Pacaya Volcano

Guatemala: Volcan Pacaya

I went up an active Volcano yesterday, Pacaya, in Guatemala.
At the bottom, laods of kids tried to sell us walking sticks, and small horses were available for those who couldn´t hack the climb. In fact people brought the horses with them in case we changed our mind half way, and were constnatly calling "taxi, taxi!!."

Near the top the landscape was really strange, these bands of dark black old lava cutting across the soft, green grass. It was like when a dog diggs up a garden, or maybe as if someone had poured crude oil haphazardly all over the place.

Abruptly, the green ended, and qall there was was black rock. We could see in the distance the red lava, and occasionally a boulder would come tumbling down, noisy and smoking. We started up the blakc rock, which was weird stuff: it sounded almost hollow when you walked on it, like it was from a film set or something, and when we were all walking you could constantly hear the weird scraping noise it made, like the sound of fibreglass, or polystyrene. It was so loud it was lieka bad home movie, the blair witch, where you hear every sound like it´s right by your ear.
The stuff was real sharp too, so when the loose rock gave under you, you had to gently put your hand somewhere ot balance you, putting your full weight down immediately would cut your hands up.

There were wierd patterns in thie stuff where Lave had flown and cooled recently, like the bands and ribbons made in the mud by tractors, like a bad glastonbury.


We were getting closer to some real lava flow, and could see the distortions in the air caused by the heat. This is the kind of fun that western health and safety wouldl never allow, people were getting so close to take pictures that the rocks would suddenly fall behyind them and they´d leap away from lava, no joke.

I got close enough to toast some marshmallows, but even with a massive stick it felt like my hands were burning, and I had to half cover my eyes from the hot air and gasses. It was weird, cold one minute, then the wind would suddenly change and you felt like you were in a sauna or a steam room. As we made our way back someoene would occasionally point out a gap in the rock where you could see the bright red molten stuff, and along with the hollow sound beneath our feet, it was like we were walking on a weak surface that might crack at any moment, dropping us into burning hot molten rock.

In short, it was a cool day.