I love hiking. So when the proposition was made for me to join some friends in hiking up a 12K+ foot volcano I was all about it - until I found out that I would have to wake up at 4am on a Saturday morning in order to catch the pre-arranged shuttle bus from our spanish school at 5. Brutal. Made me think twice. But I knew that it would be an amazing experience with an exceptional group of people so I had to suck it up. I told myself I would not go out Friday night and get to bed early, neither of which happened. So when my alarm went off at 4am, slightly hung over after only a few hours of sleep, it took every ounce of willpower I had to peel myself out of my warm bed and into a cold shower.
We met, bleary-eyed at the school at 5am and were on our way. I thought I was the worst off, having been out past midnight, until I found out our guide Kevin was out past 2am salsa dancing, and showed no signs of fatigue, at least not yet. This was the inspiration I needed. After a brief shuttle ride we arrived at the base of the volcano where a friendly stray dog, who became known as Pinta, greeted us and offered to lead us to the top in exchange for food scraps along the way. Fair enough. GoPro camera in hand, we set out on one of the most badass hikes I've ever done:
I hope you enjoyed the video! Having zero experience with anything of the sort, it was quite a daunting task, especially getting started but the more I messed around with iMovie, the more intuitive it became. Now that I've gotten the hang of it I look forward to putting more of these together!
So yeah, back to the hike - it was an unrelenting 3 hours straight up with no switchbacks or flat stretches, just steady incline. The hike up was nothing too special until we got about 2/3 of the way up, around the tree line where we started to get some cool views of the city below. But the big payoff was reserved for those who reached the top. It was like stepping into another world. As the top came into view, we began to hear the faint sounds of random unorganized chanting which turned out to be a Mayan ceremony! I was only able to get a small bit of discrete footage as apparently it is disrespectful and you must obtain consent from the group in order to do so, but from what you can see it was quite intense! There were two ceremonies going on, the second of which was extremely somber. The leader seemed to be fighting back tears as he painfully wailed out prayers while a group of women wept below. It was really captivating. Also at the top we were lucky enough to witness one of the smaller volcanos erupting below through the clouds. while the video doesn't quite do it justice, it was really cool to see live and to hear the faint rumble of the earth as it was happening. We hung out on the top for about an hour until the clouds started rolling in and literally enveloped us, as Rita points out in the video "We are in - a cloud - right now". Haha. Our queue to start heading back down.
What fascinated me most about the whole experience were the Mayan ceremonies. I couldn't stop thinking about them.The next week in class I showed my teacher Norma, who is of Mayan decent, the video and asked about what sort of rituals were going on. She noted that when the Spaniards came and imposed Christianity on the Mayans, the people were forbidden to practice their native religion. The only way in which they were safe to do so was by climbing to the top of a mountain where they could do so in secret. Although no longer forbidden, this is a practice that has carried on into today, and it was really quite surreal to see.
Well thats all for now. I am almost through editing my video from Antigua and plan to post that up in a few days. Please let me know what you thought of the vid - comments / criticisms / suggestions, all are welcome!
Chow
Ross
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