Last weekend, I learned how to make peanut butter and climbed an active volcano all within a 24 hour period! Seriously…only in Guatemala is that possible. On Saturday, after a fun filled morning of showing another group of trainees our lovely little town, a bunch of us took off for another training site to help make peanut butter. The agricultural marketing volunteers have to help their family generate some sort of income from locally grown products as a part of their training. One trainee decided to work with her family to make peanut butter and jelly so we went over to help shell peanuts and chop strawberries for their first batch. It actually turned out really good, and as peanut butter costs like $20 an ounce here (okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration…but only a bit!) I think I might take up peanut butter making as a hobby.
On Sunday, 8 of us woke up at the crack of dawn and made our way to Antigua where we loaded a bus to Volcan Pacaya. There are 33 volcanoes in Guatemala, 3 of which are active, and only 2 of which are hikeable. Pacaya is pretty close to where we are living so we decided to take our free day this week and see what it was all about.
When we got there we followed other volunteers’ advice and bought walking sticks for Q5 (about 75 cents) from these kids and made our way up the mountain. Though the hike up only took about 90 minutes, we were thankful for the sticks because the last hour consisted of sledging through a mountain of volcanic rock and ash- sliding back half a step for every step we took. There actually was one point where we got to “ski” down this huge hill that consisted totally of little tiny volcanic pebbles.
The view from the top was completely unreal! We were able to see all the way to the Pacific Ocean in one direction, and in another we could see 2 other volcanoes. There was a flowing river of lava literally 20 feet from us and cracks in the rocks we stood on revealed lava only a few feet under us! As a grand finale to the hike, we toasted marshmallows and had ourselves some s’mores!
Come visit me, I’ll take you there!
On Sunday, 8 of us woke up at the crack of dawn and made our way to Antigua where we loaded a bus to Volcan Pacaya. There are 33 volcanoes in Guatemala, 3 of which are active, and only 2 of which are hikeable. Pacaya is pretty close to where we are living so we decided to take our free day this week and see what it was all about.
When we got there we followed other volunteers’ advice and bought walking sticks for Q5 (about 75 cents) from these kids and made our way up the mountain. Though the hike up only took about 90 minutes, we were thankful for the sticks because the last hour consisted of sledging through a mountain of volcanic rock and ash- sliding back half a step for every step we took. There actually was one point where we got to “ski” down this huge hill that consisted totally of little tiny volcanic pebbles.
The view from the top was completely unreal! We were able to see all the way to the Pacific Ocean in one direction, and in another we could see 2 other volcanoes. There was a flowing river of lava literally 20 feet from us and cracks in the rocks we stood on revealed lava only a few feet under us! As a grand finale to the hike, we toasted marshmallows and had ourselves some s’mores!
Come visit me, I’ll take you there!
3 comments:
Whoa...VERY cool!
WOW! I cant even imagine! Hey we got through peanut butter like crazy! Maybe when you get home you can teach me to make it! LOL!
i'm holding you to that and looking forward to a volcano trip when i come to visit you!
Post a Comment