Lakes and Volcanoes

As promised, I did visit the volcano yesterday. The van took off at 2 but we got held up in terrible traffic when the afformentioned religious procession blocked off our path for half an hour. Unfortunately I did not get a chance to take a picture, but for the brief seconds that I saw it there were several large wooden platforms with life-sized statues of Mary, Jesus, and various saints being carried down the street by a hoard of purple clad people. Actually, they were wearing really large hooded felt robes and all the little kids had them on too. Apparently this procession is held every Sunday in the weeks leading up to easter which is Central America's biggest holiday.

When we got to the volcano, the sun was already set and clouds were closing in. Some people in the group opted to rent horses to carry them up to the top but I'm too proud and cheap for that so I hiked the rest of the way after the van dropped us off. I got to talk with an Aussie on the way up who is in the country taking language classes. He told me all sorts of colorful stories about recent crimes against tourists by gangsters and the police(who are equally as bad as the gangsters in this country) that were so shocking that I won't rcount them here lest my mother read this. By the time we got to the top of the mountain and started to decent into the field of lava flows it was getting pretty dark and cold. Thankfuly we had glowing hot lava at hand to solve all our problems.

Right before we started walking onto the lava field the guide offered this advice. He said that if you smelled buring rubber then you´re close enough but if you smell buring bacon you may want to backoff. I came to learn that he meant that my shoes would melt and indeed they did a little.

Most of the lava field that could be seen was all cool and jagged beyond compare butwe found the hot stuff easily enough. It wasn't shooting up but rather oozing extremely slowly. At 20 feet I was comfortably warm and felt safe but when I got to 6 feet of it so as to poke it with a stick it was almost unbearable. I had to jump over several lava filled fissures about 1 foot wide and several feet deep to get that close and I thank my video gaming skills for helping me navigate the field of fire. The Aussie that I was hiking with broke out some marshmellows and we roasted them on a coat hanger he also brought. Soon after we headed home and hiked for an hour in the rain. On the way back we passed through a mountain town on the side of the volcano and a lone gringo getting a off a chicken bus (that´s the cheapest kind of bus... refurbished american school busses with bigger engines and lots of chrome) and the guide said that the town was famous in Guatemala for banditry and that he was a gonner ;P

The next morning I caught an early van out of town to head for Panajachel. We had some minor mechanical problems on the van which included loud thumping noises and after than some old lady gat a nasty gash on her leg getting back into the van. There was really a lot of blood =/ We eventually got to town (and to a hostpital) and got to enjoy it for a few hours. It's a largish town build on the Eastern side of the most beautiful lake that I've ever seen; Lago Atitlan. The lake is dominated by two HUGE volcanoes on the north and south side of it and about 6x10 miles in size. That sounds kinda big but having the volcanoes next to it makes it look rather small. I had a nice lunch of pizza and a beer that I think was bigger than a 40oz and took a boat to San Perdo on the other side of the lake where I heard a nice atmosphere could be found. It was... the town is very small, built on a steep hillside along the water, and has a lot of people my age wandering around. I've already met a few but I guess I'd better go meet the rest. It reminds me a lot of McCloed Gange in India if you´ve been there... I think it would be easy to lose many days around here if you´re not careful. ttyl