I watched a volcano erupt...

Today I watched a volcano erupt. Don't worry; this was a planned event. Remember earlier in the week when I said I was going to hike to a mirador (look-out point) over the weekend? Well, what I didn't tell you was that the mirador was for Santiaguito, one of the most active volcanoes in the world!

Santiaguito is located behind Santa Maria (the huge volcano that I'm always posting photos of), so I actually hiked about halfway up Santa Maria and then around the right-hand side of it. Santiaguito usually erupts about once per hour. It's connected to Santa Maria, and because it's almost constantly releasing pressure, there's little chance that Santa Maria will erupt.

I went with Monte Verde tours again and Luis was the guide again. It was just Luis and me! That was cool because that meant we could go at my pace, which included frequent breaks. But it also wasn't cool because Luis wanted to talk the entire time and the only person for him to talk to was me! We left at 5am and that's far too early in the morning for me to converse in Spanish about our countries' governments and current economic situations!

The hike was, of course, fairly crazy. In some places there were actual paths, in other places we kind of made a path. On more than one occasion I asked Luis if he knew where he was going. The high altitude made it difficult for me and a couple times I wanted to say "forget it." However, I don't remember thinking that I was going to die at any point during this hike. Oh, wait. When the Guatemalan man with the machete walked up to us, I did wonder if that was going to be the end. But he was simply on his way to work in the fields. And I think he wanted to get a closer look at the gringa climbing the volcano.
Luis had assured me that the hike started off really steep, but then became plano (flat). Well, I didn't experience much plano land! In some places the trail was muddy and in a few places it was quite slippery. I only fell once, but it was a beautiful fall. Like in the cartoons when someone steps on a banana peel and falls perfectly on their you-know-what. Other than being embarrassed, I was fine.

At one point in the trail we came to a wooden and barbed wire fence/wall. I don't know about you, but when I see a trail that's blocked off (with barbed wire!), I tend to think that I probably shouldn't cross over it. Apparently that's not the case in Guatemala.
I felt like an annoying little kid because I kept asking Luis how much further we had to go. Near the end we had to stop for a break every couple minutes. We hiked so far up that we could see the coast and the Pacific ocean! (The water is at the horizon in the photo below.)
And then, after more than two hours of hiking, there it was: Volcano Santiaguito! (It's the dark gray cone on the left.)
Luis said we'd hang around for 15-25 minutes until it erupted. So we waited. And waited. And waited. It was very quiet and peaceful. Luis actually laid down and fell asleep! It was also freezing cold. I could see my breath.
The volcano smoked several times, but an hour had gone by without an actual eruption. The whole excursion was beginning to feel fairly anticlimactic.
But then I heard a low rumbling noise like when a plane flies over your house... Santiaguito was erupting!
It was freaking amazing. I couldn't believe my eyes. And as the smoke drifted away, I heard the noise again--another eruption!
There were a total of seven back-to-back eruptions that I was able to see. Luis said that never ever happens. It's usually one or two eruptions. The heat from the volcano combined with the humid air and filled the sky with clouds. Santiaguito slowly disappeared into the clouds.
Today is Father's Day in the US and, as many of you know, my dad died a few years ago. Special days like today are still emotionally difficult for me. Since I knew I was going to be out of the country, I wanted to plan an activity on Father's Day to get my mind away from thinking about my dad, at least for a few hours. I was pretty sure watching a volcano erupt would do the trick.

But actually this excursion did just the opposite. As I stood above the clouds, I couldn't help but think that my dad would be proud of me. Not for climbing one volcano to watch another volcano erupt--heavens no; he would have thought that was insane. But he would have been proud of me for setting a goal and pushing myself to reach the goal. I'm not the slightest bit athletic, but I worked out for months so that I could do these three major hikes. And I did them all within a week! These last two pictures are for you, Dad.