VOLCÁN PACAYA
Kellen was my roommate at the Pensión Maya in Guatemala City. He is my age, from Seattle, and had worked on a factory trawler in Alaska as I had. Zagy was another roommate who was also my age. He is from Israel and was using the money in his pension, which was awarded him after his compulsory military service. Kellen and I had a hard time remembering how to pronounce Zagy's name (pronounced zuh-'gee) and so referred to him as Ziggy-pop behind his back.
Zagy mentioned that he had gone to the Volcán Pacaya, and when I asked about it, he went on ecstatically about how amazing it was. I became determined to go there and to spend the night in order to witness the eruptions in the dark. Zagy gave directions.
I was glad that Kellen wanted to go, and was really very lucky that he, too, wanted to spend the night. One obstacle that might have kept Kellen in the city is the persistent rumor that the volcano is swarming with thieves. I had heard that one must actually expect to be robbed. An uglier rumor, previously associated with another volcano, had lately shifted over to the Volcán Pacaya : Supposedly a tour group had been robbed and a couple of the female members had been raped.
Zagy supplied the counterbalancing reasoning that any thief worth his salt would wait for a tour group on the weekend. Zagy had not been robbed, and there seemed to be little evidence lately to support the rumors. I added the observation that the peak tourist season, November to February, had passed.
So the next morning, Kellen and I set out for the volcano. The city seemed to be holding us in, however, and we dealt with the most stressful part of the trip. We got separated at the sprawling Zona 4 market, which is next to and partially interwoven with the sprawling Zona 4 bus terminal. Once we were actually on a bus heading for “El Cruce de San Vicente Pacaya”, we still had to put up with bumpy roads and fumes, and the driver often waited at intersections for several minutes for no apparent reason.
We were relieved to finally be out on the highway, although the bus was crowded and the engine loud. We were dropped off at a lonely intersection and waited for a half hour or so, as traffic whizzed by on the main highway, before an empty lumber truck picked us up and took us up the dirt road to right near San Vicente Pacaya.
We saw San Vicente from above. It had perhaps 1,000 buildings, and was set in a wooded bowl that might once have been a caldera, already high above the valley below where the highway ran. The dirt road actually bypassed San Vicente, and the truck was going elsewhere, so we began walking.
We quickly followed the road up to El Cedro Concepción (El Cedro, locally), and kept hushed voices and low profiles whenever we passed houses, not wanting to attract thieves.
From El Cedro, we followed a steep groove of a trail up to San Francisco de Pacaya, since the road took the long and winding way. Part way up, we reallocated the weight of our packs, since I was carrying the tent and all of the water. We made amazingly good time, and we were manly men.
At San Francisco we visited a tienda with the intention of buying some sort of drink in a plastic bottle for Kellen. It turned out that they only had Pepsi and Agua Mineral and orange pop in glass bottles, so we drank the Pepsis.
Zagy had warned us that we would each need a gallon of water, and that is how much we had, but that was probably only good advice for a clear, dry, and warm day. As it was, the clouds were lowering, the temperature dropping, the wind was picking up, and it seemed to be growing prematurely dark.
The woman working at the tienda warned us about the thieves. She said they're out every day. She said she doesn't know them personally, and that they live in El Cedro. She suggested that we hire a guide, her little brother was available for Q10.00, because the thieves would not strike if they thought they would be recognized. She said that the thieves hide on the trail and make themselves seen when least expected.
We proposed several lame reasons why there wouldn't be thieves on this particular Tuesday afternoon, which she shot down one at a time, until we pointed out that it was growing late and the weather was sub-optimal for both bushwhacking thieves and for mountaineers. Finally she relented; we had seen through her little scam. We knew that if we were to encounter thieves, it would most likely be in the morning.
We found the beginning of the trail leading up and started the actual climb. We passed a group of Indian women and girls and asked them if there was anyone else further up. They thought the question was amusing, aware of our concern, and said that there was no one else up there. Shortly, we met a couple of men with machetes and a donkey, and they, too, said that there was no one higher up. We fancied that they were thieves, but that they had given up for the day and were too close to civilization to rob us when they met us.
The rest of our trip was colored, not entirely unpleasantly, by the idea that we might be robbed. We moved quickly and quietly, sensitive to the sounds of the forest.
The trail was like a fraying rope, the threads of which were winding trails weaving around trees and steep embankments but always rejoining, and we attempted to stay on the most worn trail, often an eroded trough two feet deep.
The forest, through which we passed, was increasingly ancient as we climbed. The trees were deciduous here, receiving water all year round from the clouds that periodically flow through.
We passed ancient trees with broad trunks, and also passed a few broad stumps of ancient trees, and many of the trees had been shaped, over the years, by the cutting of branches for firewood. The trees were 30 feet tall at the highest, with trunks often three feet in diameter, and branches forming a low roof over the trail. The cutting of trees and branches for firewood left the forest very open and added to the trees' stunted appearances.
The ground was covered with moist green grass and there were other herbs and bushes with silver droplets of dew on them.
The blowing mists were scraping through the dead tops of some of the tall trees now, and we passed a small clearing where some nervous horses stood, waiting to see what would happen next.
Shortly the long and steep slope began to level off, and we saw a few patches of cinders, like crushed-lava decorative-lawn covering, where the grass had not colonized.
The forest thinned, there were more dead branches on the trees, and the wind picked up with the increase in exposure. Soon, there were just patches of grass in an expanse of black cinders, and the trees were all dead with circular patches of grass at their bases. The cloud that was blowing through lowered around us as we made our way forward into what was truly an eerie landscape, the unknown. All of a sudden we reached the edge of a cliff and we could see down into a bowl of cooled lava, but not up on the other side, which we figured should be the active cone, guessing from Zagy's description. We thought it was odd that we could not hear any eruptions. We began moving again, going left along the edge of the cliff, upward in increasing wind and increasingly dense fog. Our clothes were becoming moist, and I was concerned because my T-shirt underneath was also wet with sweat.
We reached a concrete pylon, possibly an old monument to a demolished village but missing its brass plaque. This verified our position in relation to the final ascent. We decided to backtrack some to hide our packs and then have a go at the active cone.
We stashed our packs behind some bushes that were growing at the base of a dead tree in a gentle bowl that had once been an active cinder cone. The bowl provided some shelter from the wind, and I spied a patch of grass suitable for pitching my tent later.
We were on the way back up to the edge, crossing a vast gently-sloping expanse of cinders, crisscrossed by a web of trails where the cinders were crushed into dust, when we heard a bang above the wind. The bang was powerful, and we knew that it was from an eruption, but I was surprised that it was not a boom. It was more of a bam.
We soon heard another bam and, when we got up to the edge, heard some more, followed by the sounds of rocks falling from the sky and sliding down the shifting slopes of the cone. We could not see, because of the mist, how far away or how far up this was happening, and thought it was quite indicative of the volcano's variability that we had not heard any eruptions the first time we were at this edge.
We followed the edge past the monument until the rim of the huge bowl intersected the active cone, and we began climbing the steep, shifting slope. We took three steps up and slid back two steps. It was like climbing up a down-escalator that someone had switched to full speed as a joke.
All the while, we heard the increasingly threatening explosions, but visibility was down to only 12 feet or so. We were following a rough track, made by other people who had used the down-escalator, and growing exhausted at that.
Finally, following an explosion, we heard some rocks land in the mist. They could have landed quite near; we could not tell. Some rocks then rolled by within our sphere of visibility. They were only lightweight cinders, 6 or 8 inches across, but we grew afraid for our safety. The explosions sounded quite near, and took on a massive sound, like the sound of a giant slamming a door that's nine stories high.
We decided to go back down, and try again in the morning, weather permitting. After climbing the cone for 45 minutes, we ran down in three.
We hastily set up camp, got out of our damp clothes, and crawled into our sleeping bags, relieved to get out of the wind. Kellen set up his candle lantern, and we had a meal of bread, fruits, and vegetables.
We talked, blew out the candle, and talked some more. We laughed at our fear of getting robbed, and at the idea that the cows up here must be carnivorous, since there is little grass to eat, and that the people must also be carnivorous. “Did you see the way the woman was looking at you?” Kellen said, then added, “And those kids in that tree!” We had passed a short tree just before San Francisco, which had sprouted the upper bodies of two children of about seven years, who had offered to guide us to the volcano.
“Yeah, the one that was talking to you was probably seeing a big drumstick when he was looking at you,” I said.
A couple of times, I peeked out to see if the clouds had risen, and saw nothing but absolute darkness. I saw no silhouettes whatsoever, suggesting that the fog was still around us.
The wind was drowning out the sounds of most of the explosions at this distance, and Kellen's eyes were closed when I saw that the top of the tent seemed to brighten for a couple of seconds. A few seconds later, there was a distant bang. I also felt a tiny earthquake. I asked Kellen to see what he thought, and it happened again. He stuck his head out of the tent, immediately exclaimed, “Whoah!” and was instantly hopping around, putting on his pants, and pulling his sleeping bag outside the tent, telling me that I would want to do the same if I had seen what he saw.
What we saw, and watched for about an hour, was like a red fireworks show, but bigger. It took several seconds for the molten projectiles thrown upwards in each explosion to reach the tops of their arcs and begin falling back to the earth. A few times, desk-sized blobs were thrown not quite as far, and ponderously tumbled down the cone. The action was quite far away, but each explosion washed us in orange light, and was followed three seconds later by a muffled boom and rumbles and grumbles. Passing clouds were lit up brightly, and added to the show.
The following morning was crisp and clear, and we watched the eruptions, now brown and sludgy looking, for a while before we repacked our stuff to hide again. With determination, we hid our packs and made our way back over to the edge. We watched the eruptions for a while, and Kellen was afraid of proceeding up the cone. I argued that we could climb it safely if we watch the pattern of eruptions for a while.
We could see the track that we had used the day before. It climbed to a saddle between a dormant sub-cone on the left and the active peak on the right. Right after suggesting that we use this route, and supporting the plan with the observation that hundreds of people have used that very same route, a large explosion cast a rain of molten rocks onto the trail near the saddle. Kellen joked that we should have brought umbrellas.
We could also see a faint track going straight up the dormant sub-cone, and I finally convinced Kellen to give it a try. I was fully prepared to do it alone if necessary.
The climb was similarly arduous and exhausting this attempt, and the dryness added a little bit of black volcanic dust to the picture, blackening our teeth and making us spit gray to remove the grit. The views of cornfields and pastures far below were dizzying.
Partway up we found a solid black formation to scramble up, offering more traction than the shifting cinders, but still it was very steep and fragile. While climbing the cone, we were unable to see the eruptions or gauge our distance from the top, since the dormant cone was in front of us.
Kellen managed to get several yards ahead of me and topped out on the dormant sub-cone just in time to see a small eruption. He exclaimed ecstatically, something like, “Holy shit!” or “Oh my God!”
Just after that, there was another explosion, and a curtain of molten blobs of rock, fiery orange, rose in front of and over Kellen. Instantly, he was running back down the cone, and I took a few steps back also. The rocks looked like they were going to fall on us, but fell short of the top of the cone instead.
We decided to traverse around the cone and complete the climb in a safer place.
We reached the top at the same time and uncontrollably started yelling at what we saw. With the loudest “whoosh” possible, the next hill was discharging a half a sky full of red blobs of rock, and we were hit with a blast of heat like someone had opened a restaurant-grade oven in front of us.
We estimated the distance of the crater at 150 yards, and the highest rocks were probably thrown to 200 yards, but it is difficult to estimate. Some baseball-size pieces of freshly cooled, smoking lava landed perhaps 30 yards away.
Each eruption lasted from a split second to two seconds and began with roaring. Then came a geyser-like discharge of molten rocks, ranging in size from as big as a nightstand to as small as the head of a pin. These occasionally showered us.
Anything larger than a softball was quite red, and toaster-sized pieces and larger stayed glowing red and molten well after they had landed, tumbling and stretching down the fragile cinder cone like slinkies from the center of the earth.
Some of the explosions were especially huge, and composed of large amoeba-like molten projectiles which seemed to hang motionless at times because of our heightened awareness. They would rise up and over us, we were hit with the blast of heat and a continuing noise like a jet engine, and the blobs actually did hold their positions above us for an instant before beginning their descent. We would take a few steps backward, ready to make a split-second decision to run. Invariably, the rocks would fall short, to our great relief.
The eruptions would sometimes occur very close together in time, and sometimes we had to wait a couple of minutes for anything of size while the volcano spouted small red fountains in the meantime.
At the end of each eruption, the sound of the blast would die down and the rain of rocks and particles could be heard.
We could not see into the crater since the rim was a few feet above us in elevation and the blasts were issued in a direction slightly away from us. We wished that we had the time and energy to scramble around to the other side of the cone to watch it from there. Supposedly, there was an active lava flow somewhere on the slope.
From our vantage point, we were as close as we could safely be, and the ground was quite warm and steaming in places. Later, when we told the Israelis about our experience, and the details of just where the falling lava was landing, they said that the volcano had been particularly active for us. One guy said he knew of a party that had made it to the rim and looked down into a pool of bubbling molten rock! The volcano had supposedly been resting for a couple of weeks.
We made it back down the cinder cone in about three minutes, taking 12-foot strides. The rest of the trip was ordinary with ordinary weather, ordinary horses, and no thieves. Back in San Francisco, we ate some cookies and asked the woman working there about the history of the volcano. Apparently, she was one of the few people who were not born in the area and didn't know, and we didn't ask anyone else.
On the way back down to San Vicente Pacaya, we passed a typical old Guatemalan couple. The man was carrying a machete, and the woman was balancing a bundle of firewood on her head. I think that, usually, the man will chop the wood and the woman will carry it home, and that way they spend the day together.
Similarly, at San Vicente where we had started to hitchhike, a young couple operating an ice-cream truck picked us up. It was a large square van. The man, wearing a polo shirt and black slacks, drove while the woman, wearing a pink waitress uniform, was prepared to serve ice cream. With a cracked windshield and small speakers squeaking out cheerful Latin American tunes at high volume, the old truck rattled and jittered down the horrible mountain road heading back to the main highway.
Together, they bring ice cream to all of the villages. Merchants of happiness. “I'll be your ice cream man if you will be my ice cream woman,” he said to her, one night not too long ago.
Abe Franklin
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