For the past few weeks now, Xela´s diesel-tinted air is all that our lungs have known in Guatemala. This past week we finally made our way well above this thick human cloud, breaking into altitudes none of us had ventured before.
The first hike began at three in the morning, last Thursday...the full moon. Our sights were fixed on the peak of Santa Maria - a dormant volcano resting mere miles from the city. The hike itself was steep and fast. A confused, enigmatic tangle of "trails" defined the first third of the mountain. But as the clouds drew closer, and the air began to weigh heavy with mist and fog, the pathways aligned to form a single, unified effort for the top. Trekking up through this shadowed cloud-forest was steady and distinct: cold, muddy and eerily quiet... except for the not-too-distant canine cackles from a pack of wild dogs.
Without realizing it, we had torn through the clouds, and suddenly found ourselves looking out upon one of the most dramatic and dizzying sights my eyes have ever been witness to. To the south there was nothing... nothing but an ocean of thick, billowing cloud painted in silver-blue moonlight. Only a few distant peaks were mighty enough to penetrate into these terrestrial heavens. The moon´s sharp blue light illuminated the rest of our trek.
We made it to the top, second only to a herd of bovine locals. From a barren, frag scattered turret we watched the moon set, reflecting its swollen orange figure across the Pacific ocean. The steady, rigid winds eventually forced us into a more protected nook just down from the peak. Here we waited in huddled groups for sunrise, fighting off the first stages of frost-bite with a small flask of ¨Old Friend¨ whiskey.
Our attention was distracted from the horizon when a plume of steam and ash was spotted on the rise just off the southern cliff-side. We soon discovered that at the base of Santa Maria sat the most active volcano in all of Central America: Santiaugito. Its slopes were outlined in thick, white streams of steam and gas. The promise of a heated seat was tempting, but fatally impossible.
Not soon enough, the holy light of the sun began to shatter our icy shackles. Slowly...deliberately, it painted our entire slice of the world with the most vivid warmth. That morning cannot be described with my words, and pictures hardly do it justice.
A number of Santa Maria's kindred peaks soon became visible. Marching out ahead of us towards the dawn like earthly titans, their silhouettes seemed bound for the ball of fire rising before us all. But our next challenge sat behind us, contentedly warming its eastern face just as we ourselves were. Tajumulco, Central America's Mount Olympus, was beckoning....
Santiaugito behind me... flexing far more muscle than I ever could
"snuggle buds" as they called themselves
organization Quetzaltrekkers (http://www.quetzalventures.com/guatprojects.html)
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All proceeds go to Escuela de la Calle, a school for street children in Quetzaltenango (Xela), Guatemala
-John Michael
10/29/07
(www.journeyquest8.blogspot.com)
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