Updated with Photos
San Pedro, the town is located at the base of San Pedro the Volcano, one of three surrounding Lake Atitlan. I had arranged a guide through Delfino, my guide for the Las Cristinlinas hike and School Gardener, to lead me up San Pedro. Throughout the week I had been trying to recruit others students to do the hike with me, but got no takers until Sunday Morning when Monika, a fellow student from Poland showed up at the 6:00 AM rendezvous. Not unexpectedly, the guide did not show, probably because he was told there would only be one person and for 100Q or $12.00 staying in bed on a Sunday morning probably felt like a better option than climbing a 10,000 hill.
Realizing the guide wasn’t showing, we set off on our own, first flagging down a Tuk Tuk to take us up to the park entrance. Entrance fee for the hike was 100Q and offer of a guide to take us up for additional 100Q. Knowing that we were in a National Park and being told it was regularly patrolled by Police, we opted out of hiring a guide.
However, Miguel did take us 15 minutes up the trail for which I was grateful, because the trail split off in two directions and being unmarked, it would have been difficult to know which way was up. Interesting guy, Miguel. He had lived in Queens, NY working in the city as a dishwasher. Being an illegal, he had been deported and was saving his money to make his way back up to New York. As he proudly displayed his Metro Subway Card, he told me how in 21 days he would be making his way back to the States. To get to the U.S border he would jump on a freight train and ride on top of the cars, through Guatemala and Mexico. This is quite common and very dangerous. There are frequent deaths from people falling in between cars and hence underneath the train or they are targeted by gangs that know where they are going and know they have lots of cash on them. From the Mexican/ U.S border, a Coyote would take them across the Rio Grande, hike for three days, avoiding the U.S border patrol before meeting up with a bus that would take them into Houston. From Houston, he was on his own to get to NYC, mostly likely by Greyhound. Danger aside, he was very excited to leave for New York again and get back to dishwashing. From my perspective, it was interesting to see reality in action. One of the news stories I had heard at one time or another come to life.
Pointed in the right direction, we headed up and up and up. There are two ways to get to the top of a volcano. The first hope is that since this was a designated park, the trail may have been groomed with switchbacks or at least some form of stairs built into the trail. The other, not so fun option is that the trail is the same that has been there for the past 3000 years and has been molded into a trail by a combination of human traffic, erosion, rainfall runoff etc. These two options averaged out, straight up for the most part, but stairs built into the ground on the most difficult vertical parts. Another nice thing is that there was tree cover the whole way, blocking out the hot sun.
To the top in what felt like maybe three hours, don’t know because haven’t been wearing a watch in Guatemala and I wasn’t’ trying to set any speed records. Weather was on our side and at the top there wasn’t a cloud in the sky, giving a beautiful full view of the lake below and across to the other Volcanic peaks. After photos, taking in the view with a bite to eat, found a nice comfortable rock to lay back on and soak up the sun. Hour later, rested and newly sunburned face head back down where barbecue and cold beer would be in front of me by late afternoon.
Photos later, bad internet connection.
No comments:
Post a Comment