Pacaya!

Oh yes, I can say I did it! I climbed a volcano!! - An erupting and active one at that. How cool is that? :D

Waking up at 5:45am to get there wasn't that fun, but still, a good hike, an awesome experience, fun company too...it was so worth it. (Went with the teen excursion the JT board pulled together. GBT!) I ended up hanging out with Team #1 (the faster team) with all the Junior Teen boys. HA! So fun though, and it was rather flattering that I managed to keep up.

I must have coughed my heart out with the gasses coming out - but the best part was to watch the volcano spewing lava out. We didn't get too close as, duh, it was erupting, but we were about 50 meters away from the mouth of the erupting tip...it would spew out the lava to the point that the guides had to evacuate us for a bit as it was getting too close to the tourists. Heh! ("Now don't panic...just leave!") They let us go back after, and we saw the lava rock strewn around where we were, so obviously it got rather active, and its good they moved us, but yeah...quite cool. - I enjoyed it.

The funnest part might have even been sliding down the mountain - the lava forms this gravel like rock that you struggle to climb up (literally two steps up and one down as the gravel makes you slide back), but going down is like snowboarding down. I've never snowboarded, but it sure felt like I was. I honestly couldn't stop myself...so fun!

I didn't take any pics as I didn't have a camera (one of those times when I feel like asking for a sponsor) but I'm throwing in a couple shots of the volcano that I found online. - So you can get an idea. And for more info, here's a site that talks about Pacaya. - They confirm sliding down is probably the funnest. HA! (I thought that was funny.)

We then went to the Lagune that was at the tip but...well, no offence, but that water stunk. Sulfur, I guess, though hey, some of our teen boys jumped in. I was rather relieved to not be a teen anymore, I know I would have been the first in just to prove how "cool" I was when their age. - Aye-aye-aye. Thank God I've grown up a bit.

It was a good day though - enjoyed myself and the experience, so yeigh, another thing to add to my "been there, done that" list. ;)

Guatemala's been fun! - Definitely!