So, my brother and mum decide to pay us a visit, and typically everything went wrong from day one. Oli and I – while sharing lunch – receive a phone call, it’s Tomek “Yo we are at the airport.” Da fuck! They were not supposed to arrive until the next day….unless I fucked up the dates, yeah classic! Never mind, they took the shuttle so it’s all good. They were more pissed off about the weather than my dates mix up. Yay! “Good to see you but what the fuck is up with the weather it’s Central America!”
A combined family visit and work is hard enough, trying to make it entertaining at the same time? Wooft. Of course we went out to local restaurants and walked around Antigua, but to be honest my mum was more interested in laying flat in the garden and enjoying the full smoothies and chilling in the sun. Fair enough, she’s on holiday. Since I promised them the beach Oli and I borrowed a friends car (and while trying to work remotely) we showed them that Guatemala is not only volcanos and jeans weather.
Anyway, that wasn’t what the story was meant to be about. I wanted to talk about my favourite day when Tomek and I made a crazy decision to hike a volcano. I was a bit gutted Oli couldn’t make it but maybe it turned for the best as it gave me and Tomek time to just be us again.
The hike was crazy intense, we had a group of 20 with us and I asked Tomek from the beginning to make sure I’m right behind the guide as otherwise, I’d find it hard to follow. I know that’s a bit weird, I can’t explain it, even if I was worse than others it’s easier to be in front and wait than chasing others like the tail bunch aka ‘tortugas’.
My favourite part about doing it with Tomek was that we could just be us again. No fake chit-chat to weirdos and no making friends and spending all day making inside jokes that no one would laugh about anyway. As we reached to the top, of course, we met other Poles – typical, we didn’t stay long for chin wag because as soon as everyone was getting wet in their pants about yet ANOTHER volcano explosion we looked at each other and were like “fuck it, let’s go lie down!” Epic. We could get cosy before the other 4 people joined us in this ‘marvelous’ glamping situation. Nevertheless, we woke up at 4am for the final hike (which is optional) to the peak and only 7 out of 18 joined.
People if you’re reading this DONT BE STUPID! DONT DO THIS RIDONCULOUS HIKE!!! It’s insane. I mean, it’s crazy difficult and you want to die! However, that being said, the prize you get once you reach the top…oh man, you feel like you’ve touched down on another world. That hike felt truly like a mission to Mars, and we all felt it.
Of course, it wasn’t enough that we hiked for 5 hours and then did another 1.5 before sunrise at freaking 4am, no nooooo! On the way down our guide decided to literally start running down the volcano! Yas cardio! Enough cardio for at least a year, obviously we didn’t have to run down but let’s be honest after that night pain seemed irrelevant. We reached the bottom at 10am and I felt no shame in ordering an ice cold beer despite Tomek’s judgmental look and the fact that I have to go back to work 2 hours later. But I deserved it damn it! It was for sure one of those stories that in a future will start with “remember the time when we hiked a fucking massive volcano!”
After our return, the day wasn’t even over yet. As I had to go back to work my baby brother got a freaking tattoo that’s right, his first one! He was talking about it for years and nothing ever came out of it because there was always an excuse or a reason to postpone it. However, travelling makes you feel free, that’s one of the beauties of it. There is only the here and now. Despite my mum’s snarky comments, I took him to a studio and in no time he had a brand new tattoo on his forearm. Wtf!!! I couldn’t be more proud of him in that moment, I saw a little of myself in him when I started travelling. To be fair, he wanted to get something stupidly karate related on his chest and instead I chose a much better option for him but still atta boy!
It was sad to watch them leave the next day, but I hope they experienced a piece of my world and understood the path that I chose a little better. And if they didn’t that’s okay too, as long as they had fun.
