After relaxing on Sunday from our crazy Thanksgiving week, Brooks and I found ourselves busy again with catching up with our pen pal program and our social lives here in Huehue. On Thursday we had pizza with our friend Gaby, the girl that works at the front desk at our gym, and enjoyed getting to know her even more. By Friday it was time to leave town again to conquer the climb up Tajumulco over the weekend.
We were planning to leave for Xela early Friday morning in order to have time to visit Xocomil again, the amazing water park an hour from Xela. But after I realized on Thursday that I was still a little sick, and that going to a water park would not help that, we decided to stay home and head over to Xela Friday afternoon. We left right after lunch on Friday, catching a 2pm bus to Xela. Unfortunately the ride was slow and with an unknown transfer in the middle, meaning we arrived later than intended in Xela. We rushed to catch a micro to the city center, and then walked quickly to Casa Argentina, where we were expected for a Quetzaltrekkers meeting. We came too late for the meeting, but fortunately because Quetzeltrekkers is so relaxed, they gave us a private meeting and set us up with the right gear for the trek. We checked into a room, and called our friend Doris to meet us for dinner at El Sabor de la India, one of our favorite restaurants in Xela. Doris met us at the restaurant with her daughter and her daughter’s friend, and after a delicious dinner we made a drive to the Agua Viva campus. Agua Viva is a missionary group based out of Xela with an extensive campus of missionary housing, a school, and soon to be an orphanage. We went over to Agua Viva because Brooks is currently working on a dream to build a school at the orphanage, and knowing that Agua Viva has a school on their campus for missionary children, we took advantage of the opportunity to meet with some of Doris’ friends that help run the school. After a sleepy meeting (it was late and almost everyone was exhausted), Doris drove us back to Casa Argentina so we could get some sleep before our early morning wake up call.
At 5:45am the next day we met up with our trekking group, which we had actually not met before because of our M.I.A. status during the meeting. Our group consisted of three guides – Patrick and Rachel, who both attended Willamette University in Oregon, and Santi, our Guatemalan guide from our last trek – as well as three other trekkers and ourselves, Kate from Australia, Kevin from San Luis Obispo, and Lisa from Germany. It ended up being a great group whose company Brooks and I really enjoyed. We all loaded into the back of a pick-up truck at 6am, and were driven to the bus “terminal” (a large space with a lot of buses and food stands) to board the bus to San Marcos. After an hour and half drive, we all slowly loaded off the bus and entered a nearby building filled with comedores. There we enjoyed coffee with pancakes and fruit, and our last real bathroom for the next two days. From San Marcos we got back on a bus, a very crowded and uncomfortable bus, and drove about an hour up a winding hill to be dropped off at the base of Tajumulco. From there it was three hours of uphill, with lots of breaks thrown in of course. Tajumulco, as the tallest point in Central America, is obviously at a very high altitude (4200m to be exact), but the trek luckily only covers 1200m because we started at 3000m. The trek wasn’t very steep or difficult; what did make it more difficult, though, was the slight altitude sickness I was feeling, my first ever experience with altitude sickness. By 2pm we arrived at our base camp, an open area with plenty of space to set up our tents. We set up camp, and then had a delicious lunch and a much needed nap. At 4:40pm we were awoken from our nap to begin our sunset hike, a short hike up the smaller peak of Tajumulco. Once at the top, we marveled at how “on top of the world” we all felt, realizing that the next day we were going to be even higher. The sunset was breathtaking, with perfect rays of light shining through the fluffy clouds, and beautiful colors painting the sky. As beautiful as the sunset was though, the unfortunate thing that comes with a sunset is the lack of sun in the sky… And the terrible cold that comes with that; at 4000m, it got pretty cold that night. After the sun was completely gone we slowly made our way back down to base camp, where we layered on more clothes and started boiling water for our hot drinks and dinner. By evening I was wearing a long sleeve t-shirt, a short sleeve t-shirt, a sweatshirt, a fleece, a down jacket, gloves and a hat, and was still a little cold; by the next morning it was even worse. We all climbed into our sleeping bags around 8pm, but had a terrible time falling asleep due to the other campers around us, the cold, and the lack of oxygen at that altitude.
The next morning we awoke at 3:30am, quickly stuffed our sleeping bags in our backpacks, and were hiking the last 200m to the top by 3:45am. This part of the trek was the most difficult, given that is was steeper and even higher up. The nausea from altitude sickness was really bothering both myself and Lisa, which was good because we could stop together, and bad because we both wanted to throw up and stop hiking the entire time. After just an hour though, we made it to the top and set out our sleeping pads and sleeping bags, climbing in to wait for the sunrise to begin. After about 20 minutes colors began appearing in the sky, and more and more people began trickling up the mountainside or emerging from their tents (some people camped at the top). The sunrise that we witnessed from Tajumulco is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen, and almost brought tears to my eyes. The sun rose just behind another volcano chain to the east in Guatemala, making for amazing picture opportunities. We stayed until the sun was past the cloud line, and packed up our stuff to make our way back down to breakfast. The night before Brooks and Patrick had been talking about the volcano crater and how much they wanted to climb into it, so they (along with Kevin, Kate and Santi) sped ahead while Rachel, Lisa and I took our time, taking pictures at every vantage point possible. The walk back down was beautiful, which indeed included circling around the volcano crater, a pretty shallow crater at this point in history. The climb down was probably about 50m, and at the bottom of the crater was an array of names and symbols spelled out in rocks people had left behind. The boys and Kate enjoyed a moment in the crater, and then met the three of us at the top to walk the rest of the way down. By 8am we met up with Santi at the camp, and enjoyed a delicious breakfast of oatmeal and hot drinks before packing up camp to head back down. The trek down was surprisingly painful, with my knees and toes bothering me, but the view was again stunning. We stopped a few times on our way down, but blasted most of the end to make it to a restaurant and earlier bus in time. The restaurant we ate lunch at was very nice, with a large, airy space, beachfront feel, and real bathrooms for us to use. Our group was exhausted, yet very satisfied with our trek and our delicious lunch. After lunch we hurried to catch a bus by 12:45pm, which Brooks and I were hoping would mean being back in Xela in time to catch the last bus to Huehue. Our first bus ride was crowded and pretty terrible (it’s hard to sleep on a bus when you’re person number three on the seat, and the bus keeps whipping around curves in the road), but luckily by our second bus ride we all had seats and could sleep a little more comfortably. Back in Xela Brooks and I unloaded our borrowed gear on the group, said our goodbyes, and boarded bus number three back to Huehue. We were so thankful to be heading back to our showers and warm beds, the quick walk home in dark didn’t even bother us.
Unfortunately we didn’t have much time to rest after this adventure, because by 8am on Monday we were back at Fundación Salvación, ready to witness a very special morning. Guisela and Ubaldo used to work for Agua Viva, and because of this connection were able to ask Agua Viva if they would come to the orphanage as part of their annual Project Shoebox event. Every Christmas Agua Viva puts together hundreds and hundreds of boxes of donated gifts and distributes them to kids around Guatemala with the help of a large mission team that comes down from the States. Monday morning was Fundación Salvación’s time for a Project Shoebox visit; they had the kids ready and lined up by 8am, but unfortunately the team didn’t make it to Huehue until around 9:30am. They had a quick skit for the kids explaining the real reason for Christmas (I’ll give you a hint: Jesus), and sang some Christmas songs in Spanish. After this they lined the kids up again, and walked them over to the big room at the orphanage where all the boxes were stacked up. They would give a kid a box based on their age and gender, and after each kid received their box they were ushered over to another open space where they could sit down and open their box. And that is where the madness began. All of the boxes were taped up with packaging tape, and those that couldn’t get passed the tape ended up ripping whole leaves off of their boxes to get into them. The excitement on the kids’ faces was amazing; they were so overjoyed to receive so many presents and candy. All of the kids would hold up their gifts and say “mira, mira!” (look, look!), even for things like flashlights and toothbrushes. The kids loved the gifts, and it was such a joyful morning. Sadly the team had to leave after about an hour (because they had another destination to get to), so we all waved goodbye and helped the kids carry their presents to their rooms where they could admire them some more. It was a beautiful weekend to be in Guatemala.
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