We got robbed on Volcan Agua
Trip Start
Oct 10, 2001
1
28
79
Trip End
Feb 19, 2002
Antigua,
Guatemala
Sunday, December 2, 2001
It was a sunny morning as me and Juliette walked out of our hotel in Antigua. In the distance, Volcan Agua was obscured by the clouds. Our plan was to get to Santa Maria de Jesus(small village at the base of the volcano) then climb the Agua Volcano. To my arrogance, we "walked to the village" which was a very long and uphill hike. It was a bad decision on my part, as we could have taken the bus for 2 Quetzal. We did find a nice gentlemen who offered us a ride half way up. But his car cannot handle 3 passenger on the uphill incline, so after some useless effort to push start the car, we give up and walked the rest of the way. We bought some water and started our climb about 11am (which was late)
The show must go on....
. The narrow road up was very difficult to navigate, we are without a proper map, we just walked up and up. It was more tiring than I thought, and Juliette was more tired than I. I might of resented her for going slow; however, we are in this together. As we were holding hands and climbed, I slowly realized we are not going to make it to the top. So after a hard decision, we turn back about half way, which at the time the sun is starting to set and we are out of water. Next thing I remember, as we walked down the path we just climbed, two men in masks jumped out and waving machetes speaking in some Spanish I didn't understand. Quickly I realized we are being robbed, and I grabbed Juliette making sure she was okay and just handed my bags to the masked men. They took most of our money and my beloved camera. And let us go our way. We were both safe, but were in shock. After we arrived back in Antigua, we finally can talk about it and our hearts were still pounding.
From this moment, I realized me and Juliette have experienced something unforgivable together, and in life, and in our early relationship, even though we lost some valuable goods, we were closer together than ever before. My heart was broken by the men who robbed us, the purity of travelling was lost, our innocence was stolen, but our hearts beat as one from this day forward.
