The Volcano That Almost Killed Us

Saturday at 5:30 a.m. Soni, Stephanie, Perry, Doug Sr, Gabe, Luke, Vince, Douglas, Natalie, Daniela, Andrea, Sarah (our YAV), her friend Ryan, and I piled into a van and drove an hour and half to hike up to the top of the Pacayo Volcanoe. When we got to the head of the trail, which was paved for about 50 feet, all we could see was it going up and up and up. Well, we were not quitters so we bravely started up the trail. At the end of the paved section of trail, we realized the adults were already lagging behind. Soni had brought a backpack containing every imaginable medicine. She quickly discovered that there was no way in H-E-double-hockey-sticks that she could make it up with that thing strapped to her back, so us spry young youth took turns carrying it for her. Guides with horses followed our group with horses tempting us to pay to ride up. That just felt plain wrong. We would rather kill ourselves walking than cheat by riding a horse. We got somewhat discouraged by signs that lined the path showing a drawing of the volcano and a little hiker hiking up the mountain. We thought the hiker was showing us our progress up the mountain, but it seemed he wasn't moving at all. Turns out he wasn't moving at all and it was just the volcano logo. After about an hour and a half of walking and resting, walking and resting, we got to the part of the volcano where horses could no longer go and all were forced to continue on foot. Our path was now covered in solidified lava that had erupted 3 months ago. We were forced to climb over this rock and it was as sharp as knifes. Simply placing your hand on the rock would scrape up you hand. This part of the path was even steeper and even more treacherous than the earlier stretch because you had no way to catch yourself because of the sharp rock. We all feared the trek back down. At one point Soni, Stephanie, Vince, Douglas, Natalie, Luke, and I came to a place where the lava rocks were still warm and there was a small fire burning between two of them. We decided to stop and go back. But Gabe, Andrea, Daniela, and Perry had decided to go up even farther -- almost to the very top. We could just barely see them climbing up a thin stretch that was almost vertical. Andrea tried to come down sitting but soon slipped and had to try and regain her balance with out grabbing the rocks to hard. Eventually they all made it down safely. The next stretch found Douglas, Natalie, And I using ALOT of teamwork to try and make it down without getting hurt. It took about a half hour to make it safely off of the lava rock and onto the actual trail. By then we were all ready to get back to Antigua to eat lunch and do some exploring. Unfortunatley, because we went traipsing around Antigua right after lunch, we had no time to rest our legs and some of us (including me) had very sore legs on Sunday.

Rachel Grace Van Marter