Last month, on the Ometepe Odyssey…
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Marah and friends decided to hike a volcano and camp there.
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Idea of the century, planned for about ten minutes.
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After a taxi, bus, ferry, and half of a hike, they realize this hike is more than they bargained for…
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In fact, they would be spending the night in the crater of a volcano – exhausted, out of food and water, with insufficient shelter.
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We return to them after they’ve made this great and terrible realization…
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6:09pm It’s dark, and the jungle is scary. I remember the warnings about boa constrictors and howler monkeys and pray.
6:10 I praise the Lord that I’m carrying Francisco’s backpack and not my own and feel immense guilt at the thought of this little Nicaraguan man carrying all of my ish.
6:15 We stop at the edge of what appears to be a massive canyon. We take a blurry photo, and follow exactly in Francisco’s footsteps, because a tumble certainly awaits if we don’t.
6:16 We ask how long it will be…15 minutes, Francisco says. We choose to believe him, but doubt it will actually be that fast.
6:20 I have bonked my head on low trees just outside the light of my headlamp more than three times, so I finally start to heed the warnings from ahead.
6:23 We reached the summit!!! We ask how long it will be to the crater – 10 minutes!!!!!
6:25 We set out again, but down this time. Imagine a forwards climb down a muddy ladder with rotting hand-holds and uneven steps wearing alcohol goggles. TWENTY minutes of that and finally…
6:45 WE MADE IT!!!! WE CAN SEE NOTHING!!! We see the shore of the lake, some reeds, and the path we climbed down, but we missed the sunset by a long shot.
6:46-7:30
I was too caught up in what happened next to keep track of the time:
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one of us is in fetal position, another is forcing him to eat and drink
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one is updating a vlog, I and some others join her. We cry.
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three folks start filtering water from the lake so we can all rehydrate
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a few of us start setting up the only two tents we have
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we change into our ‘pajamas’, and get our fetal friend in a dry tent
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the group decides to wake at 4:30 am and get off this volcano ASAP
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Francisco takes up his guard position on a rock outside
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we cram four fully grown men into tent number one
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and four women and a man in tent number two
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we settle in, mostly delirious and slowly becoming less anxious
7:32 In tent number two, we determine the best way to squeeze is to curl up width-wise, fitting five humans in a two-man tent, essentially in a 5-way spooning fest.
7:33 We look at the time, ready for bed, and realize it’s only 7:33.
7:34 I take out my Kindle and read Psalm 91 aloud to my tent. It brings us quite a lot of comfort.
7:36 Halfway through the Psalm, we discover a tiny tick has lodged itself in my left bicep. We spend the next 5 minutes getting it out.
7:42 We finish Psalm 91 and I start some group feedback. “Marah, you have got a lot to learn about pride and humility, my friend. I’m proud of you for giving up your pack, but you’ve gotta be smarter next time.” “I receive that, Marah, thank you.” “You’re welcome, Marah. Anytime.”
8:00 It is well past our bedtime, and we are slap-happy as a result of being wiped. We calculate about 6 hours of solid sleep can be had if we go to bed RIGHT NOW.
9:00 It is really hot in here.
9:30 The whole spoon drawer changes sides.
10:00 Sleeping bags get tossed aside.
11:00 We switch back to the same spoonage that was occuring before.
11:30 The wind picks up, and I remember my tent is 90% mesh/bug net. Sorry, guys.
12:00am I pray that the tents stay dry, along with the people in them, and hope my rainfly is holding up over my bag and dry clothes for tomorrow…
12:30 Spoon switch. I think one of us is trying to sleep sitting up. The tent is a literal sauna.
1:00 Spoon switch. Someone gets kicked.
1:30 It starts to drizzle.
3:00 It starts to rain – like, really rain. Windy, downpour, praise-God-you-waterproofed-your-rainfly, try-not-to-touch-the-side-of-the-tent-though rain.
3:30 Everyone in tent two is wide awake.
4:00 Half-hour till wake up, and the rain has not quit. So we pray. We speak a half hour gap in the rain to tear down camp, and dry tents and bags. We thank God for the ways He has kept us safe and thank Him in advance that He’s going to get us off this volcano safely; we remind Him one more time that we’d like the rain to stop now, please.
4:29 The rain stops. HALLELUJAH!!
4:30 My alarm goes off. Tent two despoonifies and starts to get up and moving.
5:00 We discover Francisco stayed awake all night, in the pouring rain, machete at the ready, watching over us to make sure nothing would harm us in the night. At this point, I’m quite sure I’ve died and met the Lord Himself.
5:30 We are all packed up and the morning is beginning to brighten. I take up my bag (minus my tent this time, thanks guys) and am ready to conquer this bad boy.
5:40 We are on our way, back up out of the crater. We marvel at the fact that no one fell all the way down this muddy staircase last night, but realize the entire mountain is going to be a muddy staircase heading down.
6:00 We re-summit, and gather to pray.
6:30 We take another photo at the cliff – this time in daylight. However, we’re so high up that we’re in a literal cloud, so the view is about the same.
6:40 The first slip and fall. We laugh and wonder how many falls we’ll have before this hike is through.
6:42 Fall #2
6:50 We strap on rainflys, because it has started to pour again.
6:53 Falls #3, 4, and 5
7:00 How did we think we could do this hike without a guide????
7:06 Not a single one of us is not shaking. Our legs are like little chihuahuas.
7:15 Fall #6. Most of us are soaked again, and completely covered in mud.
7:30 We make it back to the look out, but skip the view. We are operating under group-think: get down the mountain as fast as we can without falling. We are fantasizing about gallo pinto and hot showers and dry clothes and naps.
*TWO HOURS LATER*
9:45 It’s finally flat again! We found the rice! and the wildflowers! We’re crossing the gates, we see the van!
10:00 We arrive at the van and wait while Jorge de San Jorge accuses Francisco of being unsafe and us of taking more gear than we needed, causing us to be slow.
10:10 We don’t get angry – we don’t have the strength. Instead, we apologize, tip Eric and Francisco super extra, and hit the showers.
10:45 Begin travel home…
11:50 Arrive at the port, buy tickets, try to track down food. It is an absolute downpour.
12:00 Find food, wait.
1:00 We are all aboard the ferry, gallo pinto in hand, ready to get the heck back to Granada
Sometime that evening… We pull into REAP, grab some food, and our beds, and pass OUT.
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In short: Ometepe changed my life. It showed me sides of myself I had never seen, determination I didn’t know I had, survival skills I had forgotten, revelations about the Lord I never expected. I would love to hike it again knowing what I do now. I would not trade my experience on that volcano for anything, especially what I learned about myself and the Lord. What a wild ride – the adventure of a lifetime.
