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Every challenge is an opportunity to learn and grow.

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Risk vs. Benefit…no this is not a business post ;)

So part of day 1 (aka my initiation to the Guatemala trip) as planned by the evil Jessica and Alima, was a midnight hike up the Santa Maria Volcano.

This by far was THE most challenging adventure of my entire trip in Guatemala…..and the most rewarding.

Being the beautiful sales people that they are, Jess and Alima positioned it as a nice hike up the volcano, we’ll get to the top for sunrise and then come back down. Sweet, sounds quite lovely, and a little fun since we’ll be hiking in the woods at night. I’m game for all that fun stuff!

So off to Xela (real name is Quetzaltenango) we go to embark on our journey. We are not staying overnight in Xela so we have packed our multiple layers for the hike in various garbage bags and backpacks for the trip. In short we look like hobos.

After killing a few hours in the town and attempting to nap on some hostel couches since we weren’t paying for a room (in the meantime having a giggling fit and getting in trouble by the hostel owner) we stepped outside to wait for our ride to the base of the volcano….and the adventure begins.

We were waiting outside the hostel, watching vehicles pass, dressed like it was winter in the arctic when a car pulls up windows blacked out and says “Get in”. WHOA there dude, one second, who are you!!?

The driver explains that he is our shuttle to the mountain, I was a bit weirded out but we got in (it’s Guatemala they don’t have fancy vehicles for tour groups all the time.) As we drove into a remote area of town he explained that the windows were blacked out for the rain! I began planning our escape and was ready to book it as soon as the car stopped! Turns out though, it was legit and we met at the base of the volcano with our guide Edgar and his little dog Pinta.

So we begin our hike at 12am on July 3rd, 2010 and immediately I can tell this is gonna be no walk in the park. This is rough, uneven, steep and crazy terrain that we are hiking with our little headlamps! All you can do is look at your feet and occasionally glance up at the person ahead of you. We have NO idea where we are and where we are going and we’re getting whopped already and it hasn’t even been an hour!

We keep pushing forward with various obscenities spewing from our, well mostly my, mouth and we push on through the night. I can’t count how many times I thought, “this is absolutely insane, what was I thinking”…..and that was before I got sick.

Yes ladies and gentlemen I somehow managed to get altitude sickness! It happened probably about 4.5 hours into the hike, but I thought I was just being a wimp and we kept on going and going and going (I’m an A type lol). We hiked on until at about 5.5 hours I could go no further, I had been crawling on my hands and knees for the past 20 minutes and my body had enough! We stopped on a ledge about 15 minutes from the peak :’(

I managed to muster up the strength to drink my tea and then I laid down to rest until the sun rose….

That’s where it was all worth it. The sun began to rise and it’s like we were in heaven! We were above the clouds and could see the peaks of other volcanoes and it was absolutely breathtaking!

It gave me some strength to stop wondering if Guatemala had hospital helicopters and to get up off my butt and head back down to discover even more beauty! And rediscovering the path we took up was amazing since we didn’t see any of it in the dark!

And once we were back down below the threshold for my altitude sickness it went away and I could smile again!

We met many locals on the path back and learned some new languages. We arrived back at the base at 10am as scheduled and we gave Edgar big hugs for dealing with three crazy girls all night long. This was an experience I never thought I could finish and that I will never forget! We all pushed through and the reward was the most amazing sight I’ve ever had the advantage to look upon with two of the most amazing women I could possibly wish to travel with. I am eternally grateful.

P.S. That’s the volcano in the background.

Always living with passion,

Sammie