5 days of blissful, and decidedly un-Guatemalan comfort (i.e. I drank a good cappuccino every morning for breakfast).  I haven't written anything about Antigua until now because you don't want to hear about my 5 days of reading books in European-style coffee shops, drinking cappuccino upon cappuccino, and eating guacamole and steak that melts in your mouth.  No, you don't want to hear about that.  My guidebook rightly describes Antigua as the place to avoid if you are looking for the "real" Guatemala.  It's population is 50% American tourist, 25% Latino, and 25% Indigenous, according to my personal observations.  But this story is about Pacaya. 

Pacaya is the thing in Antigua that everyone does.  It's one of two places in the world (or so I heard) where you can get really close to a river of molten lava as it flows down the side of an active volcano. 
And as tourists are not known for their wisdom, you will not be surprised to hear that on any given day, dozens of people sign up for one of the two daily tours to Pacaya.  I chose the afternoon tour, because not only do you get to see lava, but you also get to watch the sunset from on high as you climb down the volcano and do the rest of the hike by moonlight.  There just happened to be a full moon on the day that I went. 

When I signed up for the tour, I was told that I would be picked up from the cathedral in Antigua's central park at 2, but that I should get there fifteen minutes early and wait an additional fifteen minutes after 2.  Since Guatemala is now the fifth country in Central America that I have visited, I should have known that what they were really telling me was that the shuttle would pick me up sometime after 2:15.  In Costa Rica, they call this Tico Time.  None of the other countries seem to have attained self-awareness on this point, so when it happens you just suck it up and move on. 

It took an hour for us to drive to and up the volcano.  When you get most of the way up, the driver pulls over ostensibly to pay the entrance fee, but also so that some locals can sell you a package of marshmallows to roast in the lava.  The road stops 1800 feet below the lava flow.  At that point, you step off of the bus into a sea of other tourists who are all also preparing to hike to the lava.  Local kids surround you in hopes that you will buy a walking stick from them for 5 quetzales (about $.70).  And the older local kids and men offer to rent you a horse if you don't think you can walk UP for 1800 feet. 

After a few minutes of pandemonium, a caravan of people nad horses begin walking single-file up the trail.  What I've neglected to tell you at this point is that during the drive from sunny, 70-degree Antigua, we drove into clouds on Pacaya.  And about fifteen minutes after starting the hike, a hard, cold rain started.  It rained just enough that the sweater in my backpack which I brought for the hike down from the lava, was soaked through.  I didn't bring my raincoat on the hike because it's the dry season here and who ever heard of it raining during the dry season??? 

It was at about this point that people started to realize that it's hard to hike UP for 1800 feet no matter how badly you want to roast a marshmallow in lava.  It was also at this point that a few strategizing locals trotted up on horses and started taunting us with the option of renting a horse, now at 4x the original price.  Only one person gave in (it wasn't me!).  Little did she know that after ascending 1200 feet, the horses are barred from going further by a cattle fence and you have to climb the last 600 feet with your own two feet.

But it's after the fence that the scenery starts to get interesting.  The fence is at the treeline where the forest stops and an eerie slope of grass with a few lucky trees and shrubs are scattered on the ground.  The scene was made more eerie the day I was there by the clouds that raced by us changing the visibility drastically every few seconds.

After about 500 feet of green grass, we came to the bottom of the volcano's cone.  From there on, there were only two colors in the world, the light gray of the clouds and the dark gray of the gravel (or whatever the scientific word is for cooled lava) at our feet.  We climbed up and around the side of the cone and could tell we were getting close to the lava because the air started to get warmer and the ground was steaming beneath us.

When the lava first comes into view, it's awe-inspiring.  This isn't an aggressive lava flow, so it kind of moves like molasses and drips like honey. 

Like Molasses...

Like Honey...

We were able to walk within 15-20 feet of the main lava flow.  At that distance, the ground was hot and those who were wearing anything less than hiking boots could feel the heat through their shoes.  It was hard work maneuvering around the cooled lava.  It was smooth in some places, brittle in others, and would give under our feet, which was un-nerving to say the least. 

So, there we were tripping and scrambling over cooled lava taking and posing for pictures.  I walked over one ledge of cooled lava that had split and revealed several layers of rock in different shades of red.  After walking over it, I turned and knelt down to get a picture of the cross-sectiont, and that's when I noticed a pool of live, glowing, orange lava directly beneath it.  We weren't just observing a river of lava at a distance, we were walking over it.  And the only thing separating us from the live lava was a 6-12 inch layer of dried, brittle, cooled lava.  I was not comfortable with this...

 

You can barely see the live lava through the hole in the cooled lava 

I have a great series of 'nervous Karen' photos to show when I get home.  Needless to say, I was thankful when the tour guide said it was time to go.  During the walk back down the cone, we heard the volcano errupting above us.  It sounded like a peel of thunder.  

On a less stressful note, the sun came out very briefly just before it set and lit up the mountain next to Pacaya.  

  

The sun set as we reached the cattle fence, so we walked back through the forested part of the trail in the dark.  Night hikes are a great experience.  Doing them under a full moon is best, but I learned that night that a foggy night has its merits.  

The first time I went skydiving, I decided that it wasn't something I needed to do again.  But as time has passed, I've come around to the idea of doing it again.  Who knows, maybe one day I will again be up for walking a river of lava in hiking boots.  O\nly time will tell.