I stood 50 feet from the spout of an active volcano. And it was shooting lava.

I know, I know, I´m doing a horrible job keeping the journal entries coming regulary, or at all actually—it´s been two and a half countries since I last wrote. I promise to do better.

"Retired men were falling by the wayside."
Mt. Pacaya is one of several volcanoes near Guatemala City, and the most visited. Groups are more like herds, two per day, about 30 in each. The day trip, including 3 hours round trip transportation, entrance to the site and a guide cost $8. A very cheap thrill. I wasn´t expecting much, maybe an easy hour of hiking and then a ho-hum bit of steam popping out at the top, but that the views would be the best part. It turned out to be an involved, sweaty hike, at altitude though I´m not sure exactly how high. Retired men were falling by the wayside, their wives mounting the several horses available for a little extra. The first half of the trail climbed through jungley forest before ending abruptly at the farthest reaches of the ashen top. Ash, ash, everywhere ash--sort of like a coal field. Perhaps the kind of rock there is called tuff, or is it scoria? I´ve had enough geology to know but forgot. As the trail levelled out we stood below the main, steep cone on a former rim of the volcano. Below was a large bowl depression, a caldera perhaps, or is that only if it contains water? From here up the landscape became lunar, nothing green, nothing brown, only the purpley black of the rock.

We could now see the activity at the peak, spurts of lava shot up at 5 second intervals like compact fireworks blasts. The guide said it had been this active for the last month and that most likely it would be too dangerous to go all the way to the top. But then a dusty American walked over—a scientist studying the mountain--and after talking to the guide for a while told us that the sensors that measure activity in the volcano had not received any indication that The Big One was on it´s way. He said it´s possible to go all the way to the top, but that it wasn´t necessarily safe, then he showed us the burn on his leg he got recently form a flying blob. He said ´´take pictures quickly, and then leave´´. I felt reassured—surely 30 whole people couldn´t be killed all at once, right? Of course not. So off we went.

"We're going to walk to the edge of a spewing volcano."
The cone was not easy to ascend, trudging through the ash was like walking up a steep slope covered in deep powder snow—one step forward, half a step sliding back. Fortunately the ash didn´t rub off or we would have descended looking like miners. We stopped at a wide spot just below the peak but were still blocked from seeing it directly. After resting a few minutes the guide lightly stepped out onto the area where the peak came into sight, studied it for a moment, and then without lots of confidence waved us over. Hi ho, hi ho…we´re going to walk to the edge of a spewing volcano. Get your cameras ready--what could possibly happen?

We edged over and the peak came into view. It felt like sidling up to a wounded dragon, not knowing whether it might thrash unexpectedly. Steam was billowing out in clouds and a low hiss issued from the orifice, interrupted about every 8 seconds by a hurl of magma-cum-lava that shot up maybe 30 to 40 feet over our heads, making a deep ´´phumpf-phumpf´´, and then arched away form us over the other side of the mountain. The wind blew away from us, which was the key factor here--had it shifted suddenly, we could have been peppered and killed. I sort of ducked, squinted, and shrugged my shoulders up around my neck at each blast, and took pictures. The peak itself, the cannon, was about the size of a dumptruck standing on end. Occasionally larger blobs made it up and out the peak, bright orange and twirling like pizza doughs. Beside the canon, in a small depression in which the peak sat was a glowing orange hole about the circumference of an umbrella. It looked like an angry eye.

"This would never happen in America."
People in the group were trotting around laughing and smiling like we were watching Old Faithful go off--´´Can you get a picture of us?, thanks.´´ The guide let us tarry about 10 minutes before nervously shepherding us away and back to safety. I overheard conversations about liability--´´if this were in America…´´. This would never happen in America. Apparently you can´t sue Guatemala for 18 million if you get burned. And good for Guatemala, where you´re still solely responsible for whatever happens while voluntarily wandering around under the lava spray of a volcano.

There´s so much more to tell about….the highlands and the Pacific and Gulf Coasts of Mexico, the beaches, monkeys, and crocodiles of Belize, the terrible food of but amazing experience of (blank), and the amazingly friendly Guatemalans. But later.

I´m on my way now to Lake Atitlan to enroll in a Spanish class. Perhaps I´ll study for 2 weeks, or 3 if I don´t blow a fuse. It will be quite challenging and frustrating at times I´m sure, but I really want to come home fluent. I´ll try hard for the next entry to be neither delayed nor in Spanish.

Wishing you all an early Spring.