Tajamulco

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When you're in Guatemala, it's hard not to notice the moutains. It takes hours to get everywhere as you weave up and down and between them, your ears popping as you cope with the altitude. At night they're lit up by trememdous thunderstorms. In Xela itself, surrounded by mountains and the enormous Santa Maria, you're already at 2000m. So it would be silly just to stare at them, and not climb one. Right?

Xela is home to a number of tour agencies, but Quetzaltrekkers caught my eye - both in the guidebook and on the street. The guidebook informed me that they were a non-profit (a favourite phrase of mine) organisation, staffed by volunteers. My introductory chat at the beautifully painted Casa Argentina in town informed me that entirety of their income goes towards a home for vulnerable children in Xela and a school as well. The volunteers are laid back hippy types that run one of the best nights out in town (a fundraising night, of course). I was expecting them to be more like a troupe of scout leaders so I was pleasantly suprised. I had signed up to do it the previous week, but decided to put it off for a week, since the girls from my language school were doing it the next week and I wasn't feeling very well. I was glad I made that decision, as it was a lot of fun doing it with a load of girls my own age that I already knew.

We paid 400Q for my trip up Tajamulco, which seemed great value for money at first, but not so much afterwards. But I guess money is tight with QT, and i'm not going to begrudge the childrens home any extra cash. After our briefing, we sorted ourselves out with equiptment. Luckily I had a lot of my own, because the stuff they lent out wasn't in the best condition. The tents, rucksacks, sleeping bags and coats are all donated and have been up and down mountains so smell a bit and leak occasionally. In my backpack I carried the flysheet for a 6-man tent, along with a sleeping bag, roll mat, clothes and all the other stuff I'd need. The other people on the hike carried things like food, groundsheets, first aid kits and tarpaulins.

We left early on Saturday morning. REALLY early, meeting outside Casa Argentina at 4.15am. We rode in the back of a white van (no seats, just sat on the floor and holding on to handles for dear life!). From the bus terminal we rode a chicken with our bags strapped to the roof to a town nearer the Mountain. It was a long ride but sadly too busy a bus to allow any opportunity to catch up on sleep. Instead I watched the sun rise and the clouds form over the forest and farmland that covers the mountains. When we arrived in San Marcos we had breakfast - Pancakes and fruit, and got to know some of the other trekkers that weren't my University of Dayton pals or language school buddies.

Another bus took us to the base of the mountain and we started the ascent. 10 minutes in and still on a cobbled path we stopped to take off some of our many layers - this walking lark was hot work. After an hour or so with our chests heaving and shoulders aching we stopped for the first of many rest breaks. Two of the girls were struggling with altitude mountain sickness and would soon need to turn back. The rest of us carried on, falling into two groups - the ones that seemed to be having fun and not struggling with their heavy packs and the steep climb, and the rest of us, who soldiered on, quietly questionning why we'd chosen to do something like this for fun. It wasn't long before clouds began to obscure the beautiful view below, and then the rain started. After the rain came the hail. The stony track turned into a stream, and the scrambles became trecherous and my feet bacame wet and would remain so until my return to Xela. I knew it was bad when some of the UD students began asking God for strength. Every step was an effort as your lungs went into overdrive due to the Altitude. Eventually we made it to base camp. But there was still much to be done - putting up tents in the rain and cooking the dinner. We tried to nap but were just too cold - the hail that had fallen earlier lay frozen on the ground and our tent was doing an excellent job of soaking up the moisture. Unfortunately the girl with Mountain sickness who was brought down off the mountain was carrying our groundsheet, so our tent remained cold and wet throughout the night. Despite my fancy fleece lined waterproof and rain cover for my rucksack, all my clothes were wet, so it was a miserable night, except for a few outbreaks of the giggles, caused by lack of sleep and the dunkirk spirit.

The next morning we were woken around 5am. Hastily we packed our rucksacks with just the essentials for the last hike to the top - torches for those that had them, sleeping bags, and the warmest of our sodden clothes. We´d not been told quite how essential a torch was going to be for the final ascent. It was scary scrambling blind along this narrow path, slipping over rocks, watching a stray glove fall hundreds of metres down into the darkness. We trudged on, stopping frequently. Every small step felt like a 100m sprint as the altitude screwed with your lungs. Eventually we made it to the top. I almost cried. This had been the hardest thing I´d ever done. But finally we made it. I hunkered down into my sleeping bag and took some photos of me and the girls. Unfortunately, it was a cloudy morning, and the beautiful sunrise that I had been told would ´make it all worthwhile´ never surfaced. I tried to reflect on the experience, as I watched the darkness turn into a hazy yellow sunrise, and a nearby volcano emit a puff of powdery ash. But I was distracted by the burning sensation in my frozen toes and fingers. This hadn´t been as easy as I´d expected, nor as rewarding. But I'd done it, and I felt proud. We walked around the crater and began our descent down to basecamp. As I stopped to take some final pictures, my camera pointed towards the Pacific Ocean (viewable, naturally, only on a clear day), it began to make all sorts of whirring sounds. And then it died its own little death. Brilliant. All my pictures gone in the blink of an eye. But I'm used to such tragedies - I break or lose my valuables often, so I didn't dwell on it. It's just stuff, pictures of things that will be crystallised in my memory anyway.

This part of the walk was easy. The worst was over, we were going home. The sun was shining and I'd done it. I practically skipped back down to basecamp. We laid our clothes on rocks to dry and set about packing and eating breakfast. A few hours later we started the descent. I was amazed how quickly we did it compared to the ascent, although the lack of sleep and terrible weather had messed with my brain and there were whole half hour sections of walking that I had no recollection of doing the day before. Once again, I ended up towards the back of my group. A dull ache started in one knee, and then the other. By the time I got towards the bottom, I could barely walk. We trudged to a cafe right next to the start of the path and ate a hurried, celebratory lunch. I was shattered but in high spirits. We walked down to the road to catch the bus back.

I hadn't even considered the journey home. After approximately 0 hours sleep, I spent a further two hours on a chicken bus, alternating between standing, sitting, and sweating. At one point a Guatemalan put her child on my lap because there was simply nowhere else to put her. It was awful - I couldn't even rest my head against the window to sleep as we careered around corners in the middle of a torrential downpour, I was too distracted watching the mud roads disintergrate and everything bounce around inside the bus. We changed buses again and eventually arrived in Xela. Our guide then announced we'd be WALKING back to QT HQ. We thought he was joking, but he wasn't. Screw that, Carrie and I thought. I'm not walking one more step. My knees were giving in, so we put ourselves in a taxi. The best money I've ever spent! We arrived back at the Quetzaltrekkers office first, where we returned our gear and said our goodbyes to the rest of the group. There was one last hill to climb - Diagonal Once (eleven), the street we lived off, with complete with our camping gear. We must have looked a sight together. I made it back to mine but the warm welcome I'd been looking forward to didn't materialise. My host family were all out, so instead I went to bed. What a weekend, what hard work, what an achievement!

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