Exploring St. Vincent

Things here are slowly but surely getting better. I now know where I am living. We are staying put here, but doing some rearranging. It should work out just fine. Today we did a little exploring of the island. We decided to take a trip to the northern end and hike up to the top of the volcano. Unlike Grenada, St. Vincent still has an active volcano. We arranged the trip through one of the touristy places which was definitely the way to go. Our driver picked us up at 9AM from school and we began our journey. There were some beautiful black sand beaches along the way and some really cute little villages. We then passed through an area of nothing but banana trees and we arrived at the spot around 10Am. Now begins the hike!!! The tour guide, Oswald gave us all two bottles of water and a walking stick. I had no clue the hike was going to be so treacherous! Our first little break was at an elevation of 1300 feet. We stopped at a little stream and cooled off because I can't tell you how hot it was!! We slowly made our way further up the mountain stopping ourselves when we were tired. Part of the hike is known as the heavenly steps. They were BRUTAL. As we got closer to the top, the rainforest disappeared and it was very rocky. This is where the climb became really difficult. The rocks made it hard to find the correct footing (and it was even worse coming back down!). We arrived at the crater at 11:45. The last eruption took place in 1979 and there is only a small spot where you can see steam rising up, but there was no lava. As if we hadn't already lost our minds climbing all the way up there we decided to make the trek to the old crater which last erupted in 1812. It now has a really pretty lake at the bottom. Well when I saw the climb down to the lake I decided to stay at the top. It wasn't so scary going down but I don't think I could have ever made it back up. It was downright chilly up at the top due to the breeze. We rested our legs and decided to head back down where lunch was waiting for us. The climb back down took us over 2 hours and we arrived at the van at exactly 3:00. It was one of the toughest climbs I have ever done. I'm glad I can always say I did it, but I will never go again! It was just a little too much. I think it was around 6 miles round trip. I have to get the pictures from the people on the hike with us, and then I will post them. I'm sure the ones that I am in are awful due to the amount of sweat, but the scenic ones are probably great. I will post a bunch tomorrow. That is all for now. I have to go meet a friend to do some clinical cases. Then I need to sleep because it has been an exhausing day and I have a long one again tomorrow with hospital rotations beginning. Goodnight!
~M