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Published: October 7th 2013
Source of one of the lava pipes
Its a bad angle, but just behind is a large pool of bubbling lava.The title says it all. Where else do you get the right mix of lax safety standards, care free guides and hot fiery lava. How nice the world would be without lawyers and liability cases. Today I climbed a volcano. A real one. With lava gushing down the side. And I touched it.
So perhaps it wasn't really gushing lava, but merely streaming, and possibly describable as trickling instead. But heck, it was lava and it made me excited! And just to prove how real a volcano it was - 3 weeks later the volcano exploded and destroyed part of a nearby village.
Unfortunately Melenie couldn't make the climb as it was steep and given she was a few months pregnant, the guides recommended against it. So sadly I left my wife that morning and hopped on to a minivan to Volcan Pacaya. It was a short trip but along the way we got frequent glimpses of the mighty volcano. It was exciting seeing the chimney of smoke rising up from the volcano ... but at the same time, all I could hear in the back of my mind was my mum's voice "why are you risking your life
with these crazy things - you have kids and a wife". I looked over my shoulder and noticed the 60-something couple behind me and quickly dismissed my concerns of risk.
We pulled into Pacaya village, the start of our ascent. A few locals tried to sell us on the merits of using a donkey for the ascent. I'm not sure how I felt being the only young guy offered a donkey ... did I look fatter or lazier than the rest of the group?
The initial ascent was a steep ascent through some forest. Looking around I was worried that we weren't even on a the right mountain - there was no sign of the bellowing smoke we had seen from the bus. However 20mins of persistence gave way to a wide open plateau where the forest stopped and dried lava started. The volcano erupts regularly and has created a vast area of dried lava.
Walking across the dried lava was painfully slow. The lava field had dried into gnarled knots with sharp edges. Rough and uneven, a misplaced foot would result in a fall with several gashes if one wasn't careful. My shoes were not the
Welcome to Mordor
An Gollum is hiding just around the bend. best shoes for this part - thin soled sneakers. After 15 minutes, I had a hole the size of a coin in my left show. The group slowed to a slow crawl as we made our way ahead. We could now see the plumes of smoke from the peak of the volcano.
And then we saw the glow. Up ahead we saw our first glimpse of a lava flow. Paces immediately sped up and all care for safety and not falling over were thrown out the window. We raced ahead till we came to a bubbling lava pool spewing forth a stream of hot steamy lava.
It was awesome. And yet scary. There were no protective fences, no 'warning' signs, and our guides didn't seem to care how close we got to the lava. We were also on the edge of a steep cliff which just added to the thrills.
We sat and stared at the bubbling pools and then eventually one of us built up the courage to throw some rock into the lava and watch it splatter. I built up enough courage to grab a stick to see if I could get close enough to
They worship Judas
The Mayan God Maximon was superimposed on Judas after the missionaries arrived. Maximon is worshiped with offerings of cigarettes and beer. I can't believe they worship the guy that betrayed Jesus! stir the lava. But after 3 failed attempts, I just couldn't get close enough - the heat was so intense that my skin and shirt felt like they were about to light up as soon as I was within a meter. I managed to get the tip of my stick with 20cm and contemplated just throwing the stick in to see what happened. But then realized that the lava would probably have splattered on me, and that would not have been good.
As exciting as the lava was, I wanted more, and so eagerly waited for our guides to take us up higher. So imagine my disappointment when we were told to turn around and head back down. Up ahead I could see more pools of lava and I imagined the further up we went, the more lava flows we would see. But the guides said it was too dangerous and that's about as far as we could go for the day. Phooey. I thought we were in the land of no safety restrictions!
Still, I had my fun for the day and counted my blessings. This was indeed a fun introduction to the world of lava. But
Her two favorites
Melenie decided to join the Mayan corn worship rituals and indulge. now I'm determined to get to a place with larger and more intense pools. This stuff is just fascinating.
I arrived back in Antigua early afternoon and proceeded to give my wife a highly sanitized version of the story that didn't include me trying to throw sticks in the lava. Sadly she reads this blog so I'm not sure how long I'm going to escape the verbal bashing.
We spent the afternoon wandering the streets of Antigua taking in more sites. We managed to get to the southern part of the old town which was much less touristed and more peaceful. The colors of the Antigua streets are so pretty, and combined with the crumbling colonial facades, make for a nice scenic walk.
That night we were treated to the famed Antigua Easter parade. Easter week (Semana Santa) is celebrated in a huge way in Central America and many cities have their own parades. However Antigua is renowned for having the best parade in the country, so much so that hotels book out completely during easter week in Antigua as local tourists flood to attend. So we were thoroughly lucky to be here during that specific week.
Smoke generators
These guys lead the front of the procession swinging tins that were emitting smoke. Creepy. Essentially men and boys of all age are drafted to join the parade and are decked out in purple robes. We saw them practicing diligently during the day and had incorrectly assumed they were just some weird monastic order. Its all very Robin Hood esque - as if the merry men had traded in their lintel greens for royal purple and had joined forces with the local monastic order to party.
The parade runs all day snaking its way slowly through the city. There is a schedule for its path and so we ensured we were at the right spot late afternoon. Since the city isn't big, I think they try to make the parade time stretch itself out by going really really slow. And rather than just walking forward, they rock back and forth - forward 50m, then back 49m, then forward again 50m, then back again 49m. Makes you kind of sea sick watching, and I was amazed people weren't tripping over each other when walking backwards.
Leading the charge were a few decked out priests in full robe and brandishing long staffs. Very pope-esque. Some of them were waving tins that were emitting smoke,
setting up a very mystical setting. Next up was a huge brass band playing a somber tune. There were men and boys of all ages, but no women. Behind them came the floats born on the shoulders of more purple robed participants. These were beautifully done and showed various characters and scenes from the Easter story, including Jesus carrying the cross, a coffin with a menorah and angel on top (not sure if that is supposed to represent a sepulcher or whether its a reference to the ark which of course has nothing to do with Easter), and a big statue of Mary crying. These floats were born on the shoulder of somber men who rocked back and forth. Lots of young teenage purple robed boys walked alongside eagerly offering to swap with the guys carrying the floats. When they did swap you could see a look of pride on their faces - I'm not sure if the pride was from being part of the procession or whether they were just proud to be showing off how strong they were to the on-looking girls. The parade was flanked by nuns and women singing somber songs. And finally the back was
Jesus meets Mayan paganism
This is a famous image of Jesus carrying his own ross, but strangely he is placed in a corn field here. Yet another hybridized Catholicisim+old school Mayan beliefs. taken up by normal folks in normal clothes just walking along with the parade - many of them eager mothers who were snapping away photos of their sons in the parade.
It was fun but also confronting to watch the parade and to see how seriously Easter is celebrated here. In makes me ashamed of the rather pathetic displays we have back home - given Easter of course is the one and most important event in Christianity.
After the parade we headed to the main church in the center of Antigua. There was much revelry going on outside including street performers and bands. The town square had been made traffic free and the roads taken over to make place for sand mosaics. These were beautiful. Basically they use colored sands to make giant mosaic pictures on the floor. There were images of Jesus, flowers and corn. Not sure what flowers and corn have to do with Easter, but they were as prevent as the biblical references.
We then headed into the main church. This is where I realized just how weird Guatemalan Catholicism is. There were the standard statues of Jesus and Mary in various biblical scenes.
But strangely enough every scene was intermingled with images of corn. So for example, there was a statue of Jesus carrying a cross. But he was standing in a corn field. Corn is everywhere. I wonder if they have corn with communion here.
The reason for those who wonder why is because the original missionaries tried to make Christianity more accessible to the locals when the first arrived by allowing some of their existing practices to mix in. Offering of vegetables was a common pre-Christian ritual and thus corn, the most common vegetable, was incorporated into Guatemalan Catholicism. There are even more weird things though. Like Maximon. According to legend Maximon was a guy who slept with all the villagers' wives while they were out working. As pay back they cut off his arms and legs. Somehow, years later, he became a local God and was worshipped with offerings of cigarettes and beer. When the Christians arrived and Easter processions started, he was inserted into the procession as a replacement for Judas. Both were traitors. However, to this day, Maximon is still treated as a God in the western highlands. He is assigned a house each year where he
Just for cuteness
Totally not related to the blog. lives, and then paraded around during holy week. So essentially they worship Judas, the guy who betrayed Jesus. Go figure.
We ended our last night in Antigua with a compulsory stop at the tourist shops to pick up some souvenirs. Good buys included really nice picante (hot sauces). Bad choices were Guatemalan chocolate. I'm not sure if we picked bad, but the stuff we bought tasted like really dark chocolate mixed in with cardamom - I assume the mix was supposed to give a bit of bite ... but in reality it was just plain weird.
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