Every country
has its own appealing characteristics with historical monuments, unique
landscapes and particular roadways. These are touristic assets that are frequently
used by travel agencies to show how attractive a destiny can be, and carry an
interesting number of people to get astonished by different wonders.
Well, St.
Vincent and the Grenadines is not far from that. La Soufrière is the country's volcano, a natural monstrous marvel that can be seen from almost every point of
the island. It stands there, with all his imperial magnitude, being the king
and guardian of this portion of land that carries all the warm of the lava
within their citizen kindness.
La Soufrière is
one of the highest peaks in St. Vincent. It’s 1.234 meters (4.049 feet) and the
last time it erupted was back in 1979. More than 14 thousand people were
evacuated from the fervent-red-thick blood of the volcano. But, no worries, by
now it keeps calm and quiet, like a baby sleeping with a lullaby.
At 9:00 in the morning
we left the school to start the crossing journey to reach the highest point of
the mountain, willing to see the crater and tests how far we were from the
typical imaginary taught at preschool of a triangular form with the lava coming
out of it. It was supposed to be a nine hours walk and the best ally to
confront this challenge was to enjoy each step, knowing that with every
walked-meter we were closer from the arrival goal.
We started
walking along the beach, enjoying the view of the fishermen pulling their nets.
Then we came into huge and intimidating rock-walls that covered the mountainside.
Finally, we were hiking within a delightful mix of scenarios: dry hills, humid
and dark rain forest and palm trees. Suddenly, we reached the half way point. I
felt relieved, satisfied and excited, making me want more of that that was
coming. We got there so fast and, to be honest, I thought it was going
to be tougher than that. I recharged myself with the energy of the trees and
continued the path towards the peak.
The other half
of the road gave me some trouble though. It didn’t seem that easy anymore, and
the refreshing rainforest was left behind. Now we didn’t have any shelter from
the immense trees. The path was not green anymore, it turned yellow and dry. Actually,
I felt walking through the path of Maximus in The Gladiator movie, when he’s
going to meet his family and walks along a wheat field in the old Rome.
The water was
almost over by now, the thirst and fatigue dominated the body. We had been
walking for four hours, but nothing could stop that craving of reaching the
peak. It was almost like a marathon. Your body gets tired, but the mind can
only focus on the crossing line. That feeling is the fuel to continue and give
one more step, and one more, and one more…
After 36
thousand steps, 23 kilometers and 9 hours, we had gone up in the hill and came
back. The landscape was completely worth it. How far was the preschool
imaginary from the greatness of that rare beauty of La Soufrière. Not even the
best camera could capture the splendid nature of the volcano and its crater.
Like a friend of mine says, “the eyes have more pixels”. So if you are reading
this and you are planning to come to St. Vincent, just make sure to get the
best shoot of the volcano with your own eyes.
***
I want to dedicate this article to Stephanie English, a nice friend with whom I hiked part of the path to the volcano and gave me a very useful gift to continue writing in my blog!
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