El Volcan Agua, a story from the past.

El Volcan Agua taken form Cerro de la Cruz, Antigua, Guatemala

We have had two world travelers staying with us these past few days. As we have sat around swapping travel stories, (mine don't even come close to comparing with theirs), a story came to mind that I hadn't thought of in years.

Being a true storyteller and keeping in mind that many years have passed, I tell you the story as I remember it.

1981 Antigua, Guatemala.

I was seventeen and had been in Antigua long enough to begin to pick up on Spanish pretty well. One of the things I loved to do was to sit in Antigua's central park. Back then the Kaqchikel Mayan women were allowed to sell their weaving in the park, (now they can only vend from the market area) and I became acquainted with a little Mayan maiden by the name of Rosita. It was a very innocent and platonic friendship, but we passed many hours together along with her mother and her several siblings.

One day Rosita asked her mother, Maria, if she could invite me to their house for coffee. Maria agreed, the only stipulation being that she would be there too. So one afternoon I caught a chicken bus to San Antonio Aguas Calientes, a small village 5 or 6 miles outside of Antigua. Their home wasn't much, just bamboo walls and a thatched roof, but it was a nice home. Rosita met me at the door, invited me in and very politely offered me coffee which she had just brewed over the open fire. I, not wanting to offend her, just as politely accepted the coffee. Surely it would be okay as coffee is always boiled, right? Wrong! I knew I was in trouble as soon as I took my first sip of the lukewarm brew. Gallantly I drank it to the bottom, complementing her on the flavor and her hospitality.

That night was a night to be remembered. I have never been so sick. Seated on the commode for hours, afraid I was going to die, afraid I wouldn't. We, thankfully, were staying at the home of a doctor and I can still remember him coming into the bathroom with a needle somewhere around a foot long. The serum entering my hip burned and he must of also hit my hip bone because I couldn't walk without limping for a week. I felt like Jacob must have felt after wrestling with the angel all night...gimpy and worn out. Anyway, whatever was in the shot worked. It dried up my stomach, dried up my intestines and dried up my skin so badly that it started peeling and flaking.

Two days after this I climbed El Volcan Agua, the extinct volcano which overshadows Antigua. The volcano received it's name Agua, which in Spanish means "water", because centuries ago the crater had once been filled with water which had formed a sizable lagoon. On September the 10th, 1541, one wall of the crater broke away and the water from the lagoon surged down the mountain and swept away the then capital of Guatemala,  Ciudad Vieja.  Rising to the height of 12, 340 ft above sea level, Agua is a sight to behold.

My brother and I and several friends had made plans a week before to climb the volcano the following Saturday. I decided that rather than cancel the climb, and even though I was still weak and very thin, we'd go ahead and attempt it.

We drove to Santa Maria de Jesus, a village far up the side of the volcano, and picked up the trail there. The trail zig-zagged and switched back up the volcano through fields of corn and coffee until those gave way to barren rocky slopes far above the tree line. It was then that my recent illness combined with the altitude began to take it's toll on me.

I was determined to make it to the top despite the fact that it felt as though my heart was going burst, my lungs explode and the pounding in my ears was so intense I was pretty sure you could have seen them pulsating with every exaggerated beat of my heart. Step by slow excruciating step I made my way to the top, and as I vividly remember it, I reached the rim, the broken off part of the crater and threw myself over the edge and down into the hollow of the crater below. Laying there on my stomach for several minutes, gasping for air, sweat pouring from my body, waiting for the pounding in my head to subside, thankful that I had made it to the top without dying, I lifted my head to find that I had prostrated myself before the Virgin Mary who had been ensconced in a small shrine someone, many years ago, had built inside the crater.

A blurry photo taken of the shrine inside the crater of Agua. (photo owner unknown)

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