Day 8 May 30
At the Summit
I spent the previous night miserably in a motel with the surrealistic
name "Hotel Radar 99". The dirty, stuffy room, combined with a questionable
fried chicken and salad dinner, wreaked havoc on my system. I woke up early
with a fever and diarrhea, and my only "medicine" was a roll of tissue
paper.
Ironically, just before retiring to our room, I had a very pleasant time reading the palms of Ruth, whose family owned the motel, and whose emerald-green eyes made me forget the darkness of the patio. (As a kid, I learned palm reading from my dad's books on the subject.) But as the saying goes, the only permanent thing is change-- often for the worse, I might add. I suspected little of the ordeal that was to follow. Climbing the nearly 13,000-foot high Santa María volcano (Guatemala's second highest) was the last thing on my mind. After an hour's drive to reach its base, I abandoned any macho feelings, and told the gang that I would just wait until they got back. Roberto patiently explained that the climb would take all day. The wait, he said, was probably going to be worse than the exertion. I will not go into the excruciating details of the hike. Suffice it to say that I had to stop several times along the way, with Roberto encouraging me from nearby. Well before reaching our goal, my "medicine" ran out, so I had to resort to the local herbs that grew in profusion along the volcano's slope. Up to this day, I regret not being in a better condition. The scenery was wildly beautiful, but I was in no poetic mood. I just wanted to get over the whole thing. The path we followed was often broken by clusters of rocks over which one had to climb on all fours. Occasionally, thick undergrowth obscured the way. Near the summit, we met three indígena men on their way down. Although they greeted us with the perfunctory buenas, they were evidently uneasy at our presence. Had we intruded into their sacred ground? According to Roberto, they were "pilgrims" who had climbed to pray and burn incense to the Maya-Christian gods at the peak (the point nearest the sky for miles around). Short of stature but powerfully built, they descended the treacherous slope with amazing speed. A few minutes after reaching the summit, I laid my head on a flat rock and immediately fell asleep, despite the cold. I was rudely awakened by a small iguana which, along with a few companions by the rocks, had managed to reach this height. I had slept for almost two hours. My ailments were mysteriously gone. If there is a single word to describe how I felt, then it has to be "pure". It was a strange purity: an immense feeling of relief and of being detached from my body, as though I had physically entered a hidden new dimension. I began to wonder if those pilgrims were right about this place.... It seemed as if the volcano and its resident gods had reciprocated my hardships with their reward of serenity and well-being. The clouds prevented us from seeing the other side of Santa María. Early in this century, a tremendous eruption blew off almost one side of the volcano, so that its present shape is like a half-cone. Entire villages and corn fields facing the doomed side were wiped out. A gaping sulfurous crater appeared where the luxuriantly green slope had been. On the steep way down, I slipped so many times that, once again, I found it hard to enjoy the view. I must have lost five pounds on that single day due to exertion and dehydration. |
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