yesterday some girls from the farm, youri, and i made the climb up madera. 5km up adn four hours to make it to the top. the first part of the hike was relatively easy as it consisted of climbing hundreds of stairs that were put in place for the workers of finca magdelena, to ease the climb for cafe harvest in dec and jan. they tie baskets, like the one i made, to their waists adn then make the hike up multiple times a day. around 1/4 of the way up it starts to get tricky with rocks and boulders protruding out of the black volcanic soil. half way up we thought we were already going to die, but it was only the beginning, soon the earth turned into orange and red clay, and we were no longer hiking but climbing through washed out ravines. it was beautiful and reminded me of seeing canyon walls glowing at sunset. what should have taken an hour if walking on flat ground took four hours to climb up (5km). pulling ourselves up with ropes, jumping from rock to rock, grabbing onto branches, was probably the most physically challenging feat of my life to date. without our guide occasionally pulling us up the most difficult places it would have proved almost impossible. i had already lost feeling in my legs when we still had half the volcano to scale (the most difficult part was yet to come). 3/4 of the way up we encountered a forest filled with bright azul (blue) cicadas... we were engulfed by their singing. reaching the top we descended into the crater. standing in the cloud forest at the ridge was mystical... a place i have dreamt fairies would live. moss crept over the branches of the giant trees and sparkled in the sunlight, mist floated in the air, everything was lush and bromeliads covered the trees.
the descent into the crater seemed vertical clinging to ropes, lowering ourselves slowly. the lake that filled the crater was bigger than i had imagined. the fruits we had brought with us were a nice reward to our accomplishment and we spent an hour or so relaxing and celebrated the great hike. sitting by the lake we watched the fog slowly creep over the ridges and fill the crater.
we started the descent after an hour, but first had to scale the top ridge out of the crater before heading back down. springing tops of rocks, every step or jump proved to put a tremendous amount of strain on our joints as gravity was taking hold. 1/4 of the way down our legs were shaking from the exhertion. erika was praying to dieties that is she made it safetly to the ground she would promise to never hike again and would be the best mother in the world to her unborn children if she made it alive adn unharmed. holly kept falling which was easy to do as the cloud forest soaked the ground and kept a film of water ever coating the rocks.
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