We wanted to do something fun on our last day, so we decided to climb Volcano Pacaya. It’s an active volcano almost an hour from Antigua. On the trip up, we met a family from Michigan, a couple from Denmark, and a couple girls from London.
After we got out of the vehicle there were 2 ways to climb up: by hiking or by riding a horse. I chose the horse. While everyone else was huffing and puffing the 2 miles up the mountain, I was enjoying the scenery.
When we got to the hardened lava flow, however, we had to climb across on foot. That was a little insane. It was very treacherous with many crevices to fall into. Also, one of the peaks of the volcano was erupting. We would hear the explosion, then see lava shoot into the air. We climbed to one of the other peaks that wasn’t erupting. Every so often, we would hit a hot spot and feel the heat from the lava below our feet. When we got to the peak, we looked down into the crevice and could see the red heat from the lava. It was a little scary and I was very happy to see grass again.
That adventure wiped us out physically and emotionally. It was amazing, but later on I realized that I may not do something like that again–just too easy to fall into a lava hole. I think I have found my danger boundary. That was our last adventure on the trip. That evening was spent packing, and the next morning we boarded the shuttle to take us to the airport. What a great trip!
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