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Want to Download the Story to your Computer? Click Here! Background: From 2002-2003, I worked as an English Teacher in Southern Mexico. Throughout my stay that year and during subsequent trips I had many exciting adventures in Central America. One of my greatest adventures, however, took place in May of 2003, just a few weeks before I returned home to the United States. This story is based on a series of emails that I sent to my family following the event. The Beginning Looking back now, I suppose that I should have hired a guide. It was just that I could see the top of the mountain and I thought how hard can it be to get up there and come back down? After all, this wasn’t Mount Everest that I was about to climb. This was a medium sized volcano that straddled the border of Mexico and Guatemala. Oh, don’t get me wrong. The Volcano Tacana was tall. Very tall. In fact, with a height of 13,320 feet (just over 4000 meters) it was easily the tallest peak in Southeastern Mexico and the second tallest volcano in Guatemala. However, this was not a difficult mountain to climb. I wouldn’t need any special apparatus. I wouldn’t be rock climbing or rappelling. All I needed was a healthy body, a decent sized backpack and a few days to make the roundtrip. Many teachers before me had made the trip and the worst thing that seemed to have happened to anyone was a dog bite a long the way. When I made the announcement that I would be climbing the volcano, everyone at my school seemed enthusiastic and wished me good luck but no one offered me any advice. Maybe this should have been my first tip-off that something was wrong. Months earlier, when I had been in Mexico for just two weeks, I decided to make my first day trip to Guatemala, which was just 20 minutes from where I lived. When I announced that I would go, the native school staff smiled and told me to have fun. Six hours later I came back 40 dollars poorer because no one had warned me to watch out for the shady money changers who proudly displayed their “official government money changer” ID cards on the border. Once again, as I prepared to climb the mountain, no one offered me any advice or expressed much concern but this didn’t bother me because the top was plainly visible and the mountain really didn’t look so tall. On a Friday afternoon, at about 12:30 in the afternoon, I left Tapachula (the city where I was staying) with a backpack full of supplies. I didn’t need to read “Climbing Volcanos for Dummies” to figure out that I needed a rain jacket, energy food and drinks, lighter, and lots of water. I was also carrying a GPS and a compass with me. I headed towards the mountain by combie (a little public transportation van) and made a brief stop in the city of Santo Domingo to visit some friends. Unfortunately, I couldn’t locate anyone that I knew and after repeatedly attempting to reach them by phone I finally gave up and headed farther up the mountain by combie to Union Juarez, which would the starting point for my climb up onto the volcano. As we made our way along the winding roads, I couldn’t help but notice, as I had many times, the signs that we kept passing which said “Ruta de Evacuacion”(Evacuation Route). As I would learn later, Tacana was an active volcano and although there were no historical records of any catastrophic eruption ever having taken place in the area, a lot of seismic activity and minor eruptions had been observed in the mountain over the last half decade. I suppose that amongst the city dwellers, there was always a fear that someday the “sleeping giant” would awaken with a full fury. When I arrived in the sleepy but beautiful little town of Union Juarez, it was lightly raining. This didn’t worry me too much because half the time, this mountain city was inside a cloud and precipitation was common in the area. Union Juarez was one of my favorite places to go and journeying to it has been one of my first excursions after arriving in Southern Mexico the year before. When the city wasn’t inside of a cloud the scenery was breathtaking and while the air was a little thin, it was much fresher than the air in Tapachula. It was a nice place to come and relax and enjoy a sandwich and a cup of coffee in one of the quaint little cafes. As soon as I got off the combie, however, I didn’t dilly dally around. I immediately began walking on a paved road which led straight up the mountain and would hopefully take me to the top. When I began, it was lightly raining but the air was warm. My journey on foot had begun. I walked straight up the hill for about an hour before I stopped at a little store to buy some water, potato, chips, and gum. I didn’t particularly enjoy walking straight uphill so I welcomed the short break and I used the opportunity to see if I could contact my friends in Santo Domingo. This time, I was able to get through to my friend Sharito (my Spanish teacher), who had invited me to spend the day with her family. She urged me to come back and visit but I declined explaining to her that I was already journeying up the mountain. She told me to be careful and to have fun. I picked up my backpack and continued my walk up the mountain. After another hour or so, the road ended and I began walking on a narrow path which began to wind around the mountain. There was more rain now which made clay pathway a bit treacherous as I struggled to keep my balance. I did fall a few times but the farther I moved up the mountain the drier the path was. I thought I was making pretty good time but at 7:00, after nearly three hours of walking, a family overtook me on the path. The husband and wife, along with their three children, were heading to the little mountain city of Trigales which was on the way to the top of the mountain. This family was returning from an all day shopping trip that they had made in Tapachula. They told me that they only came down to shop every eight days or so. After stopping for a few minutes to talk with them, they told me to lead on. This was easier said than done for someone like me who wasn’t used to climbing mountains. Knowing that they must have walked pretty fast to overtake me on the path, I walked as fast as I could and took no breaks. When we finally arrived into the downtown area of Trigales, I was winded and ready for a rest. From their appearance, one would have thought it was an afternoon stroll in the park for them. We stood there for a few minutes in the downtown area of Trigales which was nothing more than a shop that sold snacks and drinks. A few children played with each other nearby while some skinny stray dogs looked for something to eat in the dirt. My new friends invited me to stay with them for the night. The people on this mountain were famous for always being hospitable to foreigners but I was still grateful. I told them that since their house was a little farther up the mountain, I would rest here and maybe catch up with them later. They said goodnight and continued on their way. www.nathanryan.com on the world wide web |
