into the wild...

This is the first time I will climb a volcano! I say to myself as I wake up at sunrise, have breakfast with a friend to meet our local guide,a friendly local teenager, named Juan, he showed us a short cut to the base of the volcano and on our way up he was always waiting for whoever was left behind. Soon we began to hike volcanic rocks and eventually the lush tropical jungle was transformed into a clouded forest, the temperature dropped as the fog surrounded us, and the mud started forming under our feet due the water dripping from the trees from a recent rain. I pulled out my pashmina and wrapped it around my body in a cross section to keep the heath. We had been hiking the slippery path for 4 hours already, starving and cold, we stopped to eat homemade chicken sandwiches to gain some calories.

Our bodies regained warmth; we continued our trek, hiking the steep stairway to heaven. The green path became a muddy tunnel of moss, branches, roots, and volcanic rocks. 1394 meters later, on the peak, Juan told us that we were almost there, but it took us another 40 minutes of hiking in slow motion to get to the bottom of the crater.
When we finally got to the center of the volcano, we found a dense and dreamy fog that only allowed us to see 20 feet in front of us. At least we could see a bit of the lagoon, and the mysterious fog that covered the whole crater.
The temperature was dropping fast as a gentle rain covered us, we got all together to smoke and get a sense of heat, when suddenly a group of noisy hikers arrived, but luckily they just stayed for 20 minutes and then left. We remained longer, hopeful that the sun would come out and that we would be able to see the whole crater and the lagoon in its full splendor.

After an hour of trembling, the fog became brighter, and the sun slowly began evaporating the clouds inside the crater to uncover a beautiful lagoon and a gorgeous green landscape of millenary trees. Excited and in total bliss we ventured to go near the lagoon and clean ourselves from the mud. As our clothes dried out we sun bathed in the moss beds, amazed, and immersed in total silence. We were inside a prehistoric crater, that only a few people had ventured to see, a place that was revered 2000 years ago by ancient Nahuas and that has remained the same. We felt like immortals that just had arrived to Eden, but soon we would have to go down the slope, have some tacos and become human again before sunset trapped us in the dense tropical rain.