Ever puked at the top of a volcano?

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I have. And it sucks.

After my last entry yesterday, I signed up for a tour to climb to the top of Volcan Pacaya, an active volcano about 60 km outside of Antigua. The tour started around 1PM, the first hour or so of which was a van ride to the foot of the mountain. It was around then that I found out that the water I´d bought at the Guatemalan grocery store earlier that day was not only water, but sparkling water. So this tour was already not off to the greatest start.

As we began the ascent, it seemed like I was becoming fatigued more quickly than I usually would. I assumed it was just the altitude, even though the other people in my tour group seemed to be handling everything ok. When we stopped to rest about one third of the way to the summit, I was completely out of breath and not feeling great. We continued walking up the steep mountain trail, and at about the halfway point, I had an uncontrollable attack of nausea and diarrhea. It was pretty unpleasant, let me tell you.

I had to stop for a few minutes to puke and to recompose myself, but at this point I was still determined to reach the top, and I also didn´t want to ruin the tour for the others in our party. So I continued walking up the steep volcanic slope. Eventually, the crater was within sight, but I was overcome with another attack of nausea and diarrhea. I had to lay down on the volcanic scree, and by this point, I was beyond vomiting, but only was able to dry-heave. A nice Israeli couple let me have some of their water, because I´d lost the remainder of mine when it had rolled down the slope when I had dropped it earlier during a wave of nausea. The crater was only another 5 minute walk away at this point, and the rest of tour was waiting for me, so I had to tough it out and make it.

I summoned some more strength and was able to walk the remainder of the way, where we were actually walking over fields of cooled lava, and eventually came to a point where lava was actually flowing out of the mountain. The rest of the people in the tour were having a grand old time throwing rocks and sticks into the lava flow, while I was hunched over, sitting on a outcropping of rock, fighting to control the waves of nausea I was feeling. I puked once on top of the mountain, and the small amount of bile that my body was able to summon fell into cracks in the rock and sizzled as it reached the hot rock below. Before the tour left, I managed to get someone to take a picture of me with the lava flow as a background.

I neglected to mention during all of this there was a swift, cold rain falling, chilling me to the bone. Even though I was wearing a makeshift rain poncho, all of my clothing and shoes were completely soaked and I was eventually shivering uncontrollably. As we made our way back down the mountain, I was overcome a couple of more times and had to vomit. The way down seemed unimaginably long compared to the way up, even though it was downhill.

When I finally reached the bottom, I was unable to do much more than sit on a bench and lay my head down on a table, hoping that it would all end soon. As we waited for the bus to take us back to Antigua, I was not even able to get inside into the warmth, and instead had to sit outside for another twenty minutes or so, although I was at least sheltered from the cold rain.

I was feeling pretty terrible at this point, and a nice old lady that spoke only Spanish offered me a cup of tea and some diarrhea medication, which I half-heartedly accepted, even though the last thing I felt like doing at that point was ingesting anything. Eventually, the bus arrived, and we were on our way back to Antigua, although on a jouncing, pot-holed road, that did nothing to make me feel any better. I had to puke yet again about halfway there, this time into a plastic bag on the van. God, it was terrible.

When I eventually got back to my hostel, I was actually feeling a lot better. I was completely chilled to the bone though, and I grabbed a couple of blankets, took off my wet clothes and bundled myself up, and basically slept. I got up this morning basically completely recovered, so I guess I´m really none the worse for wear, but I would have to say that that was among the most unpleasant experiences of my life. Puking uncontrollably inside a crater on a volcano in Guatemala, I almost wished I could competely end the trip right there and just be back home in my own bed. But then again, however bad it was, I am still glad that I am here and that I have had this experience. And it´s a hell of a story, right?

I suspect that either food poisoning from a meal the previous night or the water is the culprit for this sudden onset of sickness. I have been using the tap water to brush my teeth, which the doctor at home recommended against, and you never know where the hands of the person who has been handling your food has been. I suppose this is just a risk you have to take when traveling like this, or even just at home.

Now that I´ve talked about everything that has happened to me recently, I´ll talk a little bit about what has been happening to me in the last week. The Actun Tunichil Muknal cave was an absolutely incredible experience. This is a cave that has only recently been opened to the public that contains multitudes of Mayan artifacts, and even human remains left over from sacrifices over a thousand years ago. Not to mention that to traverse the cave itself involves swimming and wading through water for almost the entirety of the tour. The entrance of the cave has a river flowing from it, and to enter the cave itself you have to swim across about twenty feet of water. For the remainder of the cave that we explored, it involved wading through chest-deep water and climbing over huge boulders. The dry part of the cave that we eventually reached, though, was the part that contained the Mayan artifacts and remains. There were huge amounts of pottery that were remains from sacrificial rituals, our guide said. In certain spots, there were human skulls, and at the very end of the tour, there was an almost-complete human skeleton. Needless to say, seeing all of this in enormous open caverns, backlit only by the light from our flashlights was immensely eerie.

It was later this day that my camera was stolen in San Ignacio when a guy just ran by and grabbed it as I was trying to take a picture of the town.

Our next stop on the trip was Tikal, an incredible set of Mayan ruins, in Guatemala. We had decided to stay in Tikal itself for the night, which has no city near it, as it is only a national park. However, there are a couple of hotels and some campgrounds near the sight, and we were able to stay on one of the campgrounds near a hotel and rent tents for a reasonable price. Staying the night there was actually kind of enjoyable, because we met a lot of other travellers, quite a few actually that were taking, or were going to take, Spanish school in Quetzaltenango (or ´Xela´as it´s commonly known). Although we were to get up at around 4:30 AM to catch the sunrise, I stayed up until at least 1 just getting drunk and BSing with everyone.

The following morning at 4:30, well before sunrise, we all got up and found our guide to be led up to one of the tallest temples in the ruins to watch the sunrise. This was an absolutely incredible experience. Hearing the eerie cry of the howler monkeys, the multitudes of birds, and insects, all of this set on a backdrop of Mayan temples jutting out of the jungle. It was quite an experience. There were 50 or so other people sitting up there with me, but everyone was silent, transfixed by the majesty of the scene before them.

After the sunrise, our guide showed us around the ruins, and we were able to climb the majority of the other major temples, which was pretty neat, because I had not been able to climb any of the temples when I had been to Chichen Itza. Tikal was far better of a site than Chichen Itza in my opinion, just because of its size and the number of incredible temples. I was unfortunately not able to get any pictures of these incredible sights because of a lack of camera at this point, which is very disappointing.

The following night, we stayed in this really nice hostel in Flores, for only 25Q (US$3.50) a night for a dorm bed. We basically just hung out in Flores, taking a breather from all of the things we had experienced in the previous week or so.

The following day, we set out for Coban, a city in close proximity to the pools of Semuc Champey. The bus ride to Coban was incredible, riding through beautiful mountains. The views were really quite breath-taking. I would have taken a ton of pictures had I had a camera.

We stayed in this really nice hostel in Coban, and then took a tour to Semuc Champey the following day. Semuc Champey is a set of beautiful pools that are part of a river, set in an enormous canyon. We were able to swim in the pools and see some enormous rapids. I even jumped off a rock cliff that was about 5 or so meters high into one of the pools.

The other part of the tour was a cave near a place called Lanquin. These caves were pretty neat, but nowhere near as incredible or as rugged as the ones in Actun Tunichil Muknal.

The next day brought us to Antigua, via Guatemala City. G-City was pretty interesting, a typical Central America capital, I think-polluted, crime-ridden, and ugly. The bus station we came into was in a bad part of town, and we had to take a cab to another bad part of town to make it to Antigua. It was pretty scary, but we made it.

I guess that about sums it up for now. Oh yea, I think I mentioned before that I got a new camera. Unfortunately, in Guatemala, electronics are significantly more expensive than they are in the US, so I ended up spending about US$180 for a camera that´s significantly worse than the one I bought for $150 in the states, not to mention buying a memory card with 1/4 of the capacity as the one I bought in the states for about the same price. I did promise some pictures, so here they are.

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Photos

Cathedral in Antigua
A pretty cool-looking cathedral about a block from our hostel.

Me halfway up the volcano
I was puking about 10 minutes later.

Me at the top of the volcano
I´m pretty sick right here, as you can see from the happy expression on my face.

Comments

[megster]

awwww
that picture really does say it all, i am so sorry you had that experience! glad you are better!