I summited the "hill"

This afternoon I climbed the "hill" (or as I prefer to call it, the small mountain) called El Baul. Here are a couple photos of the hill taken from the roof of the school. I climbed up to the building that you can see near the top of the hill. (It's easier to see it in the zoomed in photo.)
I went with Luis, the guide who led the volcano hike last weekend. He wanted to practice speaking English and I wanted to climb El Baul, so we decided to exchange services. :) Because I only have an intermediate Spanish-speaking ability and Luis has a beginner-intermediate English-speaking ability, our conversation was quite entertaining. Here's an actual sample:
Luis: You like beers?
Me: Um, no.
Luis: No? You don't like beers?
Me: No, I don't like the taste.
Luis: [confused] Of beers?
Me: Right. Beer, como cerbeza, verdad?
Luis: No. Beers, like pajaros.
Me: Pajaros? Ohhhh. Birds.
Luis: Si, beards.
Me: No, birds.
Luis: Birds.
Me: Yes, birds. Si, me gusta birds.
Luis: I show you some beers...
Me: Birds
Luis: ...birds, yes, I show you some birds en El Baul
Me: Okay, cool.

I'm still laughing as I think about our conversation! A couple times we had to just be satisfied with not understanding each other. Luis is hoping to attend college for a year in the US, so he wants to improve his English. He also had lots of questions about what college like in the US and I attempted to explain a traditional US academic schedule and calendar, which is very different from la universidad in Guatemala.

So, anyway, about this climb. I actually enjoyed it more than the volcano climb. It wasn't as steep for as long as the volcano. (I only thought I was going to die for about 15 minutes this time.) And, because it wasn't quite so high, there weren't any clouds in the way of the view.

We met up in the Parque Central (a 45 minute walk for me) and I was thrilled when Luis said we were going to take a bus partway there. Well, we were only on the bus for about a mile, but that's still a mile I didn't have to walk! We walked through town for a bit and arrived at the base of the "hill."
When the trail started, it looked like this:
And then we literally hiked up through the woods for about ten minutes. Luckily, after that the whole climb was on a paved road. It wasn't too steep (well, compared to the volcano anyway) and it circled the "hill" several times.
I have to admit that I was a little annoyed when I found out that you could drive all the way up El Baul. (As in, "So, why am I hiking up it?!") However, the views as we were walking were absolutely amazing. And it was so tranquil! When we stopped to take breaks, all we heard were birds (or "beers") singing. I would have missed all of that if I had driven up.
Above my head in this photo you can see La Muela, the volcano that I climbed.
After about 1 to 1.5 hours of hiking, we reach the park at the top of the "hill."
And the view of the city of Xela was amazing!
The photo below was taken from inside of the building at the top of the "hill." (The one you can see in first two photos of this blog entry.)
We were really lucky because when we reached the top, it had only sprinkled rain on us for a few minutes. This is the rainy season in Guatemala, so it rains every afternoon. Sometimes all afternoon. We were getting ready to head back down the "hill" when another group of three Guatemalans were leaving in their pick-up truck. They asked if we wanted to ride down with them, and we gladly accepted the offer. So, I rode in the back of a pick-up truck all the way down the "hill!" Well, actually, it started pouring rain on our way down, and they squeezed the three of them into the front seat of the pick up so that Luis and I could sit in the back seat and not get wet. Then they even drove us all the way back to the Parque Central! It was incredibly kind of them and saved us about two hours of walking in the rain. It was definitely a successful climb.