Oxigeno tiene? (Got Oxygen?)

We did all have an amazing adventure as we trekked 2,000 feet up the volcanic ash (our journey ended at 8000 ft)! During our journey upward, it began to rain, which made it very cold, and the fog made it so that only our immediate surroundings were visible - the temperature swings here are unbelievable.



Scrambling over the hot, loose rocks was fun, but also dangerous. If you stepped in the wrong places, the rocks would give way, revealing hot lava just inches beneath were we were standing (and Mommy always said never to play with fire :-) ). It was very surreal, unlike anything any of us had ever seen or felt before, and we all agreed that it felt like we were on another planet.




Right at the start, people were already complaining about how tired they were, expressing their desire to go no further. But with the encouragement of Pedro, our awesome guide, along the rest of our group, we all found the strength to make it to the top! We´re beginning to see how blessed we truly are, but we´re also realizing that we don´t deserve it.







When we arrived at the base of the volcano, we were immediately bombarded with numerous children trying to sell us walking sticks, ¨taxis¨ (horse rides up the trail), and marshmallows. At first, none of us knew what the marshmallows were for, but we soon learned that you could roast them over the lava, at the top of Mt. Pacaya . . . HOW COOL!





Who would have thought we could get this close to a 10 ft. wide lava flow!!! We all kept thinking about what would happen if Pacaya decided to burp a little. I think Achata was wondering if all of the parents signed their waver.

Ashton threw his sock in to see what would happen.

Today was hard work, but so much fun, even though we were missing our babies. We hope someday they´ll be able to share the experience we had, and the memories we made, from hiking up the volcano.

Mr. Paul recorded our hike with his iPhone so you could see the trail we took on Google Earth. The summit is at ~11,500 ft, but being Floridian's we were having a hard time at 8,000 ft.

If any of you have Google Earth installed, we are going to create some links to some files so you can explore where we've been.

Also, a special thanks to GEORGE (ahem..gorgeous..ahem), who was the motivation for all the girls to keep on going ´till they reached the top. ;)