Sunday, November 30, 2008

Santa Maria

Today we hiked up Santa Maria, the volcano right next to Xela...took a total of 8 hours. Nice, long, steep hike, the view was amazing. Pictures to come soon. Got up at 5:40 to meet at 6 to get up there, had some car complications, didn't start hiking until 7am. It was a beautiful day. It doesn't rain here anymore so the whole way up it was clear and sunny but still cool. Most of the way we were covered by the trees too. What sucks is all the trash the whole way up. It's not that bad the higher you get, but then again on the peak there is trash and graffiti everywhere. Sucks since it's so beautiful. The crew today was: Jill, Ruchi, Jacobo, Eric, Steve, Liz (our coordinator), Hugo (Liz's fiance), and Hugo's 2 friends, and I. The rest of the Somos crew was at home sick...something happened on Thanksgiving that got most all the group sick and others who ate Thanksgiving; though now to think about it the family here didn't get sick. Pretty strange since all the food was cooked in the oven or vegis boiled...who knows. So, now I'm sitting in my bed, sore and tired as all hell. We saw all of Xela, the ocean (we think), Pacaya and it erupted (the other active volcano we hiked), the volcano at the lake, and the volcano next to Santa Maria that's active...and it erupted too. It was neat to see the chain of volcanos, with one side there was land and the other side there was a sea of clouds. Now I'm waiting on pizza, delivery. Good day.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

The words 'nice' and 'long, steep hike' do not go together in my mind.

Dylan said...

That's a pretty kick ass sounding hike. I like that you got up so early to go.

It would be cool to organize a crew of locals to clean up the hike some day. Many times the people that keep our trails clean in the U.S. are volunteers rather than government hands.

Anonymous said...

Yikes, glad you didn't get sick! Now just don't "drink" after others and hopefully you can keep it that way. Cool hike, can't wait to see the pics!