Full moon hikin' on Santa Maria

(view from the top of Santa Maria, 3,772 m up, as the sun rises)

The other day was the full moon.


(my hands were too cold to be able to screw on a tripod)

There's an activity organized here in Xela that a lot of the active tourists do during the full moon: they climb a 3,772 m high volcano through the night to watch the sunrise.

It's rainy season. It has rained every afternoon into the night for the entire time I've been here. Until 2 days ago. We were so lucky! We had one of the most beautiful nights -- there wasn't a cloud in the sky, and the moon and sky was so bright that I didn't even use a flashlight to climb the mountain.

By the time I'd decided to do the hike, the main trekking organization was full and there was a waiting list. When I told my friend Jenny this, she said that she'd done it the last month, and it wasn't that hard... so she thought that we could do it on our own. A few other guys from the spanish school were interested in this adventure too, so off we went into the great unknown. Guide-shmide!

We hired a taxi and by 1 am we were at the base of the mountain, our packs filled with food and water.

The bonus of going this night, was that we knew there were about 70 other people doing the same thing. Somehow, we were the only ones that thought it was reasonable to go off and do it on our own. But to me, this was way, way better. Not only did we do it for 1/7 th the price, but we were on our own schedule, and the uncertainty added a lot to the excitement.

Within 45 minutes of hiking we'd overtaken the "slow" group, which left 45 minutes before us. Great, we knew we were on the right path. "There's a left turn coming up!" their guide shouts to us as we're passing them.

About 20 mintues of hiking later, Jen realized that she definitely doesn't recognize anything in our surroundings. We pause to laugh, and decide that it's best to go back to where we met up with the slow group and regroup. No problem, we could hear voices in the distance.

As we approached the location, we realized that we could no longer hear the voices. A deafening and powerful silence, the kind that makes you hear all of your booming thoughts without distraction, filled the air. Until we started laughing again. Then we saw another trail jutting off to the left, YES, we'll take it.

About 30 minutes of hiking later, we still had seen no sign of any other people. We thought this strange based on how quickly we'd overtaken the group the first time. We decided that worst case scenario, we're lost, but will continue going up, and we had about 3 hours to make a good dent in the mountain. We all were up for the adventure, and kept our spirits high.

Then, to our great surprise, about 15 minutes after resigning to the fact that we were on our own, we saw flashlights in the distance and heard the murmer of distant voices! WHAT! Awesome! We were actually going the right way, how did THAT happen!?

We caught the group quickly, and found out that the rest of the way up the mountain was very straight-forward. And straight-up.

As we climbed into the night, it got colder and colder. Our hands stopped working properly, and our breath got quicker and shallower. We were definitely going up.

By about 4 am, we were drunkenly closing in on the summit. That kind of altitude affects your balance, and combined with the fact that it was 4 am, extra care was necessary with each step. People's humour was generally freezing over with the functional loss of each of their extremities. What most people failed to process was that the higher they got, the more windy and cold it was going to be. We stayed behind and slowed our pace, and even though it was blisteringly cold when you were not moving, it was defintely the right decision, as the top was unbearable and we didn't want to arrive only to wait up there extra time for the sunrise.

When we finally did arrive, it was about 5 am, and the sun started to rise about 5:20. WOW. We were on top of the 2nd highest visible point (the highest being the highest point in central america, which was just above eye-level) and the view was breath-taking! I'll let the pictures speak for themselves.



(3 of the 4 renegade guide-less hikers)


(the sun peaks through, and it's all worth it)


(God lives up here)







(YESSSsssss...)










(the whole renegade crew!)

In the distance underneath us to the south west was the active volcano Santa Igito. We watched it explode a giant plume of smoke just after sunrise. This baby goes off about once an hour. It was really magical with Santa Maria casting a giant shadow that stretched miles over the ground, with the volcano exploding into the shadow.




(Santa Maria casts a shadow over Santa Igito)



(there she blows!)

Then, just like that, we ate and descended. On the walk down, I was commenting on how much garbage there is thrown to the ground in this country. There's a complete lack of education and understanding, so it's just accepted that when you're done with your Coke bottle, styrofoam container, or plastic wrapper of any sort, you'll just throw it on the ground. It's really a shame. The girl I was talking about this too noted that I wasn't doing anything about it, and she was right. So I leaned down and picked some up. Then some more, and before I knew it, everybody that I was walking with had garbage bags, and we picked up all the litter we could until we had no more bags to fill. It was really a great walk. Be the change, right?