Let’s climb a volcano!
A week before I came back to the states, some strange man on a motorcycle, wearing a helmet (and thus concealing his face) showed up at my house late at night and asked me if I wanted to go hike Volcan Baru with them the next day. I said “Yeah, great!” and then he said “Ok, we’ll be here at four” and then took off. I walked back in the house and then said to myself “Wait a minute. Does he mean 4am or 4pm?” To clarify, there are two ways to climb Volcan Baru. One trail starts in Volcan and the other begins in Boquete. From Boquete it’s not uncommon for people to begin the hike at night to make it to the top of the mountain for sunrise. It’s not common to do so from Volcan because the hike is longer and the trail is not as clearly marked, making it more difficult to make your way in the dark. So now I had no idea who I was going hiking with, where we were starting from or even when we were leaving. Confusion is common for me in Panama.
 |
| I Will Conquer This Volcano!! AARRGGHHHH!!!! |
I gathered my things and set my alarm for 3:30am just in case. No one showed up at four so I went back to bed only to awaken to a car horn beeping outside my door at 5am. I grabbed my stuff and jumped in the colegio van (used to transport high-school students) and saw some guy I recognized from town, but couldn’t recall his name. There were a couple of kids in the van and he said we were meeting more people in Volcan. Well at least now I knew where we were going. There were about 15 of us in total and one of the family members was a guide. We started climbing about 7am and 45 minutes into the hike we took a break. I had heard that it’s an 8 hour hike, so I was a little confused about why we were stopping so soon. After a while it became apparent that most of the people on the hike were not prepared physically for the challenge. After spending half the day stopping every 30 or 45 minutes, some teenagers and I charged ahead. I got ahead of the teenagers near the end of the hike and arrived at the top of the volcano at 3:30pm. The teenagers made it around 4:30 and the rest of the group didn’t arrive until 6:30pm. I did some exploring around the mountain, but couldn’t see very well due to all the cloud cover. The whole day had been a little cool, cloudy, humid and for a little while, rainy, so it wasn’t a surprise that I wasn’t able to see much from the top.
 |
| Hotel Baru....Continental Breakfast not included |
Solo Sunrise
We camped that night and even though I had plenty of clothes and a mummy bag, it was still very cold. After all, Volcan Baru is the highest point in Panama at 11,500 feet, so it can be a little chilly, especially at night. I thought I might be joined early in the morning for the sunrise (considering that’s the main reason people come up here), but I was only accompanied by a few people from Panama City. The rest of my group was sound asleep. I guess the hike up wiped ‘em out.
The views that morning were simply amazing. With their sharp peaks and deep valleys, the mountains reminded me of those in Peru. I watched the sun come up over the mountains and the clouds from the day before had disappeared. To quote my Frommer’s Panama guide “the peak is shrouded in thick clouds with such frequency that the chances of seeing the view are not particularly good.” I guess for once in my life I got lucky and was able to see both the Pacific Ocean and the Caribbean Sea. There are not many places in the world where you can see two oceans at the same time. I’m glad that I was able to experience it. For this alone, the hike was worth the effort.
 |
| That's one heck of a volcano shadow! |
 |
| On the tippy tippy top of Volcan Baru. The camerman took the pic just before he fell off the side of the volcano. He will be missed. Poor fellow. At least he saved my camera. |
Are we there yet?
 |
| You mean I gotta walk back down?.....Aawwww dang. |
We left the top around 9am and made it back to the van at 11:30………………PM!!! GOOD GRIEF CHARLIE BROWN!! The problem was that too many people were incredibly sore from the hike the day before; so much so that they could hardly walk. One girl fell, sprained her ankle and literally had to be carried out. Our guide was a complete stud and carried her on his back. The problem was that there was someone else who’s knees just couldn’t take the downhill slope and our guide, Orlando, after carrying Nara out, went back and carried David out. Un-freakin-believable. There were three other girls who struggled to make it out. The last six hours of the hike I was carrying my backpack on my back, someone else’s backpack on my chest and walking backwards to help the girl behind me who could barely move. No, really. I actually had to lift her legs for her over stumps, rocks and other obstacles in the trail. When we came to parts where we had to climb up, I would take her arms and pull her while the person behind her would push on her butt. And this was a young girl (20 or so) who looked to be in pretty good shape. Of the last four hours of the hike I would say that she sat on her butt and slid down the mountain at least half of the time. Her legs hurt so bad that she cried. No kidding. The other two women also had major difficulties getting down the mountain. I thought we would never make it back. It doesn’t help that it starts getting dark early in Panama. By 6:30 you could barely see because of all the tree cover and by 7pm it was pitch black. Good thing I brought my head-lamp! One guy kept saying “Jamas, ni nunca!” which basically means “Never, no never again!” I was dead tired after making it back to the van, but then we went to one of the family member’s homes for a late night snack. I didn’t make it back home till three in the morning. What an adventure!
 |
| Just a picture I like......sorry, no good commentary here. |
Let’s do it again!..........Really??
 |
| Okay, for this I'll go one more time.....dang it. |
You would think that after all that, once up the volcano would be enough. Unfortunately I’m a stubborn sod. After having done Volcan Baru from the west, I now needed to conquer it from the east. I got a call from Adam (another PCV) who said he and some others were making plans to climb up from Boquete if I was interested. What the hay…why not? We got into Boquete early in the afternoon and left out at 10pm finally making it to the top at 3:30am. The Boquete side isn't nearly as attractive, nor does it provide the views that the trail from Volcan offers. The “trail” is really a poorly maintained service road with giant ruts that I like to plunge myself into just for fun. Seriously, I fell twice, jamming two of my fingers that still don’t feel right. What a dolt. Of course it was dark and people were making fun of my headlamp for not providing sufficient light. It was working ok to me and I didn’t want to change out batteries that weren’t completely dead. I’m such a cheap-skate! We nearly froze at the top. We huddled together to keep warm and basically had a big group hug for about two and a half hours until the sun came up. Unfortunately the cloud cover was too significant to see much, but having already seen the view from my first trip, I wasn’t very disappointed. We made our way back down the mountain and by the end my knees were seriously sore. I would compare the feeling to creamed corn. I had to stop a few times to rub them down. I started to just roll myself down the mountain. Why did I do this again? Oh yeah……..stubborn sod.
 |
| Larry, Moe, Curly and Shep |
 |
| Oh he's just too cool for school |
 |
| Sunrise |
