Day 1: Guatemala City, Volcano Pacaya

The alarm time of 3:00am came early this morning after only 2.5 hours of sleep. I know some of the students wouldn't get that much, so I was already ahead of the curve.

I changed quickly into the clothes I set out last night (shocker, I'm so organized) and made my way to campus. I knew I would arrive promptly at 3:25am, just 5 minutes before our scheduled leave time, so I knew I had no time for error. No U-turning at the end of the neighborhood and returning for a forgotten item. I checked my passport for the 14th time. Still there. Whew!

If you are familiar with my love for music and my inability to sleep with a snorer in the room, you can imagine my profound disappointment when I realized that I had not packed my iPod. In fact, it never even made the packing list. Lesson learned and not to be repeated. I was greeted by the 8 students who would accompany me and the Oak Ridge UMC members. The first words out of their mouths: "J.D. can't find his passport." Ugh! A low blow, especially after losing our 9th student traveler to passport issues just days earlier. The next 15-20 minutes were filled with frantic phone calls, apartments being ripped apart, subtle threats, and finally it was discovered between the seats of his vehicles. Catastrophe averted.

The ride to the airport was uneventful. We met the ORUMC folks, divided up the weight of the overloaded bags, and we were on our way to Atlanta and then to Guatemala City!

    

When we arrived at the airport in Guatemala City, I immediately noticed the urgency in the air. Or perhaps I was inflecting a sense of urgency on the situation since it was the first time I had been in an underdeveloped country. We gathered our bags, made our way through immigration and customs, and exited the airport to be faced with hundreds of people corraled behind metal barriers. Evidently, people are not permitted in the airport without the proper identification and airline tickets. No tearful reunions inside the airport. Loved ones had to wait outside for their friends and family to arrive.

We met Raul, our translator and friend of the ORUMC group who had been to Guatemala in the past. We stood by our luggage as it was loaded into the back of Joshue's bus.

Our day's agenda showed a volcano hike, but the first priority was lunch. We stopped at Burger King, where we couldn't help but notice the un-uniformed men with automatic weapons in the BK parking lot. We were told they were there to protect areas where tourists were likely to gather or frequent. We ordered our burgers, fries, and bottled water (agua pura) for the day and ate on the bus on the ride to Pacaya. It was a long drive in stop-and-go traffic.

Along the way, we drove by the Tree of Life. Raul explained that the four main branches represented the four winds--North, South, East, and West. According to Mayan belief, a person dies and the Tree of Life takes him to the underworld (xilbalba) via the roots. If the person defeats the 9 gods of the underworld, then the person makes his way to the upper world via the tall branches. If he can defeat the 12 gods of the upper world, he can choose between being reincarnated as a star or as a person they admire.

As we approached Pacaya, we could see the smoke coming from its peak. At the entrance, Harvey left a posse of armed men in street clothes to join us on the bus. He explained that we would have the choice to hike or pay Q80 each (about $10) to ride horses up the trail to the shoulder of the volcano. Then the rest was up to us on foot. The moment we stepped off the bus, we were mobbed by children all trying to "rent" us their walking sticks for $1 each. "A dollar for me? A dollar for me?"

I got a walking stick that was carved and painted green and aimed to set out on foot. It wasn't long before I realized the mistake I had made. Almost immediately, the terrain turned from the subtle rolling hills we drove up to sharp, steep trails on uneven and unstable rocks. Within minutes I was out of breath. In the back of my mind, I knew I wanted to ride (and eventually would), but I wanted to see how far I could make it before I had to stop. I wasn't far along the trail, maybe a mile, before I realized that switchbacks were something totally different in the U.S. than in Guatemala. A switchback to them meant that a horse had to change directions in order to gain enough angle to climb.

I took up Antonio on his offer of a "taxi." Carmelino was an aging horse, and I felt very bad for him as he climbed the steep sections of the trail. There were many. I practiced my Spanish with Antonio: "Carmelino es muy viejo y estoy muy gorda." Antonio was patient with my mistakes and tried hard to understand what I was saying. The language barrier wasn't a barrier at all. It was more of a strainer, where almost everything flowed through. It just took a while.

Pictures of the trail and the volcano tell it all:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

Some of the students climbed Pacaya (see little white specks in the photo below) while most of us took photos from the shoulder. My feet were hot, I was soaked in sweat, and I had no interest in walking any further than I needed to (which was all the way down, since the horses were gone).

     

On the way back down the trail, the front of the group saw a coral snake on the side of the trail. When we got back to town, the kids surrounded us to get their sticks back. I had hoped to keep mine, but when 10-year-old Gillermo asked if he could have it, I couldn't resist.

Then we climbed back on the chicken bus and headed off to Antigua for the night. The sounds of "a dollar for me, a dollar for me" followed the bus down the hill.