Pacaya

This is part two of a series

It might seem odd to speak of an easily accessible, active volcano, but that is what Pacaya is. The volcano lies about 25 miles south of Guatemala City and is almost always doing something. It's become a pretty big tourist attraction in recent years but it wasn't necessarily much of one when we went there in 1979. As far as I know, we were the only group that went through there that day. And therein lies a tale.

We went there as a group and entered the park at San Francisco de Sales, which is the normal approach. It was a cloudy, cool day when we went there and we had a fairly long hike through the brush to get to the volcano itself. You don't need any special tools to climb the face of Pacaya, but it's pretty arduous and with the summit at about 8,400 feet, the air is pretty thin.

I'm not sure how I did it, but somehow I managed to get separated from the rest of the group as we climbed upward and I found myself alone. Since the clouds were low, we eventually reached a level where we were inside the cloud. I looked at my blue t-shirt and was surprised to see that it was covered in wet soot. The volcanic ash that was floating out from the caldera was mixing with the raindrops and had turned me into a chimney sweep. I couldn't see the rest of the group and was getting tired, so I sat down for a few minutes and thought about what to do.

That was a mistake. The surface of the volcano was covered in loose rock and the rocks were sharp. They almost cut through the seat of my pants. I was probably about 500 feet from the summit, exhausted, dirty and lost. It wasn't what I was bargaining for, to say the least.

I thought about trying to continue the climb, but I wasn't sure where the rest of the group was and was afraid that I wouldn't find them at the summit. The one thing I knew, or thought I knew, was that I could go back down the mountain. So I started to walk down. I was trying to be careful and walk downward slowly, but gravity seemed to take over. Almost without trying, I found myself walking faster, then actually running down the slope. I wasn't trying to run, but the force of gravity was pulling me down so quickly that I had to run. And falling wasn't an option, because the nasty sharp rocks were everywhere.

I don't know that I've ever been as scared in my life as I was for those 3-5 minutes that I ran down the slope of Pacaya. Eventually I reached the base of the mountain and the land flattened out. I was able to stop and I collapsed on the ground, trying to catch my breath. Then I noticed something. I was nowhere near the base camp. In fact, the camp was nowhere in sight. Nor was anyone else.

I started to walk, past farm fields nestled into the hillsides, through a ravine and along a barbed wire fence. I had no way of knowing if I was heading the right direction or not and since it was 1979, I certainly didn't have a cell phone or any way of communicating with the rest of the group. I walked for at least a half hour, praying as I walked, and then I saw the base camp.

I waited there alone, covered in now dried soot and almost trembling in fear. About 15 minutes later, the first members of the group started appearing on the side of the mountain. After about a half hour, everyone was there.

"What happened to you, Mark?" they asked. I didn't really have an answer other than to say that I got lost. I was never so happy to be found, though.