October 20th, early in the morning, 6 AM, we are ready (we think) to climb the volcano from the leeward side, this the longer and more difficult approach and the trail is more overgrown….Rasta Kenny, our guide, is on time but we have to wait 20 minutes for our taxi driver. Stefan is already getting nervous since we need to get to the top before the hot sun is hitting us. By about 7 AM we arrive at the starting point, the beach in Richmond. Rasta Kenny smokes a joint, maybe it is not that difficult then….Stefan takes the lead after 5 minutes of walking and after one hour Kenny stays behind. It was the first time he climbed the mountain since 3 months. He definitely will stop smoking for about 2 months when the tourists are back 🙂 . He tells us about his jail time in Barbados because he tried to sell 450 pouds of marijuana in Barbados. If you can sell it there you are rich but obviously you cannot get caught. Kenny still has a ganja plantation but only sells in St.Vincent.

In the beginning the climbing is not too bad and the path is still wide enough.

Soon the path becomes more and more overgrown and steeper.

When we get to halfway point, I had hoped we were already past halfway…Good thing I did not know what still was to come…

Stefan must have an appointment up there…he is going so fast. I can hardly follow and Kenny does not know what is happening to him…Definitely no more smoking the next months…

Now we still have to go back down! We arrived at 10 AM at the top, so in 3 hours where most guides speak of 4 hours…Rasta Kenny told me “your man is full of energy man”, I was happy to hear somebody confirmed my feelings. We went down in 2,5 hours, going down was not a peace of cake…luckily it did not rain! When we got back at the beach our taxi driver was waiting for us, it was 1 PM. We got a beer at the first bar, all the water we had with us was gone (3 liter). A nice thought to end the climb was written on the wall (elections are coming up)….

When we arrived back at the boat, after a two hour drive, the only thing we did was take a dive in the cool water, wash up, and read or sleep…For dinner we had mangos, nobody felt like cooking :-). Another great day in paradise! 🙂