I’m tired. I’m beat. I’m bruised. I’m sore. Everything hurts – and I mean everything. The list could go on and on. Quite literally. On, and on, and on. Oh, Mt. Nyiragongo… you chewed me up and spit me out, and I love you for it, but right now, I sort of hope I never see you again.
Somehow, I found myself at the base of a volcano negotiating porters and rearranging packs with three other travelers. Enter the mountaineer from France, sports enthusiast from Santa Barbara, and avid trekker from China, summiting peaks all across the continent. And then there was me — little old me. By the time we were organized, the group had grown to ten: the four of us, two armed Rangers, three porters, and our cook, provided to us by the park for a nominal fee.
After forty-five minutes, the clouds had rolled in and the skies were roaring. Rain, thunder, lightening – you name it, we were in it. And none of us were prepared for the difficulty of the terrain and weather conditions. Thick mud and heavy vegetation eventually gave way to unstable lava rock and steep boulders. We were soaked, sweaty, and bleeding from various parts of our bodies, by the time we summited. It was grueling, but we made it, and in record time, too. Who knew such a thing was possible.
It was the most physically challenging thing I have done. Period. End of story. It was so, so hard. Actually, hard doesn’t even begin to describe it — painful is more like it. And to be honest, if it wasn’t for my ability to talk myself through it, I don’t think I would have made it to the top. I’m not someone who throws in the towel easily, but there were times where I desperately wanted to — when home was all I thought about, and all I wanted, but couldn’t have. But in those moments where we start to loosen our grip, and we contemplate letting go, something inside us surfaces, to show us that we can continue, long after we think we can’t…
What greeted us at the top was the best of all pat’s on the back, and a reminder that the most difficult things, are often the most rewarding. Nyiragongo holds the largest active lava lake in the world, and it’s certainly a site for the eyes. Never in my life have I seen something so powerful; you’re almost in a trance when peering into the crater.
By nightfall we were looking at the lava lake in full cry: a giant disk of molten rock 800 feet wide, surfaced with a mosaic of crusty plates that you could watch harden and tremble under the mighty pressure, before imploding back into the roiling cauldron. The whole scene seemed to breathe, each exhalation spitting out liquid fire that faded from orange to black as they cooled – a window into our planet at its most alive.
It wasn’t the sort of place where sleep came easy, but I was happy to rest my tired eyes, and limbs, in my little shack on the edge of the world.
