I sailed the wild wild sea, climbed up a tall tall mountain... err, volcano!

Aloha from Honduras! What in the world am I doing here??? Well, as you may or may not know, I started my job with the Clinton Foundation (www.clintonfoundation.org) this week, in the HIV Initiative section, and I’m really psyched about it. I’ll be the Regional Advisor for Central America, which means I’ll be working with the Central American governments to support HIV/AIDS initiatives in the area. Therefore, I’ll be traveling to the region quite often… Guatemala and Honduras will the two main countries I’ll be focusing on at first (yes, I’ll be based in Guatemala). I got to meet some folks in Guate this week, as my boss came up to introduced to the people I’ll be working with, and we’re doing the same thing in Honduras right now. I’ll be back in Guate this Sunday… so far, so good.

This past weekend I did something I had not done in a very long time… I climbed a volcano!!! I had only climbed one other volcano in my lifetime, and that was in Hawaii… it that was more like a hike, as it didn’t take that long. Anyways, some friends were going up to Acatenango (the 3rd highest volcano in Guatemala…. I didn’t know this at the time I agreed to go up), and lemme tell you, I was still feeling the effect on Wednesday. We got to the volcano on Saturday around midday, with the idea to catch the sunset around 5:30 pm on the top of the volcano. The start was pretty rough, as the volcano was really steep and there wasn’t a paved path… it was only dirt, well, volcanic dirt, which means your feet would sink in a bit (like walking at the beach). After hiking up for about an hour and half, I was ready to call it quits, since I was told this was the easier part and had about 3 or 4 more hours to go… FUDGE!!! Anyways, out of Kevin, Bob, Tim, and Carolina... I was by far having the toughest time and slowed us down quite a bit. Long story short, we didn’t get to the top till about 6:00 PM (I swear I barely made it) and only got to see part of the sunset… Let me tell you, it’s the most challenging physical thing I’ve even done in my life (it could also be that I’m not a spring chicken anymore… sad to report that).

I think I was also having a tough time because we were carrying sleeping bags, as we were planning on spending the night on the volcano, underneath the stars. I had been told it was gonna be a bit cold, but never imagined how cold it got once the sun set down. I was seriously freezing, even though I was wearing two shirts, three long sleeve shirts, a vest, and a windbreaker!!! After eating and drinking a bit, we all got inside our sleeping bags around 8:30 PM (no one had brought a tent), and tried to get some shut eye. I think I originally slept for about 30 minutes or so (even though my feet were freezing), but then I woke up and could not go back to sleep. It was super cold, and I was turning around like a roasting chicken trying to find a comfortable sleeping position (by the way, we were all close together to try to get some body heat from each other, not sure if it worked or not). Around 12AM, I stuck my hand out of my sleeping bag to look for something, and to my surprise, my sleeping bag had a layer of ICE!!!! I am not kidding… that’s how cold it was. Basically, I got no sleep that night… and I was tired and hungry. I couldn’t believe I did this voluntarily… I was cursing my friends in my head for talking me into this.

In the morning, around 7 AM, we got up to catch some sunrays and warm up (Keving and Tim did get up early to catch the sunrise, the rest of us were too tired). Went up to the top of the volcano and enjoyed the amazing view of all the volcanoes, clouds, and overall terrain. It was an amazing view… so peaceful and relaxing. We stayed up there for about an hour or so, and after meeting a dog named Gussy (we originally thought the people were calling here something else), we decided to go back down and pack our stuff. My legs were a bit tired, but going down the volcano was quite a breeze…even though I was completely covered in dirt at the end of the day. Would I do it again? Maybe… If I can drive half of the trail in my car or get dropped off at the top of the volcano… I don’t think I have the energies to the whole thing again. There are other volcanoes which are not as tall and not as tiring, so I might to those in the future… Anyways, it was an amazing one time experience (I think).

I do have pics of the experience, but for some reason I can’t upload them now… so will post those later.

Hope everybody is doing well & keep enjoying March Madness… go Gators!!!

CRCP

P.S. VCU did beat Duke... how many of you saw that coming!!! Sorry Gray and Fraggle Rocks...