An early 5.30am sees us slinking away from Lago Coatepeque under the cover of dark, along with all the school children on the bus. Loud pop music is blasting out presumably to wake them up! It certainly worked with us. Cerro Verde is our destination today, the plan to climb a volcano, not just any volcano, Santa Ana who last erupted in 2005, just days after a hurricane devastated much of the country. We're assured there are places to stay in the national park.
"No, no habitacion a Cerro Verde, solo San Blas" the driver tells us, honestly you'd think we were natives. The driver duly drops us at the San Blas stop, the 'village' is 1.5 km up hill. When we arrive there is no village just a few cabanas which are lovely. The only drawback is no food! The restaurant facility is only open at weekends. We find a lovely lady who will look after our packs for us and head off to meet the guide and police who take the tours up the volcano.
It's nice walking to start with, shaded and a gentle incline as we leave the trees the incline increases and we're walking on rocks and across evidence of lava flows, Agave plants as far as the eye can see. As we climb the plant life peters out and the rocks underfoot become loose. It's a hard slog. The view across to Cerro Verde and the baby volcano Izalco is stunning, Izalco is completely devoid of vegetation and is a stark contrast to the lush green of Cerro Verde. Izalco looks exactly like a drawing a child might do of a volcano and we can look down on it from Santa Ana.
When we reach the top it's almost a relief, it became tough going and it's 1pm - mad dogs and English men etc. etc. Looking down into the crater is a huge WOW, the sulphur pool is about 400 feet below us, about 700 feet below that is the magma. The sulphur pool is turquoise, bubbling in the centre and steaming around the edges. It is absolutely silent. The descent is harder but quicker, taking about an hour.
Thankfully our packs are safe when we return and we head back to the road to find a bus. After about an hour of waiting, we flag down a truck climb on the back and arrive at the main highway just as the bus to town is arriving, there's about 20 locals waiting who cheer when the bus arrives, think they might have been waiting sometime!
A snap decision finds us stood on the slip road of the PanAmerican Highway where two minutes later a bus to San Salvador appears. Onwards...
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