Early Sunday morning, my friends and I got together to a hike to the Santa Agito crater. However, as the thick clouds rolled in, we decided on a different hike. This other hike usually involves about two hours of walking through the city and climbing a smaller mountain until you get to a spill of old volcanic rock and boulders. Once you get to the rocks, you scramble over them for about 2 or 3 hours until you get to a cave at the top of the mountain, Candelabra. You climb up through the cave and come out to see one of the most amazing views of Xela and the surrounding towns that Guate has to offer. Round-trip, the hike usually takes about 7-8 hours.
This time, the trip took 17 hours! Why, you might ask? Never ever take a person on a high hike who has not adjusted to the altitude and who you have never been on a hike with before. My poor friend had just arrived from the states about 6 days before the hike and consequently hadn't gotten the necessary 2-4wks to make enough RBCs to compensate for low oxygen level in the air here. We got to the top caves all right, granted very slowly, but on the way back down, my friend started shaking and saying she had no energy left in her body. Eventually my other friend, Zack, had to half-carry, half-drag her over the boulders, which this time took about 6 hours. We stopped midway to wait for the moonlight to come out (gracias a Dios we had a full moon that night!) and then fought our way through the sharp, jagged dried lava by the light of the moon. The highlight of the hike occured around 11pm, when we finally made it up one of the highest points of rock, which we thought was our destination point from which we could start heading back down again. Unfortunately all we saw at the top of the peak was a gaping 100ft void surrounding us on 3 sides. We had to turn around and start backtracking and then reclimb another intensely high ridge. In the words of one of my Georgian friends here, "Geez, oh man!" I was pooped, but felt even worse for my friend who at this point wasn't making any sense and was shaking all over. Throughout it all, I do have to say that the view of the city lights and the still mountains as clouds silently swept through and around the peaks was breathtakeningly stunning. Because I never thought I'd be doing a moonlight hike over shards of volcanic rock, the experience was especially awing. Now that we are all safe and sound, I am thankful for the experience...all 17 hours of it! When we finally made it back to the road in the wee morning hours, we walked the rest of the hour into town and finished off a few plates of delicious street food before collapsing in our beds and hitting a coma-like sleep in minutes.
The next day, today, I met my friend in the clinic and I am happy to report that the same girl who seemed on her deathbed just a few hours ago in the night had perked up completely and was able to examine several new Womens Health patients all morning. I'm so proud of her! Lesson of the day...or night as it happened to become: when making hiking-buddies, start off with small hikes until you know peoples' abilities. I will never make that mistake again! Thank goodness we all made it back in one piece apart from a few bumps, scrapes and bruises :)
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