1509 So I did the 'wake up early and lie in bed wondering what time it is but not looking at phone to see in case I don't like the answer' thing this morning, but I woke up an indeterminate amount of time before the first alarm went off at 0525. I did have to go get the chap from the garden to let me out so it's a good job I asked yesterday.
On bus over to Pacaya noticed one town with what I assume to be a storm drain down one side of the road, and all the houses had a little bridge across it to get to the road. Wemmick would have loved it. :-)
Pacaya was actually pretty cool. The sign said it was a 'medium' difficulty; that might be helpful if I ever see the difficulty of anything else. I think we started from about 1900m and walked up to 2300m-ish; I was heartened to see it was sub-2500m as I understand you don't get proper altitude sickness below that.
When we set off uphill I felt a bit strained - probably just the normal "I am walking uphill" feeling, but it worried me briefly. It wasn't a trivial effort to do the walk but nor did it feel ridiculously challenging, which was good. I did feel a bit tired with all the walking up and down, but just kept plodding on and it was fine.
A bit hot but overall I think we were lucky with the weather; it wasn't wet and there wasn't too much cloud, though cloud levels increased a bit over the few hours we were there.
The physical high point had great views of the actual volcano cone (Cono Mckinley? I have a photo of the name but can't be sure I have remembered it correctly) and the three nearby volcanoes (Agua, Acatenango and Fuego, IIRC). You could see smoke coming off the sides and - though it was pretty subtle - thin red streaks of lava making their way down. We then walked down into the area below where ash and volcanic rock had collected; in many ways the view of the cone from there was more impressive.
The rocks were very loose and sharp and care was needed not to fall over; I had a couple of iffy moments but apart from a tiny cut at the base of my right thumb I mostly escaped unscathed. As you got nearer to the cone the rocks you were walking on did get noticeably warmer; I thought it was the weather getting warmer at first.
We did the toasting marshmallows over the hot rocks thing; there was no actual red lava there but the guide said there probably would be a few metres below, as this stuff had only come out of the volcano about three weeks ago.
Incidentally, I asked the guide about Agua; he said it's dormant but it is not a national park, there are no trails or guards or anything and it's dangerous because of bandits (not nature). This confirms my researches the other day. I do wonder exactly what these bandits *do* - can there really be enough people to rob there? But I didn't ask that.
Kept nodding off on the bus home. We seemed to go pretty fast at times, not terrifyingly so but the idea of an accident did cross my mind.
I tipped the two guides Q10 each; not sure this was necessary but they seemed decent enough chaps and didn't want to be unnecessarily cheap. It was a pretty frugal trip all in, at 60 for the bus and 50 for entry to the park, with the guides getting paid out of one of those.
Came back to hostel, had a shower and took some clothes out to laundry opposite - I was a bit of an arse and asked if they could wash at 30C and not dry them at a high heat (cos I'm worried about shrinking them) but we'll see. Q12.something, which isn't bad, and I can collect at 5:30 today apparently.
Went out to have some lunch/dinner, stumbled on a place called something like Sol de Oriente just down from hostel. A bit put off by MoS coming out to tout, but the price looked good - Q35 for the economy menu. I had pollo asado (grilled/roast chicken - hard to say which, maybe grilled) with cooked vegetables, a bit of rice and some tortillas. And a glass of non-sparkling lemonade, which was very nice. The portion wasn't that large but all in all not bad. I tipped Q10, wondered if that was excessive but meh, still cheap-ish.
When I got back to hostel just now I asked the woman on the desk about safety. She said (paraphrasing slightly) it was OK to walk in the central bit, but not the suburbs ("orillas"; I am assuming my translation is good without checking). So I think I'm OK to walk to those more-central-than-the-hostel bars a few blocks away, but if I wanted to go - not sure if there is anything there - to some bar out further from the centre walking would probably be foolish. Of course I may get mugged anyway but have to give it a go.
Plan is to head out 6-630ish, try a couple of places that might have live music (always fun and something to 'do' which isn't fiddling with my phone), have a few but not loads of beers (I may want to go out Fri/Sat too) and if I can strike up a conversation with someone that's a valuable bonus.
No comments:
Post a Comment