We had met Katie, one of the 2 Peace Corps volunteers, while driving around Georgetown with Sister Nyra. She helps at the Center primarily with the Autistic child. She is also doing an amazing job in the town as a role model and people love her and just drop by to visit her - perhaps a bit too much. She is portraying a great image of an American who lives among them (in a small home), has made local friends and is interested in them as persons. In our visit to her house we saw the townspeople just drop by to visit her and bring her gifts (fruits, vegetables, etc.)

We spoke with Katie about climbing the St Vincent's Soufriere Volcano which was last active in 1979. Katie had hiked the volcano before but did not mind hiking to it again with us. We had been advised to go with a few other people to the trail as a couple of years back a tourist mom and daughter had been attacked there. Katie also recruited one of her local friends, Junior, who had made this hike several times. By the way, we have learned that the reason that there are so many volcanoes named Soufriere is that the word means sulfur in French and these mountains were named by the French.

The entrance to the trail is just 2-3 miles from Georgetown. The trail is well marked and fairly easy to hike with a few exceptions where we had to walk on old river bedrock which was very slippery. It takes about 2 hours to reach the summit. The day was cloudy and we were unsure if we would be able to sit near the edge of the crater and spend sometime waiting to see if the clouds would clear up sufficiently to see the bottom. But it started to rain and the wind at the top was very strong - so much so that we had to hold someone else's hand while leaning forward to try to see beyond the edge. We took a few shots and started descending to an area about half way down where there is a rest stop and a shed. We sat and ate lunch while listening to birds sings and critters scurrying nearby.

After eating lunch, Daniel started walking back to the trail and as he was crossing the river bedrock he slipped and fell! His scream got us all into action as we were unsure of how steep the fall was and whether he would be able to stop. To our relief the bedrock plateau a few feet down and Daniel was able to stop its downward ride and climb back up. He was very pale and so were we as we had feared the worse. We had gone through several passages with steep high cliffs on both sides of the trail. We were all very fortunate that nothing happened to Daniel except a couple of bruises and a second wet shirt!