Volcan Tajumulco Yet Again

Tajumulco looms over my village Tejutla at a height of 4,220m or 13,845 ft. or 2.62 miles above sea level, making it the highest point in Central America. If you have a clear day you can see into Mexico, the Pacific Ocean, volcanoes around Xela, and if your really lucky volcanoes surroundingthe capital. It takes 4 to 6 hours to ascend and 2.5 to 4 hours descend.

Paul, Maureen, Kelly and I climbed it yesterday. It was the girls' first time, Paul's second (read about his first and my second on his blog), and my third. Kelly is a volunteer in village about an hour and a half from Tejutla, and Maureen is a volunteer in Huehuetenango. We were planning to climb and descend in one day, but bought 3 sleeping bags and a 3-person tent to share amongst the four of us in case something went terribly amiss. Or in case the weather looked like it was going to clear up, and we wanted to freeze our asses off in order to see a stunning red sunrise from the top of Central America.

We began hiking around 10am and it was a pleasant hike for the first half, mostly cloudy with some views. However, by the time we reached the summit there it was completely overcast with occasional distant thunder.

We had lunch on the peak around 2pm, grasping onto the slim hope that we would catch a glimpse of the crater, rumored to be used as a soccer field by some Guatemalans, or the afore mentioned spectacular scenery, but it only grew colder and the distant thunder became not so distant.


3:00pm: As we were descending it began to sprinkle, then rain,
then hail and rain. At first it this was fun and nice little something to take my mind of my aching right knee and exhausted and quivering legs. However, after sometime the awareness of my muscular fatigue returned and now I was cold, wet and a little worried we wouldn't make it to the base in time to hitch a ride back home to Tejutla.

But, of course, we arrived at the base at 5:30pm and twenty minutes later were able to catch a bus going our way. After arriving in Tejutla, we took hot showers changed put on dry clothes and made soup and grilled cheese sandwiches and watched a movie. All of us quite pleased with our decision to return and were not at that time freezing our four wet asses off on the mountain in a three person tent.