Up at 3:30 AM the next morning to get to the top of the mountain for sunrise-- a decision we considered leading a mutiny against, but the sunrise did reward us with some oranges and reds before being submerged beneath the rising clouds.
Over the next few days, we crossed a broad variety of landscapes, including some that made us feel a bit like the Baggins family, and villages small and smaller before arriving at a final steep hill on the 4th day, when machismo took over and we all raced up the hill. A moral victory was declared after we came in 4th behind 3 skinny young whippersnappers who have yet to deal with the effects of metabolism, not to mention other things like gout and rickets.
After 2 or 3 more cheese sandwiches, we descended into a town with an actual road, where all 17 of us (and our backpacks) ended up piling into the back of a Toyota pickup for an exhilerating (and rather nerve-wracking) ascent to our quarters for the evening. There, we stayed in the casa of Don Jeronimo, who told us of his civil war experiences the following day atop the highest non-volcanic point in Central America. Amidst the blue sky, hot sun, and surrounding volcanic ranges, he told us of being forced to watch fellow villagers getting stoned (the bad way), hung, and eventually having their heads bashed in with rifle butts for collaborating with the guerrillas by blocking roads and destroying bridges and power lines.
His uncle unluckily had the same first name as one of the accused who had disappeared on his own-- he endured various forms of torture (such as getting his ears burned and back stabbed) before being left for dead. His family dragged his body back into the house after the army had left, also assuming him dead, but he started moving an hour later and is still living today.
A few days later the guerrillas came back to town and executed 3 villagers, whom they accused of revealing both the plots and the names of those involved-- Don G. saw this as the guerrillas way of "washing their hands" of responsibility for their (lack of) protection that they had promised the villagers, leaving the younger G/Jeronimo and his peeps understandably without faith in either side.
We descended along a(n almost( Chinese-ink-painting landscape and then through the afternoon mist to a small tienda where the nicotine addicts bought cancer sticks while the rest of us watched the storekeeper's wife lop the heads off of chickens. Then it was into Todos Santos and the madness therein. We wended our way through the weaving Todos Santerians, noting how almost all the men were decked out in their traditional red striped pants and Elvisian-collared patterned blue jackets.
[Most of who weren't dressed properly were sporting John Cena T-shirts; Senor Cena seems to have either a major WWF fan base down here, or at least cornered the used-clothing market.]
After leaving our packs in the "hotel," we descended back upon the town. Our reception was very good overall-- although we could have used a little less from some of the more inebriated/drooling Santerians-- but the following morning revealed that things had really only just begun to get underway. The collective inebriation seemed to reach its peak between 10 and 12 the next morning, when the streets were littered with both the prone bodies of those who had had a bit too much Quetzalteca (or its newest competitor, "El Machetero," which is 1 or 2 quetzals (10-15 cents) cheaper due to its plastic bottle) and the walking dead who had yet to fully succumb to the "rum"'s mind-shattering effects.
The horse race went on all day-- like the main street, it was simultaneously fascinating and depressing, low-lighted by a disturbing head-on crash between two horses, who had to be put down, while the riders, particularly the one going the wrong way, survived, most likely due to their high blood-alcohol levels.
Things got back on track a little slowly after that, but the riders (including one of those involved in the crash) eventually regained their form and were even joined briefly by some of my fellow trekkers, including one German nut whose high-pitched chortling seemed to be the highlight of the day for the locals.
[Never fear, ours truly had decided long before the crash that this was not the place to learn to ride.]
