We booked our trip with a nice girl in an agency just round the corner from our lovely hostel and were ready to be picked up at 6am the next day. The minibus that picked us up was suitably dilapidated, and we couldn't help but nervously laugh as the driver kicked the rear left tire each time he stopped. Unfortunately later on we got a proper look at it, and the tire was completely bald and had a rather large gash in it. Amazingly though it got us there and back, up what turned into a savagely bumpy dirt track once we had entered the Volcan Pacaya National Park.
Upon leaving the minibus we were greated with a gaggle of small boys all offering to sell us a stick with which to poke some lava (this actually turned out to be more of a rental agreement as they definitely wanted them back when we got back down!). Our guide was a bandana'd young chap called Jose who repeatedly attempted to chat up pretty much every female member of the group.
The walk from the minibus up the volcano was about 3km but it was outrageously steep and for some reason had to be done at ludicrously fast pace. Me and Clair both regretted not taking the boys up on their offer of a 'horse-taxi' as they called it. This was the view looking back down at a volcanic lake below.
And looking back towards Antigua and the other two Volcanos; Volcan Agua and Fuerte. Fuerte is also active and at times you could see plumes of smoke pouring out the top.
Clair stumbled across the bizarre flower/seed pod from what we believe to be the tree that marimbas are made from.
As we puffed and panted on the way up, we suddenly got a view of the top of the volcano. Clair piped up 'I'm not going all the way up there!'.
Eventually we left the forest and found ourselves on a seriously wind swept ridge with an incredible view. The pictures don't really do it justice. The gnarly hardened lava stretched on for miles with various smokey glowing patches.
Oh hi! Yeah, here's us well sweaty having walked up a Volcano (well part of it), and I did buy/rent a stick.
Clair opted to stay on non-molten rock land while I went down with the guide and some others to try and get close to some lava. It looked incredible where it met the green grass.
The textures were incredible.
The lava was strong enough to walk on, so we headed out. Here's Clair and a couple of nice Irish girls we met on the trip.
There were some bizarre colours.
And finally we got close to some actual flowing molten rock. It was absolutely amazing. Even if the slightly annoying Austrian woman got her head in one of my best photos.
This was what we were walking on. You had to keep moving or your shoes started really heating up, and yes I did poke my stick in here and watch it catch fire.
Jose got us right up to this incredible sight. The hot lava was just pouring here. Hopefully the vid will show how mental it was.
Looking up to the top of the mountain.
Looking back towards the other volcanos.
Such in earie landscape.
It was so clear when we got back to the ridge I just had to take some more photos of these in the distance.
Oh yeah. Here she is on some lava.
I was totally blown away. It really was an amazing experience (wish you were here Dan!). Also, just in case we were getting a bit blase about these mahoosively powerful natural forces, we were subjected to earthquake number 2 whilst watching tv in bed that night. This one was much more severe as well. It was very scary. It felt like the whole town was built on jelly. The mirror rattled around on the wall and you could hear and see the door frame crunch from side to side. We were unsure what to do. Clair thought we should run outside immediately, but me being naked didn't help. In the end it was only a fairly minor one. We think it was quite a big quake, but that the epicentre was a long way away.
I tried putting the vid on youtube this time rather than blogger, but the quality still comes out a bit rubbish. Sorry!
1 comment:
We walked on the lava fields in Lanzagrotte, but we didn't get so close to the red stuff! Great pictures again, we really feel like we were there C&B xx
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