acatenango

Volcan Acatenango, Guatemala - 19.07.2021

Sleeping is no longer an option so I’m writing instead. My fingers are numb from the cold and I can hardly feel the pen through these thick gloves, but I’m eager to get something down before our guide comes in to wake us up in about three hours.

Nobody else has managed to fall asleep. The Canadian couple are still sitting in silence, scrolling through their phones. Leo – the French guy who sat next to me on the bus – has teamed up with the American girl – who’s name I can’t remember for the life of me – to share a sleeping bag in order to “keep warm”. I can hear them keeping warm about an arms length away from me. I wish they’d just go outside and fuck and be done with it, instead of infecting our ears with this awful rustling and smooching. We’re all strangers here, what’s the point in pretending not to cross the lines of social acceptability?

I haven’t seen the sixth member of our group for a while. Shame. He seemed to be the most interesting one of the lot. He didn’t say a word the whole trip, but he had a calming face. I think he was German. He must have turned back on the way here. Nobody’s mentioned him or seems worried about him so I suppose he’s fine. I won’t ask anyway, I don’t need to know where he is.

I’m going to go and see if I’ll be any warmer outside, I hear laughter over the aggressive ffht ffht ffht noise coming from the tent’s fabric slapping itself with the wind. The fire must still be going.

Our guides are the only ones still out here. They haven’t stopped drinking coffee and smoking cigarettes since they made it to base camp about six hours ago. I see now that they’ve moved on to strong alcohol. Funny how they waited until we all went to bed to break out the booze. Makes sense, the last thing they want is a bunch of drunk tourists stumbling around on the side of a mountain, or even worse, a bunch of drunk tourists drinking up all their reserves. There aren’t any shops up here. No refills.

These are not going to sleep tonight, I realise that now. They’re going to guide us to the summit tomorrow, fuelled only by caffeine, nicotine and Quezalteca. These men are champions.

Gabriel and Pedro are speaking to each other in their local Guatemalan dialect. I know they speak Spanish too but they don’t want me to be part of their conversation anymore. Gabriel poured me a drink and made a point of saying that they were happy to have me out there with them, but I don’t believe them. The light of the fire dancing on their leathery, sun-assaulted faces shows enough to tell me that they mean well, they’re just not up for the usual shit-chat that comes along with entertaining gringos around the fire. I get it. They guide this hike four times a week, and probably deal with thousands of backpackers a year. They have no interest in me. That's fine. I’m happy to just sit here and write…

Our camp consists of one tent which I can hardly see now because the light of the fire doesn’t reach far enough into the abyss to bounce off its moss-covered fabric walls. It’s half the size of a tennis court and insulated as if it were made of a single layer of cling film. It does keep the wind away but that awful ffht ffht ffht flapping sound is enough to make you wish that the walls didn’t exist at all. There are two sections within the tent, divided down the middle. One half is where we keep our bags and shoes. The other is completely filled with crash mats that look like they were stolen straight from my primary school’s gym, and used to plough the side of the mountain as they were dragged up here. There were a few sleeping bags lying around the crash mats when we first entered the tent, indicating that this collection of gymnastics equipment would be our communal mattress for the night. Can’t complain. I’ve slept in hostels that were less accommodating, far more expensive, and a lot better located than on the side of a cliff.

I don’t like it in that tent. Stepping through the flap feels like entering some sort of deranged, experimental nightclub. One that truly enforces a no-drug policy and a no-telling-the-time policy, keeping you painfully sober and equally delirious. The club is kept in complete darkness, with the exception of intense flashes of bright orange light that imprint snapshots of reality into your mind like a camera onto film at inconsistent fifteen-minute intervals, then leaving you stranded again in a bout of delirious darkness. The music is an overwhelming ffht ffht ffht sound, that has no pattern or rhythm to it and stimulates your fight-or-flight response, due to its unpredictable and inescapable nature. The only break from this flapping is the deafening bang that follows each flash of light, a surrogate bass line that shakes the earth and gorilla-thumps your ribcage. For a few moments after that bang, you hardly notice the flapping because your body is too busy dealing with the shock. Those are the only moments of reprieve in that place. No wonder nobody interacts with the others in that tent, nobody laughs in there and few words are spoken, but never at more than a whisper. It’s impossible to think straight and have an enjoyable experience in a place like that.

I’m far more comfortable out here. The fire is keeping me warmer than the cigarette-paper-thin tent walls, I don’t have to be in the presence of the other miserable members of my group and I’m finally starting to feel the effects of the Quetzalteca. The flashes of light and inevitable bangs that follow are still present, but I can enjoy them now that the ffht sound has been left back at the tent.

Acatenango is the name of the volcano that I’m currently camping on. Thirteen hours ago, I said adios to the bus driver, collected my belongings from the belly of the bus and began putting one foot in front of the other, giddy with the thought of spending the next six hours on a steep upward incline to test the limits of my legs and my lungs. It was the most incredible hike I’ve ever done.

This volcano hasn’t erupted since 1975. The chances of it erupting tonight – while I’m marvelling at its hospitable beauty – are pretty slim, but not impossible. It would be unfortunate if this does happen to be my last piece of writing, but what a noble death that would be.

Our volcanic neighbour, El Fuego, has erupted twice since I sat down by the fire.

If I had carried a guitar up with me and began to play One More Cup of Coffee on repeat, the black sky would turn amber, approximately every third time I ran through the song. Every ninth time I’d sing the chorus, I’d see boulders being flung towards the camp like marbles, smoke being spat into the sky like a puff mushroom releasing its spores, and lava slowly but violently filling up the valley below, like a vat of liquid tar. It’s a bloody warzone here. The centre of the earth is battling to claim a piece of the sky for itself. Catapulting everything it can with confidence in its ability to make a dent in the heavens. A drop of water every fifteen minutes will erode anything, given enough time. This is the war strategy at play here.

I've been at basecamp for over eight hours and I thought I’d be comfortable with the bangs by now. Clearly not. I’m starting to think I’ll never get used to them. This must be why the guides don’t bother sleeping, they know that the human body is not designed to rest in a situation like this. Loud noises and flashing lights are a sign of danger. The nervous system kicks into action, your amygdala and adrenal glands bounce you back and forth between fight or flight and sleep or die… There’s no time for anything in between. This combination of exhaustion and forced alertness has left me feeling like a crack addict on the dilapidated tail-end of a six day drug bender.

I think I’m hungry now for the first time in a couple of days. The guide company said they’d feed us so I didn’t bring any of my own food. As we were getting off the bus, we were all handed a bread roll, a plastic container of plain spaghetti, a couple of corn tortillas and an apple. I’ve already gone through it all – bar the apple, which will be breakfast – and I’m already starting to wish I had brought something extra. A little snack, or a treat maybe. A granola bar would’ve been perfect.

Shortly after we arrived at our camp, Gabriel reached deep into his backpack and pulled out a ziplock bag that was filled with about a kilo of tomato sauce. He poured it all out into a kettle that was hanging over the fire, lit a cigarette, picked up a branch off the ground, cleared the leaves and mud off it, then used it to stir the sauce. I don’t think they went to the expense of adding any salt, pepper or spices, or anything other than tomato to that sauce, because it just tasted like water, but it did warm up the spaghetti and moisten the bread so I can’t complain. I’ve definitely had worse meals.

I promised myself I wouldn’t smoke up here, on account of the altitude, the thin levels of oxygen and the functioning lungs that are required to complete the hike. But I wouldn’t mind a bit of nicotine to suppress my appetite. I purposefully left my cigarettes back in the hostel, knowing that I don’t like to rob smokes off people and in the hopes that I’d take a couple of days to enjoy the freedom that comes along with a proper lung capacity. Maybe not though. What’s the point in restraining myself like this and sitting in this agony? I’m young, I enjoy a smoke, so what?

Gabriel gave me a cigarette. He didn’t seem too pleased about it, but I know he’ll get over it. I chanced my arm and asked for another drop of Quetzalteca as well. He filled up my cup. I lit the cigarette off a protruding branch that had a little flame at the end of it, burning my hand in the attempt. Sticking my hand into the open fire seemed like a better option than asking Gabriel to borrow a lighter as well. I’m sitting back now, leaning against one of the big rotting wooden posts that are holding up this makeshift shelter. Sipping away, smoking away. El Fuego just blew its top off again. I’m comfortable now, calm. Maybe everything isn’t as bad as it seems.

I only started smoking again in the past few months after spending some time with a girl who enjoyed the odd cigarette. Every couple of evenings we would sit out in whatever hammocks we could find and smoke away. It was our romantic ritual. I started smoking more once she went back to the states. It was tough to have to say goodbye. I haven’t felt hungry at all since we said goodbye.