I found the coordinates of the top online; it's only 5 miles from Las Milpas! Of course, that doesn't take elevation into account. I let it slip out that I was going to climb the volcano, and was told horror stories of robberies and assaults. I figured, I won't take much. A few bucks, my GPS, camera and cell phone. I'd hate to lose any of those, but they're just things, and I'd need them for the hike.
So Sunday at 6 am, I set out. I walked to the road the shoots east from Panabaj towards Chicacao. After an hour of walking, I was on a trail that went in the direction of the volcano. A few minutes later I was back on the road. The trail was a shortcut. Then a pickup truck drove up. "Where are you going?" "I'm going to hike around on the volcano." "There are a lot of thieves there. You'll get assaulted. Do you want us to give you a lift back to Santiago?"
"No, I'll watch out. Is there a trail that goes to the top?"
There happened to be one a few meters away, so I was back into the coffee and corn fields.
Half an hour later I heard a noise. There was a man with a machete in a patch of woods. Here we go. From fifty meters away I said, "Hola, amigo."
"Where are you going?"
"For a walk. Towards the volcano. Can I pass through?"
"You can't get to the top of the volcano on this path. You have to back to the road, go a few hundred meters along it, then go up that path. This will get you to the front of the volcano only."
He assured me I could still hike pretty far, and that there were less thieves this way, though sometimes one still encounters them.
I plodded forward. Eventually the cultivated areas gave way to woods, and the bird calls were amazing. This is an area where the resplendent quetzal is occasionally seen, though I didn't get that lucky.
The trail met up with the mudslide zone of 2005, the derrumbe that ruined the old Hospitalito with much of Panabaj. I stepped in quicksand at one point and my foot sank eight inches, then hit rock. No big deal, but what a surprise when you think you're steeing on something solid and it's just like a liquid.
As the washed out are got steeper, there were more obstacles to climb over or around, until eventually there was one that seemed insurmountable. I turned back there, about a mile and a half from the summit.
On the way down, there was a farmer preparing a bundle of some plant to carry down. He was about to put what was probably 50 pounds of it on his back. We chatted for a minute, and I went along. A few minutes later I heard his steps behind me. With the bundle, he was going much faster than I was. We descended together. He told me he's 68, he's been up the volcano many times, would be happy to be a guide for a fee. We talked about how I'm looking for a new place to rent -- he gave me some names of people to contact about houses for rent. We talked about Maximon, the local idol, who is now in Tzanchaj (south of Panabaj).
He said he'd give me his phone number so I could contact him about being a guide. When his trail turned off from mine, I asked him for it, ready to type it in to my phone.
"Well, I don't know it."
No comments:
Post a Comment