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Pounding the idea of rapido into my guide's head the night before, starting at five am, what should have been a five hour climb tromping through jungle we did in three without stopping, giving me ninety-five minutes at the peak. It was incredible. First of all, the entire peak was cloud free until almost ten am, allowing for exceptional views. Second, the winds at peak were absolutely vicious. For the first five minutes I was intimidated to crawl to the crater rim and look down for fear of being blown in. Ivan, my guide, was meekly motioning me over, his eyes squinting, shirt nearly over his head, crawling along the rocks. As I had no idea what to expect from this peak, not seeing pictures of it beforehand, when I did look I was delighted to see a compact smoking crater below me, perfectly rounded, its rim spiked with jagged peaks. Inspired, I was soon confident enough to be able to maintain my balance in the fierce winds and start my way around the crater rim, snapping as many pictures as I could. Both soaked in sweat from the climb up, a freezing Ivan followed to help a shivering me take pictures. In some ninety-five minutes, I covered about sixty percent of the crater rim, turning around only because of an impassable steepness on both sides. On one side of the rim the rocks came to a steep descent, while the other side abruptly ended, falling into a hardened lava field cascading down the volcano’s side. The clouds began forming at 9:35am; below us, from nowhere these clouds would form in an instant, quickly expand and shoot over the crater with amazing speed. Agreeing to descend, down we started, the winds subsided, and the adrenalin rush eased. Enjoying the views of a slow descent, we saw bright green parrots, white-faced monkeys, urracas (blue-tailed, white throated magpie jays), and colorful butterflies. The whole experience was an easy 10/10. In the months to follow, I met a handful of travelers who attempted the same climb but saw nothing of the crater due to an intense cloud cover. |
