Today I went up a volcano

The heat, humidity and sheer steepness of the incline turned my legs to stone and my heart into that of a dormouse. 

I was a bit humiliated but ultimately I gave it a good try. I was with a guide called Dumas and four French people. Dumas had climbed this and the other, higher volcano over a thousand times! He moved like a 20 year old in his 40’s. The French guys and girls were also much younger than me. For a while I was doing very well, keeping up with the group. I thought it would be one of the girls, who was falling behind and pretty tearful, who would concede defeat.. But all kudos to her she kept on going and succeeded in the end. I, however, began to feel the altitude and the heat as the climb got harder and harder. 

Eventually I realised that I should stop, I am not as young as I once was and my body was just saying no. It was a sober awakening. But isn’t that the cruel way of life. Just when you have the time and the resources to do stuff your body starts to give out. I am certainly not depressed about it. It is just a realisation that some things are better thought about twice. Especially at my age.

The guys left me on the trail to find my way back down through the jungle paths to a meeting point in a coffee plantation. As some may be aware coming down is not always as easy as going up. But I made it and spent two hours totally alone in the jungle.

The cocophany was amazing. Beautiful bird calls, howler monkeys and the loudest cicadas I have ever heard. They all seem to start at the same time, triggered by some global awareness. And when they sing they sing in harmony, pulsating in time with each other. After a while, the harsh metallic melody starts to distort your eardrums and you almost feel the sound as well as hear it. It was an amazing experience. Then they all stop and the jungle becomes quieter save for the calls of birds and chirps of insects.

While I was coming back down I had the amazing privilege of meeting a family of Capuchin monkeys. They were above me in the canopy and doing what a family of capuchins does. There were babies and mothers in one group foraging for food and playing about. The males, after seeing me, came in from another tree and started flexing muscles to warn me off. I just sat quietly observing them. But a particularly large member of the group, probably the alpha male, took up position right above me and started shaking the branches and playing with his penis. Some sort of macho display I guess. Anyway he promptly broke off a stick and threw it at me. And his targeting was precise too. I paid my respects and left them to it, but again what an amazing place this is. Virgin forest filled with the most beautiful and mesmerising wildlife. I felt like David Attenborough, alone in the jungle observing life for the very first time.