Mordor: one does not simply walk in to it

Yet again eyes were up before the sun was. But this time, it was not because of a long day's drive and trying to beat the traffic. No, this time it was because of a long day's hike and trying to beat the hurricane.
Isla Ometepe consists of two volcanoes: The smaller, dormant Maderas (about 1394 metres) and the taller, active Concepcion (1610m). One of the optional activities on the island is to take a roughly 10 hour hike up the 45-ish degrees slopes to the very summit of an active volcano, and some of us were brave, or foolish, enough to sign up for that.
So, after breakfast we drove a short distance to the the base of Concepcion and got our walking sticks. All had carved heads as knobs, and although it was clearly not meant as such, some of them reminded heavily of cartoon characters, among which Johnny Bravo and Butthead could clearly be seen. Mine was Homer Simpson.
Normally, the hike is arranged so that it takes 10 hours, and can therefore be done even by those not normally doing an Iron Man twice a week. But this wasn't normally.
Hurricane Matthew had raged the Caribbean, including Cuba, just before I left home. Supposedly, another hurricane known as a girl's name starting with 'L' had been around. But now, hurricane Otto was blowing cross the lands, and this time it found its way across the mainland rather than the Caribbean. Nicaragua was affected as well, and that meant that the national park in which Concepcion is located would need to close earlier, and that meant that the hike would have to be faster or shorter than usual. Shorter wasn't really an option, because then we wouldn't reach the peak, which is kind of the whole point. So, faster it was.
Starting out flattish and with reasonably solid ground, the path soon got narrower, more uneven and steeper as we got deeper into the jungle. Howlers and white-faced monkeys chatted in the canopy, but I had deliberately left my big-ass camera (the less weight to drag uphill the better) and had only brought my compact, so no photos of the loud simians, unfortch.
Under trees and branches, over roots and rocks, and through vines and vegetation the avid adventurers struggled. Uphill doesn't even begin to describe it, and I sweated more because of the tiresome effort than the heat (which actually wasn't that bad) and the humidity (which was).
Soon enough (that is to say some two or more hours of continuous exercise) the vegetation cleared up, making way for the grassland and occasional shrubbery above the tree line.
And that was when Otto, or at least his little brother, was lurking. At altitude 900 and no protection from the trees, the wind hit us like a punch in the face, from the left. Luckily, the path led us partly behind a ridge, so we didn't have to fight against the wind in addition to climbing the steep volcano and focusing on each step to find sure footing on the increasingly loose ground. Well, not much.
This was where our hopes started to sink a bit. We still had some 450 metres to scale, and time was quickly turning. Now when even the grass had more or less given up, the ground was loose soil and rock, and it was getting even steeper. And we were up in the clouds.
A decision had to be made. We could stay at a certain level, rest a while and then go back down, or we could keep on trekking until noon, and see how far we would get. Our guide gave us little chance to reach the top, so we exclaimed 'Challenge accepted!' and set forth, ever upwards. The patches of loose rock were interspersed with patches of really loose rock, and now and again, solid rock. The volcano was venting, mixing the air and the clouds with sulphur vapour, and the rocks were warm to the touch, hot even. We heaved, struggled, climbed, all Gollum-style, and there it was:
The goal of the day, the very summit of the active volcano Concepcion. To have climbed that far and then having to turn around just as the peak was within reach would have been devastating, making the cheers of joy and victory even more powerful, and making the due to clouds and sulphuric smoke non-existent view not matter. We made it to the top, with ten minutes to spare, and the day was complete!
Well, not entirely. If not as strenuous, getting down was, as it often is, more difficult and dangerous. The rocks loosens more easily, the centre of balance is out of whack and overconfidence can creep in. It took us 5 hours to get to the top. With reasonable slope and ground conditions, it would have been a roughly two hour walk back, but it took us some three and a half. It was certainly no walk in the park. Other than the literal meaning, I suppose. I see now why one does not simply walk in to Mordor.
As hurricane Otto had the entire nation on edge, there were no absolute information on whether or not the ports around Lake Nicaragua or Isla Ometepe would be open the next day or not, so we would just have to wait and see.
I suppose I could summarise the whole Ometepe part as:
We climbed an active volcano. To its summit. In a hurricane. With frigging lasers.