We started out at 10,000 feet. That is where the bus dropped us off. While we waited for the rest of our fellow hikers, I pulled out my GPS and we were at exactly at 10,000 feet. So we had that going for us.
When everyone arrived, we departed on what was about a 3000 feet climb that would take roughly 4 hours. We started off on a dirt road, following it until we arrived in a big grass field with no real discernible trail. We had another volunteer with us who had done the hike twice before (a fellow Vandal actually) and told us that we just had to cross over the two ridges we saw in the distance. After these two ridges lies Volcan Tajamulco, our destination.
We hiked along slowly, inching our way towards camp. I could definitely feel the effects of the altitude; my lungs were burning as I hadn’t felt before. I wasn’t dizzy or nauseous, but deep breaths were not coming easily.
After about 4 or 5 hours of hiking, we arrive at camp (13,100 feet) and are greeted by roughly 30 Guatemaltecos, some of whom we had encountered on the way up. One in particular was drinking Gallo, the Guatemalan beer of choice, and tossing his cans on the trail as he went. When we came upon him and his group earlier they had built a fire for lunch on the side of the trail and were walking away with it still lit. When he was asked why he didn’t put the fire out, he told us that this isn’t California and it isn’t hot enough to have a big fire. Needless to say, not the brightest guy in the world. Unfortunately, we would be sharing a campground with some other folks of about the same intelligence level.
We made camp, gathered wood, tried to get warm and finally had a nice hot meal of chicken quesadillas and black beans and rice. After we ate, we all wanted to get to our tents and into our sleeping bags as quickly as possible. We planned on making our summit at 4 am, to be on top for the sunrise. We headed to our respective tents at about 8:30, ready to crash. Good and tired after a long hike and full of warm food, plus a splash of rum in my hot chocolate, I expected to fall asleep immediately. However, I did not factor in the drunk guys outside of our tent. Our wonderful neighbors were up talking loudly, playing music from their phones (a favorite pastime) and making a ruckus until about 11. Then again at 2 am, they were up cooking and talking, shouting and playing music. When 4 rolled around, I had neither the energy nor the motivation to get out of my sleeping bag and really did not want to see any of our neighbors.
I convinced myself to get out of my bag, put on a couple layers of clothing and headed out into the darkness at 4:30 am. With headlamps we trudged along, step by step for the last 700 feet up to the summit. We got separated from our group and climbed a hill that I would like to think of as the second highest point in Central America. Finally, from there we found our way and made it to the true summit, Volcan Tajamulco the highest point in Central America (13, 854 feet). The view was amazing, the wind was cold and we hung out for about half an hour, eating, taking pictures and complaining about the cold until we made our way down. Well worth the trip.
