Back to Canada VIII

We entered into the States through El Paso on Sunday evening and the first thing we noticed was that the streets were empty. Nobody was out walking in the downtown and there were only a few cars. In Mexico the streets would be packed, especially on a Sunday. We stayed in a hostel in an historic building in downtown. The guy who worked there was very enthusiastic about El Paso and took some of us up to a lookout over the nighttime lights of the city for free. The next morning Greg took off for Phoenix where he was going to meet up with a friend and then fly back to Canada because he had ran out of money. Now I would be traveling by myself for the rest of the trip back to Canada. I decided to check out the Franklin Mountain State Park. It protects the mountains that loom over the city. I took the city bus as far as I could and then hiked about 2 miles into the park where I set up camp.

The next morning I got up at sunrise and headed up the mountains. I climbed up the side of the ridge and then followed the ridgeline north. El Paso is in the Chihuahuan Desert and the mountains were covered in many different types of cactii and prickly bushes. At the tops the mountains were very rocky and it is apparently a popular place for rock climbing. I passed a gap in the rocks called "The Window" before arriving at the top of the South Franklin Mountain at about 7000ft. There was a big air traffic control station on the top but the views in all directions of El Paso were amazingly clear. I tried to descend a different route but the trail soon petered out and I was left clambering over rocky ledges and stabbing myself with many types of cactii. I finally managed to get back to the ridge trail and I followed the ridge south for a while. Unfortunately the rough terrain managed to destroy both my shoes and I had to carefully make my way down the mountains. At one point I reached a cave and heard a bunch of rustling inside. I looked in and there were two nearly full grown vulture babies still partially covered with down feathers. I looked around carefully for any angry swooping parents and then finished the descent. I hiked back out to El Paso and wandered around the city finding the cheapest bus to Phoenix. El Paso had plenty of bus companies headed to different major US cities, mostly catering to Mexican visitors. The one I chose was used to dealing with Spanish speaking customers and the ticket sellers and bus drivers all spoke Spanish. I sat beside a man from Cuidad Juarez who was traveling to California to visit his brother and we had a long conversation in Spanish. Nobody in the bus was speaking English and it felt like I was back in Mexico. The overnight bus crossed New Mexico into Arizona and went through Tuscon before arriving in Phoenix.

I arrived in Phoenix early in the morning and wandered through the downtown as the sun rose, watching the empty streets slowly come to life. The downtown was very clean and seemed to be growing because there were a lot of new construction projects going on. The Arizona Diamondbacks baseball stadium and the Phoenix Suns basketball arena were both right in downtown. After the morning wore on I found the Phoenix hostel near downtown and caught up on some of the sleep I missed in the bus. In the evening I took a city bus to the town of Glendale. Phoenix is very spread out and is basically a group of towns that merged together as they grew to form Phoenix. Glendale was about an hour and a half on the bus but it is still considered part of Phoenix. The Arizona Cardinals football stadium and the Phoenix Coyotes hockey arena were located here and I was headed to the football stadium to watch an exhibition soccer game between Chivas from Guadalajara Mexico and the Red Bulls from New York. The stadium is a huge dome and was the site of the Super Bowl in February. The game drew mostly fans of Chivas and it seemed like a number of them had come up from Guadalajara to watch the game. Although the fans in attendance were few in number they made up for it in enthusiasm. They were disappointed when the Red Bulls won 1-0. It was an intense match, including a number of fights, which was surprising for an exhibition match.

The next morning I decided to explore around Phoenix and first headed to the town of Tempe. Tempe is the center for the University of Arizona State and I looked around some of the university buildings, including even more stadiums, such as the Sun Devil's football stadium. I then headed north to Scottsdale. This town holds on to the wild west theme with a downtown full of wood buildings straight out of a western as well as many art studios and restaurants from around the world. A large wildfire burning outside of Phoenix had filled the sky with smoke giving the sun a deep red colour which made me feel like I was on the set of a movie. I returned that night to the same hostel and had a new interesting roommate. He had joined the Marines just before September 11th and was sucked into the Iraq War. His body survived the war but his mind could not get over his experiences in Iraq. He had been diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome as well as paranoid schizophrenia. He was very friendly and chatty and told me stories of driving across the States but he always seemed on edge and during the night he would scream out while he slept. It always surprises me how deep an effect the war has had on so many people in the States.

The next morning I headed north to Flagstaff, Arizona. Phoenix is boiling hot in July with temperatures going to 45 degrees daily but Flagstaff is much higher and cooler and even has good skiing in the winter. I was planning on spending the night in Flagstaff figuring out how to get to the Grand Canyon but I found a shuttle bus headed there so I left immediately for the South Rim of the canyon. The drive there passed through pine forests and flat plains and there wasn't a single hint of the canyon until the bus reached the rim. The awesome view over the canyon was intense. The Copper Canyon was as vast but the reds, oranges and yellows of Grand Canyon made the view that much more impressive. I headed straight to the Backcountry office to try and get a permit but it had just closed. I then went back to the rim and settled down to watch the sun set over the canyon. That night I camped in the nearby Kaibab Forest and was unprepared for the frigid nighttime temperatures and spent the night huddled and shivering in my shorts.

I got to the backcountry office when it opened in the morning and they had no trouble finding a permit for me to hike down to the bottom of the canyon. Normally you have to reserve a year in advance but there are enough cancellations that it was easy for a solo traveler like me to find a spot. The ranger advised me to wait until 3 in the afternoon to avoid the heat of the day. It is advised to stay out of the sun from 10 to 2 to avoid heat stroke as the temperature reaches 45 degrees daily at the bottom of the canyon. I explored some of the lookouts on the South Rim and gathered enough water and food for my hike. I headed down the canyon on the South Kaibab Trail, a steep, exposed trail with no water that follows a ridge line down the canyon. At times the trail was carved right out of a cliff face and others it balanced on top of the ridge. I had brought over a gallon of water with me but the cooler afternoon temperatures and the less challenging downhill trek meant that I hardly needed to touch my water. I was beginning to regret taking so much heavy water until I ran into two hikers about 3 miles into the hike. They had both hiked all the way down to the bottom of the canyon and were trying to make it back up in the same day. However they had run out of water and one of them was suffering from heat exhaustion and they asked if I had any water to spare. I gave them as much as they wanted and they filled up their bottles to the brim. They thanked me profusely and one mentioned to me that he was the owner of a large international company based in Phoenix and if I ever wanted a place to stay in Phoenix he would let me stay as long as I wanted in a guest room in his huge house. It seemed that the gallon of extra water was not such a mistake after all. The trail continued descending and entered the last and most recent dark canyon that the Colorado River flows through. The river rushed by with a deep green and the trail went through a short tunnel and emerged onto a big suspension bridge that spanned the Colorado. After the bridge the Bright Angel Creek flows into the Colorado and this is the location of the Bright Angel campground as well as the more comfortable Phantom Ranch. After setting up my hammock tent, which drew a few comments from the other campers, I attended a ranger talk in the evening. The ranger had spent the last 6 years in the Grand Canyon and he had a bunch of animal stories that he told in an entertaining fashion. At the end of the talk he took out a UV flashlight and we went on a scorpion hunt. The scorpions are bright blue under the light and we found about 10 all over the rocks after only 5 minutes of looking. I had bare feet at the time so I made my way carefully back to my campsite, making sure to avoid stepping on any rocks.

The next morning I got up as soon as it was light and headed up the Bright Angel Creek to the Cottonwood campground. The path was uphill the whole way but the trail was not steep at all as it followed closely to the rushing creek. The canyon walls are so steep that the original trail was forced to cross the creek over 80 times but now the new trail is chipped out of the cliffs and it only crosses the creek a handful of times on well constructed bridges. At one point after crossing the creek I heard a rattle in the bush next to me. I backtracked to take a closer look and found a pinkish colored rattlesnake curled up inside. It rattled at me for a few seconds and I left it in peace. The narrow canyon eventually spread out a bit and I took a side trail to Ribbon Falls. The falls were hidden inside a shaded valley and created a cool refreshing area to get away from the heat of the canyon. There was a trail that went up behind the falls and from there the mist was very cooling. I was going to descend back to the bottom when I noticed a steep eroded trail continuing on with a sign post facing the opposite direction at the end. I figured the sign had some interesting historical information so I carefully made my way along the steep cliff. When I reached the sign I saw that it said 'Dangerous Eroded Trail - Do not walk'. They really need to put a matching sign under the waterfall. I arrived at the campground before 10 in the morning so I had the rest of the day to enjoy the stifling heat of the canyon. I found a campsite with plenty of shade so I napped for most of heat. I also went down to the creek to cool off and was shocked by the chill of the water. Despite the 45 degree weather I could not keep my feet in the water for more than a minute before they became completely numb from the cold. The creek emerges from underground only a few miles above the campsite and there is not enough time for it to be heated by the air. It was certainly a quick way to cool down in the heat.

The next day I woke at dawn again and headed up the steep part of the North Kaibab Trail to the North Rim. I passed the waterfall known as Roaring Springs where the Bright Angel Creek pours out of the side of the canyon and cascades down to the canyon floor. This crystal clean water source provides the drinking water for all the thousands of visitors to the Grand Canyon. The trail soon grew very steep and started to ascend the canyon wall in endless switchbacks. As the morning progressed I started meeting hikers descending and later I encountered my first mule train. I stood to the side and waved hello as the riders passed. There were quite a few more as I ascended and I wondered what it would feel like to sit on a mule as it walked along a sheer cliff, knowing that your life depends on the mule. Apparently the Grand Canyon has never had a person on a mule fall off a cliff so the mules must have pretty good footing. The last part of the ascent was very sandy and I sweated profusely as I trudged slowly up the dusty sand but I made it to the top before 10 in the morning. At the top I went to the Backcountry office to get a permit to return. Again it was no problem and I decided to head back down later that afternoon. I stocked up my supplies in the park store and I walked out to the Bright Angel Point, the main lookout for the North Rim. The North Rim is at over 8200 feet, 1000 feet higher than the South Rim, and the climate allows for a cooler pine forest that reminded me of Canadian forests. The view was spectacular of the Bright Angel Canyon and the South Rim in the distance. After a good rest I headed back to the trail head and started the climb down. I ran into many of same mule trains coming back up the trail and many of them remembered me from the morning. The path down was a lot easier, however I unfortunately forgot to air out my feet and sweat-softened skin was no match for the pounding descent and my new shoes. My feet became covered with blisters and I was relieved to get back to the campsite. Luckily I met a couple from Bermuda and talking with them helped keep my mind off my feet.

The next morning I got up at headed out for my easiest hike yet, three hours of a pleasant downhill back to the main Bright Angel campground. I kept my mind off my feet by chatting with the Bermuda couple again and arrived in camp at around 10. The temperature was about 45 degrees in the shade and I went to walk around the area. I went down to the Colorado River for the first time and dipped my feet into the ice cold fast running river. The Bright Angel creek at this point had warmed up enough on its 8 mile trip from Cottonwood that it was very pleasant to go for a dip in. I relaxed in the rushing spring for about an hour, staying cool in the blistering heat and letting my blistered feet relax. I headed up the canyon the next morning on the Bright Angel Trail which is slightly less steep than the South Kaibab Trail but a couple of miles longer. The trail had plenty of water, was shaded in a valley through part of it, and did not bother my feet because it was uphill so I was feeling pretty good when I got to the green oasis of Indian Gardens. I decided to take a 3 mile side trip to the plateau overlook where I got a great look at the Colorado River and a close-up of a fairly tame California Condor calmly sitting on a rock. I made it back to the South Rim in time to head to the campgrounds and get a good shower and use the laundry facilities. I caught one more look at the great canyon before I headed out into the Kaibab forest to spend another chilly night before heading back to Flagstaff.

Back to Canada VII

That afternoon we headed to the capital, Mexico City, one of the biggest cities in the world. We got off the bus and got on the Mexico Metro, a huge subway system that services the entire city, and crammed onto the trains with all our packs. It only costs 2 pesos, about 20 cents, for a ticket to anywhere in the city. We got out at the Zócalo, the main plaza, and it was shocking emerging into the middle of one of the biggest plazas in the world. We found a cheap hostel right near the zócalo and explored the historical centre containing the National Cathedral and the Atzec ruins of the city of Tenochtitlan whose main plaza was in the same location as the current zócalo. The next day we went with some other people from the hostel into the huge Mexican government building on the zócalo which was full of immaculately maintained gardens and sculptures. On the second floor were a number of huge murals by the famous mexican painter, Diego Rivera. When we went to exit the building nobody would let us and we were slightly confused. Eventually a guard escorted us out and we noticed a whole bunch of police around the zócalo. About ten more vans full of police drove up and then 5 to 10 buses pulled up and a whole bunch of protesting miners poured out. They marched up to the government building and started chanting. They handed pamphlets out which showed their demands that the government recover buried miner's bodies and end the miner strikes. After we took the metro to the huge Chapultepec Park, home to a number of interesting museums. We went to the Mexican Zoo, which was free, and saw a bunch of cool animals such as panda bears, giraffes and my first jaguar in Latin America. We returned to the zócalo just in time for another protest, this one by the Zapatistas. They were draping signs on the government building demanding that the army leave Chiapas and the police came through in full riot gear and pushed the protesters away from the building. It was a tense situation but things didn't escalate.

The next day another group of us from the hostel returned to the park with the museums and went to the huge Archeology Museum. It is full of amazing artifacts from across Mexico including from the Mayan, Aztec and many other cultures. It is impossible to see the entire thing in one day but I was still amazed by some of the tombs of kings and stones statues. After we walked up one of the main streets in the city through the business section and saw the highest building in Latin America and a number of impressive statues, including the signature Angel of Independence. We then took the subway to Tlatelolco square. This used to be the second of the Aztec's twin cities and there are a number of ancient Aztec ruins here as well as a church that dates back to the time of Cortéz. But nowadays it is more well known as the site of one of Mexico's more recent massacres. In 1968 the Mexican government was trying to put on a good face for the '68 Olympics and were cracking down on protests. At Tlatelolco square the police started firing into the crowd and many people were killed. The news was supressed by the entire media and to this day nobody really knows why the police started firing or how many were killed but most people think it was 200-400 people.

The next day I had come down with Montezuma's Revenge, or in other words, diarrhea. It was the first time I got it since my travels began but I would have preferred to avoid it altogether. I spent the day just hanging around the hostel. Luckily there was a huge rock concert being held in the zócalo so I watched that for a while. There was also a huge protest where thousands and thousands of people marched miles long through the streets around the zócalo. It appears that there is never a quiet moment in the center of Mexico. Later in the evening I felt a bit better and went to the Lucha Libra. This is Mexican wrestling made famous by the movie Nacho Libre, where all the wrestlers have colorful masks and are highly acrobatic. It was a big night for the wrestling and the stadium was packed with fans. When everyone started chanting for a wrestler, you knew they were popular and when they booed they were unpopular. The show ended with a cage being set up and 10 wrestlers locked inside until all had climbed out but one. The entire show was entertaining and obviously extremely popular in Mexico.

The next morning we left Mexico City. I could have spent many weeks there and not have gotten bored because there was so much to see and do. It was much cleaner than I expected and I can definitely see myself returning again. The next city we headed to was Guanajuato, about 4 hours northwest of Mexico City. This was an old mining town and, even though it is now the capital of the state, the town still feels that way. The buildings go right up the side of the mountains and the streets are very crooked and narrow. The town is riddled with tunnels under and through the mountains were most of the vehicular traffic passes through. These arching tunnels look like they used to be mine shafts dug out of the stone. Above the tunnels, the city is full of gorgeous colonial buildings and the houses on the mountain sides are painted every colour of the rainbow. In the morning I was exploring the city and bumped into a parade going through the streets. There was bands playing and many different types of dancers including Aztec dancers, machete dancers and people with huge paper mache masks. After the parade I went to the Don Quixote museum. The town is famous for its annual Don Quixote festival and has statues of Don Quixote, Sancho Panchez and Miguel Cervantes. The museum holds a large collection of Don Quixote themed art from around the world including art from Dali and Ocampo. I also climbed one side of the city, through the twisting streets, to a huge statue which gave a great view of the city.

We continued west, passing by a huge statue of Christ on top of a mountain marking the geographical center of Mexico, and arrived at the city of Guadalajara. With four million people it is the second biggest city in Mexico. The cathedral in the zocalo was very impressive, with an interesting mix of neo-classical and gothic architecture. The government building was also interesting with a huge, very dark and disturbing mural that recounted the history of Mexico and another mural on the ceiling of the government congress. The next day we headed north along the Pacific Coast, first passing through the blue-green fields of agave in the town of Tequila, and finally arriving in Mazatlan, a beach town. We only spent a few hours in Mazatlan but saw the endless beaches and the numerous resorts. It was extremely popular resort for Americans in the 80's but now there are mostly Mexican tourists.

After Mazatlan we took a night bus to Los Mochis and immediately got on the morning CHEPE train. This train travels through the Copper Canyon and it's the only access to some parts of the canyon. The Copper Canyon is actually a group of different canyons formed by different rivers and in many places it rivals the Grand Canyon in size. The train moved very slowly and the first couple of hours it was only flat desert that we were crossing. Eventually we came to a long tunnel and emerged into the canyon. The vast canyon was amazing and there was brilliant blue water in the river. The train continued up the canyon, hugging the cliffs and passing through tunnel after tunnel. There were more than 100 in total. The scenery constantly changed from small tributary canyons with no sign of human habitation, to the bigger canyons where you could see for miles. The views were great but the train was very slow, so slow in fact that a baby was born on the train before we could make it to the nearest hospital! We got out at the small town of Divisadero. There is an amazing lookout from this town where three massive canyons meet. We were approached by a friendly local who invited us to stay in his cabanas. The cabanas were extremely comfortable and we were served dinner in his family's beautiful wood house. The next morning we set out early to go hiking in the canyon. We hiked along the rim of the canyon and were amazed at the views. Every corner opened up entirely new vistas and we often ended up on the top of massive cliffs overlooking the canyon. We went down the sides of the canyon when we could but we didn't have time to descend to the bottom of the canyon, thousands of feet below. We ran into a number of wood huts in the canyon but never any people. The only person I saw on the hike was an older Tarahumara Indian woman walking up a steep path. The Tarahumaras still live traditionally in the canyons and she had on an extremely colorful traditional dress on. All in all, it was the most impressive hike of my life.

We returned to Divisadero to catch the last bus to the town of Creel. Creel is the base most people use to explore the Copper Canyon. We stayed at a backpacker's hostel called Margarita's that offered an incredible deal. For only 8 bucks you had a place to stay, breakfast and dinner and they were good traditional meals as well. The next day we rented mountain bikes and headed out to see the sights around Creel. There are no massive canyons near Creel but there are plenty of valleys being farmed by the Tarahumara's and lots of rocks and pine trees that made biking easy and fun. The bikes were in excellent shape with great tires and shocks and it was endless fun jumping off rocks, sliding down hills and slaloming through the pine trees. We saw the Valleys of the Mushroom, Frog and Monk and each valley had rocks shaped like it name. We finally arrived at Lake Arareko which, with the rocks and pine trees, looked exactly like a lake in Northern Ontario. We returned to Creel down the highway and were exhausted when we got back.

The next day we decided to go camping at the bottom of one of the canyons and invited another guy from the hostel to come with us. We took a bus to the Urique River and were dropped off on the bridge. We made our way down to the bottom of the canyon and made good progress at the start. Then we ran into a narrow section of the canyons and the steep walls falling directly into the deep river stopped our progress. I managed to scale the rock walls with my stuff and get to the other side but the other two got stuck and had to retrace their steps and find a way up and over the canyon. While they were gone I found a great sandy camping spot with shade from pine trees and some small cascading waterfalls on the river. When they arrived we decided to set up camp for the night there and headed off down the river leaving our packs back at the campsite. We walked for about 3 hours up the canyon with towering cliff walls and not a single person or building to be seen. The only sign of civilization were the ample quantities of cow patties along the river. We did run across one lonely group of 3 cows getting a drink from the river. It was very hot but the river was refreshing to dip in. We returned to the campsite and I set up my hammock and the other two made a fire in the sand. The next morning we hiked back to the bridge and hitchhiked back to Creel.

We caught a bus directly to the city of Chihuahua in the afternoon. As we left the canyon we entered into the Chihuahuan desert, very flat with a few rocky mountains poking up. The flat areas were brought to life with irrigation and farmland stretched on and on. Many of the farmers in the area are Mennonites who came down from the US and Canada to escape military service. Chihuahua was very hot and dry but it was a pleasant city with many parks, beautiful buildings and museums. There was a rich sense of history as the city was the site of an exile government and the base for Pancho Villa during the Revolution in the early 1900's. We left Chihuahua the next day to head to the border city, Cuidad Juarez. It has far more than a million people and is one of the biggest cities in Mexico and combined with its companion city in the US, El Paso, it makes up one of the biggest border towns in the world. We decided to walk across to the US and headed across one of the bridges over the Rio Grande. The river was bone dry because so many people need the water for drinking and irrigation. The fence along the river was intimidating and there was a bunch of graffiti under the fence noting how many people have died trying to sneak across the border and other cries for an open border. Since we were Canadian we had no trouble crossing, they didn't even check our bags and we arrived in the United States of America.

Back to Canada VI

The next day we left the Caribbean coast for the last time and headed west to the ruins of Chichen Itza. These are probably the most famous Mayan ruins and were recently voted as one of the seven new wonders of the world. The main attraction at the site is El Castillo, the Castle, a four sided pyramid that is perfectly aligned with the sun. Every spring and fall equinox the sun is aligned with a face of the pyramid and the shadows form a serpent slithering down the side. Directly north of the pyramid is a cenote, or water hole, and this is where the Mayans believed was the home of the rain god and sacrifices to the rain god were performed to prevent droughts. They have recovered over 30,000 remains at the bottom of the cenote and many more were destroyed beyond recovery. There are many other temples, buildings and carving throughout the site, including a huge ball court and an astronomical observatory that was used to calculate the position of El Castillo. After Chichen Itza we continued west to the city of Mérida, the largest city on the Yucatan. It was Sunday evening and the central park was alive with live music and people dancing in the streets. The city has a very colonial Spanish feel and is home to the oldest cathedral in North America. We checked out the government building for the state which was full of huge beautiful murals which told the history of the Yucatan in a compelling way. We also found a theater near the center park that was providing a free concert. We watched several members of the Mérida orchestra perform popular older Mexican music. After the concert we caught an overnight bus south and out of the Yucatan.

The bus arrived in the town of Palenque the next morning and I had managed to get some sleep, despite the frigid temperatures on the over air-conditioned bus. We checked into hostel that was situated in the middle of the jungle, surrounded by trees and streams chock full of rain water. We headed to the nearby ruins of Palenque which is known as the most beautiful of the Mexican Mayan ruins. The ruins were situated atop a group of hills in the lush jungle and were mostly built by a king who reigned for 69 years and his son. Most of the temples were actually burial locations for rulers and important members of Palenque and one of them contained an empty sarcophagus that was open to the public. The main attraction was a large Palace that contained a tower unlike any other Mayan ruin. There was also a stream diverted by the Mayans through the city that flowed off the hill in a beautiful waterfall.

The next day we went to a couple of waterfalls outside of Palenque. The rain that continued to come down had turned them into huge torrents of water. The first was a single impressive drop and you could walk behind the waterfall if you didn't mind getting completely soaked by the spray. The second was known as Agua Azul, Blue Waters, but the rain had turned it into Agua Chocolate. It was a series of powerful cascades that were almost overflowing. I walked the path that followed along the river and the cascades and rapids continued for 2 or 3 kilometers. There was a Mayan village along the path on the other side of the river and I watched as a group of kids used a little tram hooked up to a cable to pull themselves across the fast moving river, the only way to access this village. The end of the path came to a beach with a view of the river bursting out of a narrow canyon. I tried to follow a faint path through the jungle to find a better view of the canyon but it disappeared after about 15 minutes. We finished the day by arriving in the mountain town of San Cristobal de las Casas where we got soaked in the cold mountain air trying to find our hostel.

The next morning was still cloudy but no rain and I walked around the city. It was a very pretty colonial town and every time I turned a corner I ran into another church or park. This was the city that the Zapatistas took control of in 1994 and there are still signs of Zapatista support. I took a minivan to the nearby Mayan village of San Juan Chamul. This village was originally Catholic but the traditional Mayan religious views transformed the church until it barred priests from coming and stopped holding Mass. The town is very serious about preserving its religion and will expel any villager that changes religion. There are local religious police and they dress in thick white wool coats for ceremonies. The wool coat is popular there because the sheep is one of the most common farm animals. I had to pay a fee to enter the church and was forbidden from taking any pictures. The church had no seats of pews and instead had a layer of pine needles on the floor. There were sculptures of many different saints throughout the room and most of them had rows of candles burning in front of them with villagers praying in front of them. Some of the interesting beliefs of the village include the belief that Christ never rose again and they have an image of him buried in a coffin. They also believe that the bubbles in Coke carry away sins and they use Coke in their religious ceremonies.

The next day I took a tour to the nearby Canyons de Sumidero. This was a river that ran through some incredibly high cliffs. Some of the cliffs towered a kilometre directly over the river. It was my first experience of cliffs this massive and it was awe-inspiring to say the least. My sense of perspective had trouble dealing with the massive distances and a soaring vulture that appeared to be high above the cliffs ended up being barely halfway up the side of the cliff. In addition to the canyons the river itself was also full of wildlife. We saw a number of crocodiles including a nest of about 50 baby crocodiles. We also saw a bunch of spider monkeys hanging out on the trees sticking out of the cliffs. At the end of the river is a huge 300 meter high hydroelectric dam that keeps the river deep and calm in the canyon rather than the rapids it used to be. The four dams on the river provide Mexico with 30% of its total electricity.

That night we took a night bus to the Pacific Coast and the town of Puerto Escondido. The first day we arrived we just relaxed and hung out on the beach enjoying the first little bit of sun that we had seen for a while. The next day we rented surfboards and tried our luck with the waves. The town is famous for it's big waves and we were not quite ready for them and were crushed pretty hard. Even so, it was probably the last time surfing for me for a while and I'll miss it.

We took another night bus to the city of Oaxaca. This city is famous for its chocolate, mezcal and revolutionary politics. In 2006 there were a number of violent protests and the police cracked down pretty hard on them. Now, however, things are much more peaceful but there are still protests going on. When we were there some teachers were holding a three day sit-in in the center plaza and were set up with tents and shelters. There were a lot of communist booths set up as well with the soviet sickle and pictures of Marx, Lenin and Stalin urging revolution. Other than this simmering tension the town was rather peaceful and there were plenty of parks, cathedrals and cafes. The chocolate making section of the city contains a number of chocolate factories and people handing out free samples.

The next day we headed to the city of Puebla, a large city with another pretty center plaza area and a church with an unbelievably brilliant gold altar. We then took a bus to the neighbouring city of Cholula to spend the night. We found a mountaineering hostel in the town because we were interested in climbing one of the three massive peaks in the area. Unfortunately the constant rain eliminating any possibly of making a trek, however it was interesting to talk to the guides at the hostel and I definitely want to come back and climb one of them. In the morning we took a tour of the city and visited a few of the 37 churches. One church is located directly on top of what appeared to be a large hill in the center of town but is actually a huge buried pyramid. The pyramid is the largest in the world by volume and is full of excavation tunnels that indicate a number of different groups have added to the temple. Some of the tunnels are open to the public and we spent a claustrophic half hour exploring them. The church at the top of the pyramid gave a great view of the city and the surrounding mountains.

Back to Canada V

We left Utila and headed back north. The first night we made it to Puerto Cortez for the night and the next day we crossed the border into Guatemala. We caught a ferry from Puerto Barrios across to Punta Gorda in Belize. The national language of Belize is English and it was strange not to need Spanish anymore. The money is Belizian dollars and the bills, like Canada, have a picture of Queen Elizabeth on them, but she is very young looking on the Belizian bills. We headed to the town of Placencia which required a bus trip and a quick ferry ride to the peninsula. The beach town had a nice beach and a number of good restaurants. The next day we headed north again and stopped in the capital of Belize, Belmopan. Belmopan has a population of about 8000 people and is one of the smallest capital cities in the world. The capital was moved here from Belize City in the 60's after a hurricane hit but very few people moved with it. The government building are here but there are more parks than houses. We watched a really good soccer game and moved on to Belize City.

We stayed the night and left the next morning on a ferry to Caye Caulker. This is one of the many islands off the coast of Belize located along the second longest barrier reef in the world. The reef goes from the Yucatan in Mexico down the entire coast of Belize to Honduras in the south. There were numerous diving and snorkeling opportunities available on the island including full-day tours, manatee tours and a diving tour to the Blue Hole, which is one of the most famous diving locations in the world. However it was too expensive for us so we decided to take a half-day snorkeling tour. The boat went to three location on the reef and the highlight of the trip was called Shark and Ray Alley. This was a place where sting rays were fed and they swarmed around the boat as soon as it arrived. They were all used to humans and we jumped right in with them. You could touch them as they swam by and sometimes they would swim right on top of you looking for food. They sometimes have nurse sharks that come too but this time there was only a lonely barracuda looking for scraps. I did however see a nurse shark later when I was snorkeling through the coral. It is completely harmless but swims powerfully and looks dangerous. The water had many different shades of turquoise and blue which contrasted with the white sand of the island. There wasn't much of a beach but there was a split in the island caused by a hurricane and the deep water there allowed a high diving board to be installed which was a lot of fun.

We left the island and continued north to Orange Walk in Belize. The name is somewhat misleading because there is much more Spanish spoken here and the crop of choice is sugar cane rather than oranges. There is also a large settlement of German Mennonites here that have lived here for 50 years and it was common to see men dressed in overalls walking down the street. Belize is a very multicultural country with the majority a mixture of Mestizos, Mayans and Creoles as well as other immigrants such as Chinese, Indian and the Mennonites. We decided to take a tour to the Mayan ruins of Lamanai. This was an hour long boat ride up the New River, a very flat river, to arrive at the ruins. The ruins were excavated by a man from the Royal Ontario Museum. The main temple was about 35 metres high and gave an excellent lookout over the jungle and river. There was another temple that had a 3 metre high sculpture of a former ruler on the side.

We left Orange Walk the next day and headed to Mexico. This meant we were leaving Central America for the last time and now beginning the North American part of the journey. We arrived in Tulum which has a spectacular beach and ruins. The beach is pure white and the water is gorgeous turquoise. It was surprisingly uncrowded because it is located close to Cancun. However the ruins are not so quiet. One of the few ruins on the coast, the Tulum ruins are smaller and more compact than the other ones I have been to but still very impressive. A wall surrounded the entire area and a number of buildings, such as the palace and the castle, sit atop the cliffs and overlook the turquoise ocean. The first Spaniard to spot Tulum, which was still occupied at that time, noted in his journal that he passed by a town that reminded him of Seville, in Spain.

The next day we continued up the Mayan Riviera to the city of Playa de Carmen. This place is second only to Cancun for tourism and we spend the afternoon enjoying the gorgeous but crowded beach. We then took the evening ferry to the island of Cozumel where we managed to arrange through friends a place to stay with a local of Cozumel. The next morning we arranged to scuba dive with a local company. We got on the boat and we headed south along the island. The entire coast of the island was full of huge resorts of every kind but the turquoise of the water was still amazing. We arrived at the Colombia Reef and dived in. The reef was a massive formation of coral and we swam through a number of caves of coral where colorful fish peeked out at every corner. Then we would come back out to open ocean and the endless blues and floating fish were a stunning contrast to the dark of the cave. As we went to the surface at the end of the dive we were joined by a large sea turtle that was also rising to grab a breath of air. The second dive we took was a drift dive. Cozumel has many currents around the island and the abundance of corals make it one of the best places for drift diving. We got into the water and the current took us over the coral. It was possible to relax and watch the coral and fish pass by and the only thing to worry about was avoiding being drifted into coral formations. We probably covered 2 or 3 kilometers in the 40 minute dive and passed over a number of parrotfish, pufferfish, rays and even a shark was spotted.

The next day we caught the ferry back to the mainland and headed north to Cancun. We got there after dark but were in time to experience the famed nightlife of Cancun on a Friday night. It was a little bit disorienting being surrounded by crowds, lights and American restaurants and bars after being in Central America for so long but it was fun. We went to a bunch of different places, including taking in a Mexican rock cover band playing in the Hard Rock Cafe. The next day we witnessed the start of the rainy season as the remnants of two tropical storms blew into the area and poured down rain flooding the streets in the morning. Up until this point we had been extremely fortunate with the weather, travelling with the dry season up Central America, completely avoiding the rain and enjoying days of sun. Now we would have to deal with lots of rain every day. It cleared up enough in the afternoon that I could explore the Cancun beach. The beach is a thin peninsula about 15 km long that is packed with resort after resort. Some of the resorts are huge and most of them are designed to bring to mind Mayan pyramids. The beach itself was white sand with turquoise water but the storms had whipped up the waves so that it was impossible to swim. I walked about 5 km down the beach enjoying the surf and the different hotel designs. When I finally decided to walk back to the road I nearly got lost passing through a huge hotel. Cancun was fun to experience but I don't think I could spend too many days there.

Back to Canada IV

The next morning we continued our backtracking into Honduras to the city of La Ceiba and from there took a ferry to our final destination, the island of Utila. Utila is part of the Bay Islands and is famous for its cheap diving schools. We ran into a Canadian diving instructor on the ferry over and decided to stay and take a course at the school where he works. I planned to take a 4 day Open Water Course and Greg, who already had his, was going to take the Advanced Open Water Course. The first day of the course involved watching 3 hours of boring videos and some homework however it gave me some time to explore the town. Every other place seems to be a diving school but there are also lots of restaurants and hotels. There is one place where they built an entire bar up a tree.

The second day of the course was the first day in the water. We just went out to the dock at the hotel in about 2-3 metres of water where we practiced some different scuba diving skills such as taking the mask off underwater and practicing breathing properly. It was really cool breathing underwater and it was hypnotizing watching the bubbles rise to the surface of the water. I learned that my breathing is very inefficient because I ran out of air at the end of the lesson and had to ascend early. The next day was our first open water experience and we took the boat in the early morning out to the nearby reefs. We descended to a sandy area in the reefs and practiced a few skills before we headed out to explore the reef. I experienced my first problem with my ears when we descended to 12 metres. I was unable to equalize my ears properly and had to hang out above everybody at a shallower depth. The reef was pretty cool. It was a little bit dead because the areas was used by a lot of beginner divers who would bump into the coral but there were fish of every color and many different types of coral. We got out of the water and went to a different location where we dove in again and did some more skills. In the afternoon we did our 50 question final exam for the course and I passed with 50 out of 50. The next day was the final dives for the course. We did two more dives which were more skill-intensive but we got to see some cool creatures such as a stingray and a bunch of squid. After the day was over we could celebrate obtaining our open water certification. It's a lifetime certification and it means that I can dive to 18 metres without an instructor.

The next day I went out on two more complementary dives. I really enjoyed myself and was able to overcome the problems with my ears. I saw a huge spotted eagle ray and a seahorse and really started to feel comfortable diving. It's fun when you are able to control yourself underwater. A deep breath in and you float up and over the reef, exhaling and you sink back down to the floor. I had so much fun that I decided to take my Advanced Open Water course as well. The Advanced course consisted of 5 'adventure' dives. The next day we took the morning boat out and the first dive was the Deep Dive. We went down to 30 metres where it started to get quite dark. We did some experiments with eggs and air bottles seeing the effect of the water pressure. At that level the pressure is 4 times that of air and your body starts to build up nitrogen bubbles so you can't stay down for too long. You also use up your air 4 times as fast and I didn't do a good job of conserving my air and I had to share my instructor's air when I ran out. For deep dives there is a spare tank hanging under the boat and I was able to use that while we waited at 5 metres for the nitrogen to dissipate. The next day we did a navigation dive and used compasses to navigate underwater. Later that day we did a night dive which we explored the underwater only using flashlight. There were lots of fish with really big eyes and I saw a blue Moray Eel as well. The next day I did the last two dives and I was alone in the class because the others had done their dives earlier. The fourth dive was a Wreck Dive and we went down to 30 metres again to explore a sunken wreck. It was a cargo ship that was sunk to create a reef and it was pretty big. It was already almost completely covered in coral and there were a number of big fish hanging out in the boat. The last dive I did for the advanced course was the Buoyancy Dive. This was my choice because I wanted to practice floating correctly so I could move through the water with ease. After this dive I had finished my Advanced course and I now can dive to 30 metres and have much more freedom where I can dive.

The next day I got two more complimentary dives and this time we saw a sea turtle. It was just a small turtle but we got to follow it for about 15 minutes as it swam through the coral and nibbled on little bits of food here and there. The second dive we saw a big barracuda and another spotted eagle ray. After finishing these dives I had done 13 dives in 6 days and my ears were glad for a rest. Coincidentally, that night the dive center was having a party for two recently graduated divemasters and I could pretend they were celebrating my achievement as well. Everybody staying there got on the boat and we cruised around the bay for a sunset tour. When we got back they had prepared a huge pot of the local fish soup which was excellent and there was night beach volleyball and plenty of music for the rest of the night.

Back to Canada III

After climbing Volcano Tajumulco we decided it was time to leave Xela. We spent most of the day on a bus. From Xela we took a bus to Santa Cruz de Quiche. Then we took a minibus to the town of Uspatlan. We tried to catch another minibus to Coban but we missed it and had to wait around for an hour and a half for the next one. The bus went through a beautiful river valley with steep cliffs on either side and the road was excellent. Eventually we came to a long lineup for construction. We were warned we would have to wait up to an hour but luckily we were let through almost instantly. The bus directly in front of us was the same one that we had just missed an hour and a half ago. The road now degenerated into a dusty road as machines worked alongside the road chipping off pieces of the cliff making it wider. At some points the bus was forced right to the edge of the cliff on a narrow road. We made it to Coban safely however and planned to explore some of the caves and waterfalls in the area.

The first place in Coban we went to was the nearby caves Rey Marcos. Getting there consisted of a couple of quick minibus rides and a fifteen minute walk. We were the only visitors there but we were greeted by a friendly guide who gave us helmets, headlights and boots. It was a steep uphill walk to the caves and they were initially very tight. Luckily for my claustrophobia the caves eventually opened up and we arrived at an underground stream that we had to wade up. We came to rooms of stalagtites and stalagmites beautifully formed from limestone. The guide stopped us in one rooms and said we had to turn back but he mentioned that the cave system continued for miles into the earth. The final room was considered sacred to the Mayans so we turned out our lights and sat in silence in the total darkness. I kept waiting for my eyes to adjust to the darkness but they never did. It was a fascinating few minutes but I was glad to get back to the light.

After returning to Coban we took another beautiful winding road through the mountains to the town of Lanquin. We checked into to the hostel where we took the last two hammocks in the place. The next morning we signed up for a tour and were taken on the back of a pickup to Semuc Champey, a series of caves and pools. We started in the cave and we were only given candles. The caves were a series of deep pools that we waded chest deep through most of them. At one point you could scramble up a rope and the last stretch involved about 50 meters of swimming. It was difficult swimming while holding a candle especially since one shoe kept trying to fall off but I managed. Anybody who dunked their candle were quickly relit by the others. The last pool we reached was quite deep and we were allowed to scramble up the side of the cave and jump in. Directly outside the cave was a river and we took a huge rope swing and jumped into the water. My technique was poor, resulting in an impressive face plant. We spent the next half hour slowly floating down the calm river in inner tubes. After we got out we had an opportunity to jump off the bridge. It was at least 30 feet up and being the first person to jump meant that I had to trust the guide's advice on where to land. Luckily it was deep enough. The next part of the tour involved the pools. These were amazingly green limestone pools that form a bridge over a raging river that is forced underground for about 500 meters. We climbed to a lookout and had a great views of the 5 or 6 green step-like pools, the white limestone cliffs and the river pouring through the valley. Where the river entered the cave was particularly dangerous because there was no way to avoid being sucked under if you fell. The pools themselves were fantastic for swimming and you could dive from one pool to the next. The guide took us down a rope ladder to the last ledge where you could jump about 40 feet into the emerging river below. When we returned to the hostel I walked to the nearby Lanquin Caves, yet another group of caves. I got there at sunset just in time to see tens of thousands of bats pouring out of the caves. It was one of the most enjoyable days of the trip.

The next day was very relaxed as we went on a two hour inner tube ride through small rapids and I played volleyball most of the afternoon. The evening meal at the hostel was an all you can eat Italian buffet so I stuffed myself with as much pizza and pasta as I could. We left Lanquin the next day and headed north. We stopped at the Candelaria Caves for one last caving experience. The entire north of Guatemala is limestone and riddled with caves. These particular caves are one of the largest but also relatively unknown. Many of the older people we met didn't speak Spanish and our guides for the trip were three kids. We took inner tubes about 30 minutes down to the river and the current took us directly into a cave. These caves had massive ceilings and once and a while light would shine down, eerily lighting the cave and water. Eventually we emerged back into the sunlight and our guides took us on a walking tour of the caves. Most of them were huge cathedral-like caves and many times I felt like I was on a movie set. After the tour we took another minibus to the town of Sayaxche for the night.

The next morning we decided to go to the Mayan ruins of El Ceibal. It involved an 8 km walk in the tropical heat but the price, free, was right. The ruins were only partially excavated but there was almost nobody there and it was interesting hiking through the deep jungle and stumbling across an excavated temple or astronomical observatory. The clouds of mosquitoes, however, reminded us that we weren't in the mountains anymore and we should get some more repellent. When we were ready to leave we were lucky enough to meet a Guatemalan family who gave us a ride back out of the park. We headed to the town of Flores for the night. Flores is a pretty town located on an small island in a lake in northern Guatemala. It is the base most people use for visiting the Mayan ruins of Tikal.

We hung out in Flores for the morning and then caught a shuttle bus to Tikal. We bought an entry ticket after 3pm which meant that the ticket was good for the next day as well. The Tikal Ruins have five massive temples which were all built within a century. The first two temples face each directly east and west in the center plaza and there are other large structures north and south. If you clap directly in the center of the plaza the echo sounds like the quetzal bird's call. Temple 3 and Temple 4 are to the west of the plaza and face it and Temple 5 is to the south and also faces the main plaza. Temple 4 is the biggest and at 63 meters it is a very popular place to watch the sunset and the sunrise over the other temples. The entire area around Tikal is a huge national park and Tikal is filled with jungle animals and birds. We saw many spider monkeys, coatimundis, agoutis, toucans, parrots and two big birds, the ocellated turkey and the crested guan. After exploring some of the park we climbed Temple 4 and watched the sun set over Northern Guatemala. We were kicked out of the park when it got dark and arranged to set our hammocks up in the camping site outside of the park. We were planning to get up at 5am to watch the sunrise but it was cloudy so we slept in. I got up at 6am when it got light and went in. Everybody else was up on Temple 4 so I had the park to myself. The birds were out in force and there was chirping, chattering and cawing everywhere. At one point there was a crested guan and a toucan having a loud, agressive discussion. It was very awe-inspiring to be walking among these huge monuments listening to the jungle waking up. After leaving the park we got into a pick-up game of soccer with some of the shuttle drivers that were waiting around and then headed back to Flores.

We headed south to the town of Rio Dulce for the night. The town is near the small Caribbean shore of Guatemala and is a transportation crossroad with both a heavily used river to the Caribbean and the main highway between Guatemala and Tikal. In the morning we headed to some limestone pools nearby. Getting there involved a combination of hitch-hiking, minibusing and an hour of walking. The pools were the familiar limestone green and the waterfalls were truly impressive including a huge 40 foot one. There was an excellent ledge for jumping here and we spent most of our time jumping and diving into the pool. The park was off the tourist track and we had the park to ourselves for the entire day. Returning the same way we ran into a full minibus and we had to sit on the roof of the bus to get our ride.

The next day we took a boat down the river Rio Dulce to the Caribbean coast and the town of Livingston. The river was wide and very calm and there were 100 foot limestone cliffs before we reached the Caribbean. It was the first time on the Caribbean on this trip but we plan to stay on it for the next few weeks. The town had no roads and was focused on the water. It appeared to be a popular stop for yachts sailing around the Caribbean and was full of good restaurants. We left on a boat the next day for Puerto Barrios, the only Caribbean port Guatemala has. From there we got a bus to the Honduran border and stopped at the beach town of Omoa. It was still early in the day so we hiked a couple of kilometers to a nearby waterfall, which was pretty but not very clean. After I visited the restored fort in the town. It was built by the Spaniards to protect the gold route but it took a long time to finish. It was captured often by pirates, the final time in 1820 but is carefully restored and interesting to explore.

Back to Canada II

We left El Salvador by heading up the Pacific Coast to Guatemala. The views from the cliffs were impressive and the road was surprisingly good compared to what I was used to in Costa Rica. In Guatemala we headed to Antigua, the old capital of Guatemala. It is by far the most popular city with tourists in Guatemala and probably all of Central America. The first day I arrived I went to a local club were the had a live salsa band. The drummer and singer was one of the surviving members of the Buena Vista Social Club in Cuba and the music was excellent. The next day I went up Volcano Pacaya. The volcano is quite active right now and we weren't allowed to climb all the way to the top but they did allow us to go on the lava fields. There were lots of pockets of glowing red lava that you could walk right up to as long as you could stand the heat. You could look down cracks in the rocks and see the glowing red as well. Some of the rocks we were walking on were molten lava the day before and in many places you had to move quickly to avoid melting the bottom of your shoes. The soles of my shoes had melted bits of rocks in them and the middle had started to crack but they held together.

The next day we decided to try a more challenging hike and climbed the Volcan de Agua, the volcano that towers above Antigua. It is 3750 meters or more than 12,000 feet and is almost as high as Chirripó in Costa Rica. It is named volcano of water because it once held a lake in the crater and the water broke out and destroyed the city. Now however it is completely dry and there is a soccer field in the base of the crater. We climbed with an Australian staying in our hostel and we started from the town of Santa Maria, about 30 minutes from Antigua. It was a completely Mayan town where the first language is the local Mayan language and the children don't learn Spanish until school. The trail led up through fields on the slope where we met numerous pack horses making their way down the mountain. After four hours of hiking we arrived at the summit. The view was cloudy but we could sometimes make out Antigua or Santa Maria. There was a bunch of radio towers on the peak and we ran into a technician fixing one of them who offered us a ride back to Antigua when we got back down the mountain. His job involved traveling all over Guatemala fixing different problems and it usually involved trekking through forest or jungle to get to the machinery.

The next day we left Antigua. We headed to Guatemala City first and quickly took in the central park and other sites before heading to Lake Atitlan. There was a lot of construction on the road and despite our bus drivers best attempts to pass everything when at all possible the trip took a long time. We finally arrived at the lake just after dark and took a ferry across the lake to San Pedro. It was a full moon and there was a night time party on the shores of the lake in the moonlight. Lake Atitlan is a clean clear lake surrounded by mountains and volcanoes. It is very beautiful. The next dayI decided to climb the San Pedro Volcano which looms above the town. The volcano is located in a national park and is about 3000 m high. It was a steep climb up and much of the trail consisted of stairs built into the side of the mountain. The trail wound through fields of coffee, corn and beans before entering the cloud forest at the top. The peak, however, was also covered in clouds and there was no view of the lake except at the beginning and end of the trip. Coming down was much easier as gravity did most of the work as we ran down. We hung out in the town another day with people we had met in the town before heading out on Wednesday.

We took the bus to Xela, the second biggest city in Guatemala, where we were planning to organize a trip up to Volcan Tajumulco. We had decided to do the trek with a group called Quetzaltrekkers. They are a group of volunteers that provide organized treks to different parts of Guatemala and Nicaragua. All the proceeds from these treks are put into different organizations. In Guatemala the proceeds went to organizations that help street kids get an education and try to get off the streets. We found Quetzaltrekkers and signed up for the weekly trip up Tajumulco on Saturday. We had two extra days before the trek so we went to the nearby hot springs in Fuente Georginas. They were high up in a cloud forest 45 minutes from the city where the hot water oozed out of the cliff walls. The deep green mineral stained water was collected in a series of pools that gradually got cooler as they drained down. The location was very beautiful and the water was more than hot enough to ignore the chilly temperature of the air. Xela is at 2300m (7500ft) and is quite chilly at night and the hot springs are even higher and cooler. The next day I went to the markets at San Francisco which is the second biggest market in the country. Almost all the streets were filled with hundreds of stands selling all kinds of products. The only streets that were empty of stands were a loop for cars and buses to arrive. The bus that I took to and from San Francisco was packed with people and the goods they were trying to sell. That night there was a meeting with Queztaltrekkers to determine what equipment to bring. I decided to borrow a winter coat, a toque, a sleeping mat and a bigger backpack to take with me. I was also given a tent to carry as my share of the load. There were 15 signed up for the trip so the individual loads were smaller.

The next day we had to get up at 4am to join the trek. Unfortunately Greg had come down with a flu overnight and the first thing he did after waking up was vomit. However he was determined to do the trek so he came anyway. The group of us got on a local bus with all of our stuff and headed two hours to the town of San Marcos. We had breakfast there and then got on another bus to the foot of Tajumulco. The start of our trek was 3000 meters in altitude. We hiked all morning up the volcano enjoying an excellent view of the surrounding countryside. We stopped for lunch at the halfway point. Greg was still really sick and was vomitting the whole way up the mountain but he was determined to get up to the top so he continued to climb slowly at the back of the pack. We reached our camp at around 4:00 pm at 4000 meters. We set up the four tents and the rest of the camp. There was a short optional hike up a smaller peak to see the sunset. The clouds had moved in a bit and the sun was setting behind Tajumulco but the colours were amazing and we watched the lights slowly turn on in the villages and towns all around the volcano. We returned to camp just in time to eat a filling pasta dinner. We all got to bed early to prepare for the summit the next day.

The guides woke us up the next morning at 3:30am. I had managed to keep myself warm enough in the frigid night but I had trouble sleeping due to trouble adjusting to the altitude so I was happy to get up and get going. We brought our warm clothes and headed up the rocky summit. It was only about an hour of scrambling until we reached the peak, 4220m (13 845 ft), the highest point in Central America and my new personal highest point. We got into our warm sleeping bags and watched the sun rise. There were hardly any clouds and we had a great view of Guatemala. We could see from the volcanoes of Lago Atitlan to the mountains of Mexico and the colours were amazing. The wind was bitter though, and we soon headed back down to camp. We had a big breakfast and headed back down the mountain, enjoying a great view the whole way. The guides said that this was one of the clearest days that they had seen. We were very fortunate to have such good weather as well as hiking with a really interesting and friendly group of people, both the guides and the other trek members. We ate lunch in the town at the foot of the volcano and headed back to Xela on local buses. Greg didn't eat much because he was still feeling under the weather but he had stopped vomitting and was very happy that he had made it to the top.