Volcano Ipala

It turns out the guys (the PCVs) invited me to climb Volcán Ipala, which is a volcano in the eastern part of the country, maybe about 2 hours northeast of where I live. I was running errands for the coop with my counterpart Efraín and the president Gildardo as I was making these calls. I loved Gildardo's comment - "Volcanes son para gringos," which basically means, volcanoes are for gringos. His lazy ass couldn't do it anyways. I really don't care for the guy, nor Efraín that much, but unfortunately I have to work with them, so I do my best to kill with kindness. I shouldn't say that, but oh well, this is a blog after all, and it's mine. :-P I am getting tired of always running around with them. It used to be fun at first, but they have surprised me with some pretty nasty comments - not only unprofessional but literally shocking, which sometimes leaves you thinking, I didn't even know that was possible. I think they get the hint nowadays, I just pop my headphones on and turn on my mp3 player. Works well to drown out the marimba music too!

I talked to the internet goons, thoe local Guatemalan guys who I'm working with as a 2ndary project, and they wanted to climb it too. And Selvin, one of the guys, is from the town of Ipala, so we'd have a free place to crash and we could just meet up with the PCVs on the volcano the next morning. They told me they'd be in at 1030 am to pick me up, and I ended up waiting for these guys until 6:30 pm! Talk about hora chapina (Guatemalan time). Instead of going straight to Selvin's house, we diverted and went to a town in Jalapa first so Mauricio could visit one of his girls. We left early the next morning, around 6am, taking a bus to the base of the volcano. It's not a bad hike, only takes 3 hours to reach the crater, but maybe a bit steep. We climbed up, and the guys (the PCVs) got there a bit after us and still beat us. Calin and I had to wait for Selvin and Mauricio - Mauricio was huffing and puffing and struggling; he's definitely out of shape, even moreso than me. Since I was with these guys, and maybe with a little help with my slightly improving accent and a litlte facial hair, they didn't think I was a gringo, and was only charged a measly 5 Quetzales (less than $1) to enter the park instead of the Gringo rate of 25 Quetzales (more than $3). :)

The crater has a lake in it, and supposedly it's really deep. We got to the lake, and it was seriously cold and windy. The clouds tend to hang out on the upper parts of the volcano making it like a very humid and unfortunately, slippery forest. Yes, I ate it once. After hiking up to part of the upper rim, we went back to the crater lake to go for a swim. The water was COLD! Otra aventura! A random group of Guatemalan girls cheered us on and the internet goons made sure we stopped by to say hi afterwards.

Here are the pics