Voyassitude

3:54 p.m.: My exhilaration turns into panic once I go temporarily blind. I haven’t driven a vehicle in years, so the ATV motor vibrating beneath me as I travel through Guatemalan roads has given me a rush of adrenaline I haven’t felt in a long time. But when it starts raining, the copious amounts of sunscreen I applied earlier get into my eyes. It burns like hell, but there’s nothing I can do because we’re driving uphill on a tortuous road. I honk at the tour guide ahead, trying to get his attention. I am now driving with closed eyes and holy fuck, this is scary. This is how I find out the terrible price to pay for not buying travel insurance, right? But somehow I survive the curves and trucks coming downhill until the tour guide catches my desperate signals and comes to a stop. I’m alive.

9:03 p.m.: Joy, Spyros, and Lauré. I met them ten hours ago on a walking tour. We’re now sharing drinks and anecdotes at a brewery. They’re from Brazil, Greece, and France, but we’re talking in Spanish because they’re all pros at it. Shit, I love their accents. Can I tell them that without sounding too weird? Am I drunk already? I can’t be, I’ve only had a —somewhat decent— sangría. No, it really is their exotic accents. Joy’s has a cadence produced by her native Portuguese, as if her words danced when she talks; Spyros’ accent has something methodical and solemn about it, probably the Greek legacy in it. It carries some Portuguese notions to it, surely a courtesy from Joy, his girlfriend. As for Lauré’s, her accent has almost lost all traces of French; it really is a masterful Spanish. But then she throws out words like Dijon or Macron, and the French language lover inside me feels tingly. I want them to talk all night. I might not be drunk with alcohol, but I am tipsily delighted at meeting new people from such wonderful nations.

4:01 a.m.: I haven’t slept very well. I’ve been up since 3 a.m., dozing on and off without getting some much-needed rest. Suddenly, the windows from the hostel clatter and my capsule bed is shaken. A small tremor has rattled Antigua. Ten, twenty seconds at most. Not powerful enough to wake me up had I been asleep, but of course I was up. Surely this isn’t a bad omen ahead of the volcano climb I’m doing soon, right? Nothing like a 4.1 magnitude quake in the middle of the night to make you fall asleep easier, said no one ever.

11:02 a.m.: Why the fuck did I sign up for this? We just reached the first of seven stops throughout the climb, but I’m already out of breath, strength, and probably soul. My bag is as heavy as my doubts about this mad endeavor, but I’m too stubborn to back down now. Too competitive. Plus, I don’t have 400 quetzals for the taxi to take me back to Antigua. I must keep going.

2:16 p.m.: Downpour after lunch. Every inch of my body is soaking wet (that’s an awkward way to put it but okay.) Some of us are taking cover in some sort of empty booth. Even a few dogs are cramped with us, and theirs is not the smell of roses. Another hiker arrives but this place is full, so he goes to another refuge some ten meters uphill. He doesn’t come back, so he must be okay there, I assume. Shall I make a run for it? I do it, I go there hoping to find more space and fewer acrid odors. But what do I find? This booth is an open restroom. The hiker is casually standing next to the toilet as a putrid stench hits me. That’s no bathroom, that’s an entrance to hell.

5:33 p.m.: The consensus among hikers after arriving to camp base is that this agency tour sucks. For many reasons. But all is forgotten when we see the first Fuego Volcano eruption. A huge column of ash rises in the distance, majestic and dramatic, distinguishable despite the cloudy skies behind. Cheers erupt from our camp base and others along the mountain. This is it. This is why we climbed, and the volcano is now delivering a one-of-a-kind spectacle.

6:45 p.m.: There have been at least four more eruptions in the past hour, though lava has been difficult to spot. It’s dark now, and clouds have covered the volcano anyway. Attention turns to a more modest show: the one provided by a fire built by our tour guides. It’s warming anything from bare skin to wet shoes and, shortly after, our dinner as well. I’m shivering. I have no dry socks. I like everyone in my group but I silently pray they all fuck off for a minute so that I can have the fire all to myself.

9:24 p.m.: I’m a burrito the moment he asks if I heard that. I cover myself entirely, losing comfort and flexibility because, sure enough, I just heard the scratches of tiny legs running around me, which means that fucking rats got inside. It’s a tent I’m sharing with a Panamanian man whose snoring is more thunderous than the volcano itself. I’m cold, I’m uncomfortable, and my socks are still wet. But the widest, stupidest grin remains on my lips because I just saw a volcano erupt ten minutes ago. Yes, lava included, flowing in an incandescent exhibition that awes the spirit. That’s all I’d asked for; that’s a dream come true. Now, let the nightmare continue in the company of sneaky rats and snoring Panamanians.