La cima de centroamerica


Two weekends ago, we packed up our huge backpacks and took a trip to the top of Central America. Volcano Tajumulco, 4,200 meters high. We went with a guide company who lent us tents, sleeping bags and took care of the transportation and food for the trip. It was a two day ordeal climaxing with a hike to the top of this part of the world under the full moon just in time to see the sun rise above the clouds at the top. Increable.



The trip started with packing the bags. I was carrying tent poles, spaghetti sauce, a sleeping mat, sleeping bag, four and a half liters of water, warm clothes and my Spanish flashcards, which came to a total of about thirty pounds, not so much fun when walking straight up the side of a mountain. The next part consisted of chicken bus rides to the base of the volcano. There were twenty people on the tour with us, so needless to say the bus got pretty full. At one point the driver even turned people away (which is rare) stating as he sped through the bus stop ‘lo siento, tengo veinte gringos’.
These buses are exactly what the name implies- stuffed full of people like chickens. No, there aren’t any chickens on the bus though. These are the yellow school buses that we all rode when we were in elementary school. Only in these buses it’s not uncommon to have seven people in a row, eight if there’s a kid involved. And then the drivers speed up the mountains, passing long trucks around blind corners like maniacs. But maybe I should wait until I return home to fill you in on the extremes of the situation. Don’t worry mom, they’re properly trained drivers, I’m sure.



Just after breakfast one of our friends was really ill and decided not to go on the trip with us. Later he had to go to the hospital because he was convulsing in pain and vomiting blood and bile. Turns out he had a case of salmonella poisoning and had to remain in this hospital for four nights. One of the guides stayed down, so we proceeded to the volcano with two guias, rather than three.


The hike was one of the most physically demanding things that I’ve ever done, but I suppose the views made it worth it. There were points in which I could only take two or three steps before having to stop and catch my breath. The Mayans however who work on this mountain just put us all to shame though. Here we are struggling, sweating, striped down to only one layer of clothes, moving at the rate of a crippled old man, and then a five year old boy will pass us carrying a huge bundle of wood with his head while leading two horses packed full with wood. If you’ve ever seen the movie Motorcycle Diaries, it’s like the scene where they are walking up the road with a couple bags on their backs, and the fat guys falls over on the side of the road and screams out, ‘this is not humanly possible’,then a Mayan guy carrying a huge sack of something just walks into the scene and strolls right up the mountain, no problem.


My friend Paul, a finance lawyer from London, who quit his career to travel for a year, struggled a bit. At one point he said to us, ‘I’d do anything to switch positions with Scott right now’. (Scott’s the friend in the hospital back in San Marcos.) He also said, ‘There is absolutely nothing that would make this trip worth it. I’m using this to check off all the hikes I’d ever do. This counts for Manchu Picchu.’


He was at the end of the line of hikers the whole trip, in the back with the crazy guide from Belgium. “There’s nothing but Belgium vomit coming out of this guys mouth. He just never stops talking.” This guide spoke chopped up English and continually used phrases incorrectly, for example as one point he said to Paul, ‘sorry if I’m being a, what you call it, wise nose.” He had shaggy red hair, which he admitted hadn’t been washed in two months, he wore shorts, yellow socks, and a green hat, and on the way down would wait for the group to get ahead a bit and then proceed to sprint down the mountain with his huge bag bouncing around behind him.

The first day we hiked straight up for five hours. At first it was hot and sunny, and then as we ascended higher it became cold and a little windy. We stopped for lunch, and ate in the clouds. After that, the hike to base camp took place in a foggy mist. We had set up our tents just before it started to rain, which it did all night. We had a small river flowing through our tent, and of course, it happened to be right where Paul had put down his sleeping bag. We woke up the next morning and Paul wasn’t in the tent, but his sleeping bag was. The thought that maybe he had killed himself actually crossed my mind.
We woke up at four the following morning and hiked about an hour straight up boulders and sand to the summit. It was great, we hiked under the light of a full moon and at the top we could see all the surrounding towns below start to light up. From the top we could see the Pacific Ocean, Mexico and into Nicaragua. We watched the sun rise and then watched the shadow from the volcano slowly fade down into the earth. Buenisimo.