to reach the starting
point. During pre-eruption times it was actually a river, before it
got overrun (like everything else) with pyroclastic material.
Nowadays it is simply a moonscape that separates the mountain from
the village.
The jeep bucked, bolted and
bulldozed its way through the uneven terrain. We held tightly on to
the rollbars, backbones and all groaned from the relentless jarring.
Amidst all this mayhem I noticed the contented look on the driver's
face. I wasn't sure what he was enjoying more - the challenge of the
drive or the sight of us bobbing up and down on the rearview mirror.
Whatever the case, we arrived at the place an hour later, somewhat
dazed and slightly bruised.
"That was the easy part,"
said Rudy, our local guide. "Now all we have to do is
walk."
By that, he meant a
three-hour hump through the volcanic boondocks. Nonetheless, it was
a chance to stretch our legs and marvel at the surreal landscape.
The wide trail we followed was a dry riverbed of lahar,
bordered on both sides by mountains of ash. Rocks were
everywhere - not the small, kiddie-size boulders we previously saw,
but jagged formations that rested at impossible angles. Needless to
say, this terrain changes with the seasons. "The worst time to be
here..." a tourism officer once said, "...is during the rainy
months. That's when the violent changes really happen."
His words were still
echoing in my mind sixty minutes later. By that time we had gone a
third of the way up the mountain, passing by a number of streams and
several million rocks. The mountains of ash seemed to go on like
great, unbroken walls. "How stable are they?" was my nagging
question. I picked up a stone and threw it at the nearest wall. It
buried itself in a cloud of dust, followed by a small avalanche of
rocks.
By midday we had trekked
more than halfway to the crater. The exertion was beginning to show
on us, our sweat pouring by the glass, our feet getting heavier by
the step. Rudy the guide, however, wasn't the least bit tired.
Despite his thin rubber slippers (he wore them backwards to keep the
sand out), he seemed to have no problem with the climb. He was, in
fact, several bends ahead, walking so far he seemed to disappear off
the landscape. Shortly before, the final ascent we found him sitting
on a rock, quietly puffing a cigarette while he waited for
us.
"The crater is just past
that hill," Rudy pointed out. The hill looked far. And high.
Gathering strength for the last push, we guzzled juice and gritted
our teeth. Then we resumed the trek. The land around us was no
longer gray, but a more natural brown with splashes of green
vegetation. The streams, too, had changed. Now they were warm, and
tinted with ochre and red -evidence of our proximity to the source
of it all.
We trudged and plodded on.
Our steps became a bit surer, faster, and our excitement was cranked
a notch higher. The odor of sulfur
