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Ready for volcano action
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One of my life dreams has been to SEE a volcano, let alone
climb one and roast marshmallows on top of one. Luckily beautiful, active volcanoes surround Antigua,
Guatemala. On Wednesday we took a
mini shuttle bus to climb an active volcano, Volcan Pacaya. A windy, but lovely bus ride as it was
on actual roads (step up from the Hondi) later we reached the bottom of the
volcano. We were immediately
assaulted by children shouting “Estick! Estick!” We all said pshhhh who needs a stick?!?! Ha ha. Little did we know we would be legit climbing a volcano in a
few minutes.
Thus we began our summit of the volcano. At first the hike was a little
stressful as we all headed up a narrow path with the kids yelling “Estick!” and
walking legit right next to horses with their owners constantly offering taxi
rides. I love horses, rode them
for many years, but I’m not a huge fan of walking next to a horse in a confined
space in which I could be kicked or pooped on, not by choice, but just by sheer
proximity with no where to turn.
Plus with Katie’s recent horse bite, surprise surprise, walking next to
horses wasn’t her cup of tea.
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Arbol de hormigas |
The hike up was cloudy, but beautiful. We passed trees and saw farms and every
once in awhile we would pause at a scenic lookout point. At one point we saw arboles de hormigas
or Ant Trees (?) I don’t know in
English but those trees are the wood used to make marimbas, which is a
traditional instrument here that’s like a xylophone.
The hike up was an hour and half long, but totally worth as
the trees began to thin out and the earth began to change from stone to forest
pathway to volcanic ash. Suddenly
after hiking uphill for ever and ever the trees went away and all that was before
us was one last uphill climb of volcanic rock. After the last push up, we arrived at the top, and man, holy
cow we were standing on a volcano.
In front of us was the very peak covered in fog and clouds and all
around us was volcano.
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Approaching the volcano |
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ahhhh.... volcano |
We then continued to hike up the volcano and around the
volcano a bit more. The volcano we
hiked is an active volcano so in certain parts you could feel the heat coming
from the Earth and the volcano. At
one area our tour guide was like all right, who’s ready for
marshmallows?!!?!?! He legit
pulled out marshmallows and sticks and we roasted marshmallows in the various
“hot pockets” of the volcano. Let
me tell you after an 1 ½ of hiking
up a volcano, roasting marshmallows in natural, Earth-made hot pockets
of sorts produces the best marshmallows I’ve ever had. An adorable father-daughter duo from
the states that we hiked with were seasoned volcano-ers and they brought their
leftover Italian lunch to heat up, clearly we had a lot to learn about the art
of volcano-ing, but I’ll take the marshmallows.
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hiking around |
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roasting marshmallows |
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Honduran lip point a volcano!!!!! |
The volcano, by far, is one of the coolest things I’ve ever
done. I climbed, hiked, gawked at,
and roasted marshmallows on a VOLCANO.
The whole time I was up there I was like, I. Am. On. A. Volcano. A VOLCANO! Totally worth the hike up. Volcanoes might be my new favorite thing.
The other night while at our neighbor's house, we roasted marshmallows in their firepit. Obviously, not nearly as cool as on top of a volcano, but they were jumbo marshmallows:) I shared this story with some of the boys needless to say they thought it was cool, but a little scary. I think they envisioned you being at the top of the volcano with your stick over the top of the volcano and lava at any moment going to come and explode upon you.
ReplyDeleteSweeeeeeeeetttttt!!!!
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