Climbing Volcan San Pedro requires a 6AM start and some preparation the previous night. Armed with the water and bananas that the tour operator company had recommended I bring, and some packets of Chicharonnes that they had not, I met up with Manuel the local Guide and eight other extranjeros hoping to reach the summit of the dormant volcano that looms above San Pedro town outside the tour operators office in the early hours of Saturday morning.
The group consisted of three med students from Zaragoza on a University exchange programme in Antigua, three were Belgiums, a Thai and a Croatian female living in Neuve York. My heart immediately sank as I realised with dismay that this time there would be no overweight American in flipflops in the group. This time, all the group were younger than me, and none of them looked like they had been gorging themselves on Guatemalan pork scratchings for the last four weeks. This time, I started to panic, I could well be the dead weight at the tail end of the group as we climbed San Pedro Volcano.
As we started climbing, I cleverly positioned myself behind one of the female student doctors from Spain, partly so medical attention was close at hand if I needed it, but mainly because the rear view perspective acted as good motivation for me to keep going.
But even with that encouragement, it was extremely tough going. When Manuel the Guide informed us that we were not even half way up the volcano when we stopped at a view point, I nearly ended it all with his machete.
Me and the Thai girl both started to make jokes about tuk tuks and taxi availabilty half way up a Volcano, but I know she was crying inside as well. Then the Croat from New York started walking annoying close behind me as if to suggest I was going to slowly. In the end, I pretended to slip and poinged a branch back in her face so she would get the message that I was the pace-setter on this volcano and not her.
As we continued climbing at a slower and slower pace, I started to convince myself that failure could be just as enriching as success. I told myself that I was struggling simply because I wasn´t fully recovered from the previous weeks hike up the Nariz de India. That my breakfast hadn´t provided enough energy. That my heavy hiking boots were slowing me down and were the only reason that I was struggling to keep up with the nimble-footed Spanish doctor trotting up the volcano in a pair of flimsy plimsoles. I tried with increasing difficulty to ignore the sombre truth: that I am probably just getting older.
To add insult to injury, when we finally got to the top, there wasn´t any lava (the volcano´s been dormant for many years), and there wasn´t even much of a view due to cloud cover. Unfortunately you pays your money and you takes your chance when you climb San Pedro Volcano: some days, there are no clouds and its possible to see for miles over Lago Atitlan, other days the clouds hang lower than an extranjeros underpants when he´s got a dose of the Belinda Carlisles.
The clouds closed in even further on the descent, and as the group spread out, I found myself alone in the Guatemala jungle, with only a packet of Chicharones and the dregs of my bottle of water to survive on if I got lost. Not that I really minded, as it meant I didn´t have to continue listening to Manuel the Guide telling me how poor he was, and how he would love a pair of sunglasses like mine, and how he thought the stick he had cut with his machete on the way up for me had really helped in my summit success, and basically dropping as many hints as he could without coming right out and telling me he expected a big tip when we got down to the bottom.
Unfortunately Manuel the Guide was out of luck, as when he slowed down to give the Spanish medical students behind me the same sob story, I picked up the pace and hurried to the bottom, tried not to think that one wrong slip could result in me impaling myself on the stick he had cut for me. I never saw Manual the Guide again, and I hope it stays that way for my last week in San Pedro, as his machete looked pretty sharp.
When I finally limped into my homestay, I timed it as a seven hour round-trip, a couple less than Half Dome in Yosemite last month, but probably just as tough given almost all of the volcano climb was steep.
- 'Vas a dormir?' (sleep?), my homestay host Rosa asked me, when I had eventually finished eating the lunch that she had kindly kept by for me long after the usual mealtime, by holding the fork with both hands.
- 'Voy a morir.' (die), I replied, before crawling from the kitchen to my bedroom, and swiftly into my sleeping bag. I had planned to have a shower to wash the mud from my legs and the sweat from everywhere, but was too weak to even get the wrapper off the bar of soap I had borrowed from a Vegas hotel last month.
I won´t sleep of course. Rosa my homestay host is playing loud music, and there are about 23 children playing a louder game of hide and seek outside my homestay bedroom. But at least I won´t have to move my legs.
