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Published: March 6th 2005
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Last night, in the middle of the night, I woke up in the tent , headache gone, and needing to pee. Disengaging from my sleeping bag, I emerged into fresh cool moonlight and walked through sparse trees to the edge of the plateau where we had camped. Standing there, the lights of the village spread out in the valley below me, stars shining clear and bright above me, the misery of the previous day drained out of me. Despite the relatively extreme cold (3-4 degrees celsius, perhaps) it was only reluctantly that I returned to our tent.
Some hours later, at around 4:00 a.m., the sounds of our camp starting to stir woke us. We emerged from the tent into a more complete darkness, the moon having set. After a brief pause to collect ourselves, the lot of us (28 people including three guides, did I not mention that?) set out to ascend the higher, western peak, hoping to arrive in time for the sunrise.
If you can imagine the difficulty of finding and sticking to a path in a landscape that can only be described as a trackless waste, by flashlight in the middle of a moonless night, then you
will perhaps have sympathy for our guide, who himself had only been this way once, and that time following another. Suffice to say that within fifteen minutes we were clambering over rocks and heather along the side of a steep slope, clearly no longer on anything that could be described as a path. Strung out in a line, our optimistic guide led us in a zig-zagging path, clearly hoping to stumble over some sign of the true way. The thin air had us all panting and stumbling, and eventually a halt was called when one girl decided that she had altitude sickness good and proper, and one of the two guides was dispatched to escort her back down.
During this pause, however, I had time to sit and look around, and saw one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen. The stars up above in the blackness were mirrored far below, down the slope we clung to, by the lights of various villages. The blackness beyond the circles of our flashlights was sufficient that the difference between sky and ground was slight, and with a little effort you could imagine yourself floating in a black sea, with these strange lights floating above and below.
Meanwhile, however, the sight of flashlights all in a line proceeding briskly across the mountainside quite a bit up the slope from us led to the realisation that the path was not, in fact, ahead of or below us, as had been supposed, but in fact directly above us. No sooner, however, had we begun to proceed, inch by inch, up towards the path, than another girl in our group declared she might be sick, and our guide headed back to check her out. Vanessa then took over the lead, scrambling rapidly and unhesitatingly straight up and leading us directly to the path, which turned out to be considerably easier going, at least for awhile. Eventually, however, it turned into the slope and we were again clambering, breathlessly, up a moonscape in the growing twilight, racing against the sunrise to reach the summit.
We reached the peak just in time to see the full spectrum of colours splayed against the clouds on the horizon BELOW us, growing gradually brighter until the sun itself cracked the horizon. The wind was bitingly cold, and the crater behind us forbiddingly dark and deep. I sacrificed my fingers to capture some beautiful images for you all, lost now forever (and therefore growing more beautiful by the day in my imagination, see ME ROBARON!, March 21st). I have sought out these poor substitutes from somebody else's online album, to give you an idea, however unsatisfactory.
When the sun had fully risen and the wind was no longer bearable, Vanessa once again took up the reins and led us around the edge of the caldera, to where we could see the shadow of the Volcano layed out in front of us, forming a giant perfect triangle directly ahead, like some shadow pyramid in the clouds.
From there we continued around the caldera and then down into the wooded valley where we had pitched our tents, for coffee, a quick breakfast, and then to strike camp and walk back down. Needless to say, the walk down was as pleasant as a walk can be. We had the leisure to chat and stroll, to look out at the spectacular vista of clouds and valleys laid out at our feet. With ample time to pause and enjoy the view, many full rests to lay down our packs and sit and drink, we still descended in under two hours.
I think I have pretty much decided that from now on, any hikes I go on will be all downhill. I realize there may be some difficulties inherent in the practice of this creed, but I am resolved to see it through.
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