One of the side trips that was offered while we were in Antigua was to climb up to near the summit of one of the local volcanoes. We had an early morning start, with our guides meeting us with our shuttle bus at the front of our hotel. Steve was a little amazed to notice that our guide, while directing everyone on to the bus, put on a gun belt (with bullets) and pulled out a sawn off shotgutn from under his seat. (mmm!!).
The trip to the start of our walk took about an hour. Once our two small vans had arrived we were offered the option of riding horses for part of the way, which a couple of the group did and a small boy was selling sticks for $1 US to help us on our walk up and up. One of the group enquired on the reason for the gun, and we were advised by the guide (with a very sly grin), that he was going to do some rabbit shooting. No actually, over the recent months some tourist groups had been target by local insurgents and robbed!! Nice to know.
We started our slow ascent up, and up!!! it was quite a walk but the views were really something. On either side of us we could see volcanoes. The one that we were climbing, had erupted in March of 2010, and the eruption was so strong that it blew the cone out of the top of the volcano. Hence, the V shape at the top of the volcano. The first part of the trip was walking up on sandy ground, however soon we came to the lava fields and walking on this was a different matter. The scenerey changed from the green farm land to that of a lunar scape.
As you can imagine, I had the camera out snapping away, and as we crossed a section that was quite flat, I stepped on a chuck dry lava!! yes !! with no style at all!! smash I was on the ground (well the very rough and sharp lava). Somehow, I managed to hold the camera up and save it from the similar fate that it had experienced in my previous fall. However, I coudln't say the same for my hand and elbow, nice grazes, plus a bump on the head. (so embarassing!!). Dr Steve soon same to my rescue and with some good old teatree oil and some bandaids from another member of the group I was all patched up. Just in time to see everyone, cooking toast and roasting marshmallows over one of the volcano vents.
In all the trip was very interesting and as one of the guides advised me it was a once in a life time experience. I made great friends with this guide, and we managed to have a long conversation, which was a mix of spanish and sign language. He told me stories of the area and previous eruptions and of local old wise men who can predict when the next eruption is going to be. He was such a cute little man, and I think he was happy to have someone who knew a tiny bit of spanish to chat with.
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