We woke up at some unearthly hour before the sun and walked in to town to get our transfer to the base of the volcano. Our guide was Sergio who decided he was going to go as fast as he could up and down the mountain no matter how long we were taking. We took the chairlift up the first part of the way which cut an hour off the climb. It took us about three hours fourty minutes to get to the top. It wasn't too strenuous and we got to put on crampons (spikes and stuff to dig into the ice) and had ice picks so we all felt like real mountaineers. We all collapsed at the top and rested. Some people went to look in to the crater (there was no lava but it still erupts a little bit and the last time was in '96 I think) but the sulphur fumes were too much for me and burned my nose and lungs so I didn't get to look in.
The climb down was pretty bad. The first part was just sliding on scree and then there was a part where we sat in (supposedly) waterproof trousers and slid down the snow. Unfortunately, when I sat down I didn't move and so Sergio had to pull me with his ice-pick. Eventually I had to tell him to stop because the ice/snow was freezing my bum and scratching. The last part I was in a huff because the guides wouldn't let me stop to look at pictures or at least they would but were looking really impatient.
After a bumpy ride back in the mini-bus. Marja and I went to book a trip to the hot springs to soothe our tired selves and we went for an evening dip in the Pozones accompanied by Cesar. We took some wine with us and had a wonderful time looking at the stars. I had no idea there were so many stars in the sky!
Subscribe to:
Post Comments (Atom)
No comments:
Post a Comment