Down from the volcano, Wednesday

We woke up to a cool and cloudy morning on Wednesday. After a quick walk out of the tent to take care of business, we jumped back in our sleeping bags to get packed. When we had originally planned the trip, we had only asked for a porter on the way up to help us with the water. However, after being surprised at how difficult the climb was, and then at how long it was taking us to get used to the altitude, we had asked one of the porters who was going down on Tuesday to send another porter up on Wednesday to take our tent and sleeping bags. Even though we knew we would be going downhill and taking a shortcut, we also both know that downhill can be even harder on muscles and joints than uphill. So, we packed our bags with just our personal gear, with Tom taking the bulk of our stuff in the big backpack, and me taking the stuff we would need for the trail in my daypack. We then dressed for the day, stuffed our sleeping bags into their sacks, rolled up our sleeping mats, and headed down the hill for breakfast. 

Tom learned about the joys of Nutella, which I never buy because I don't eat chocolate, and we ate bananas to give us energy for the hike down. We had left the tent up while we ate to see if some of the night's rain would dry as the sun came up, but it was still pretty wet when we took it down after breakfast. We gave the tent and sleeping bags to the porter, who turned out to be 82-year old Don Martin, the leader of the porters' guild, and helped get Henley's crate packed with the remainder of the kitchen supplies. Don Martin had hiked up the hill that morning with his three dogs, Berlin, Oso, and Tonq, leaving the village at 3am to get to the camp around 6am. Pretty impressive for a 82-year old, and it made us feel slightly better about having a viejito cart our heavy stuff down the trail since he was obviously fit and healthy.

The hike down was uneventful. Tom and I were both much more comfortable with our lighter packs, and although it was steep, the shortcut reduced the hike by a few miles. Nonetheless, my knees were sore and both of our legs were shaking from the effort of staying upright on slick footing, and we took a few rests on the way down. We left the campsite just a little after 8am, and arrived back in La Soledad around 10:30. The same bus and driver who had delivered us on Monday was waiting to take us back to Antigua, so after loading our gear, taking care of the porters and making sure they were going to fairly divvy up the tip money, we headed back to Antigua. We thanked Oseas profusely for a wonderful trip, filled out their evaluation form, shared email addresses so we could share photos, and headed back towards our hotel.