Volcano. Volcano. Volcano.

Ok I left and went to England for a while but now I am finally back in Mexico!

Its been a great few weeks back. I spent 2 days in Colima before heading out to sea on a World War II minesweeper. We went to Isla Socorro, one a few remote Volcanic Islands out in the pacific. It took nearly 40 hours to get back on land. The island was amazing, bubbling mud, obsidian and fumaroles everywhere (at the summit at least). We spent a while up top collecting self potential and radon data. On another day we took a boat out on the choppy sea to a remote beach, Palma Sola where only the strong swimmers could get off the boat. So off the boys jumped, swam to shore and climbed the cliffs and ran off into the jungle to collect some spring samples. The boat trip took around 2 hours in total, it was a long way round the island.

Here is where the events start to mingle though and I can't remember the exact order of things. I think a flight around the dome came first. This was amazing. So much fun.

After that there was a trip to the Playon. Another fantastic trip. There was two main aims for this trip. 1, to set up the infra sound station. 2, collect rockfall and thermal data. Me and my housemates had a long drive to Guzman and up the volcano. It was Maggie´s first time off road so there was a little tension there, well that and the brakes were known to be unreliable. We made it there in one piece and went our separate ways to do our respective job. Maggie and Dave, stayed at camp to set up the thermal camera (worth more than our lives) and film rockfalls while myself and Holly went to the seismic station to install the Infra sound station (note please read station as 'place with a few poles in the ground'). We spent all day there and were pretty pleased with ourselves as our boss was pretty sure we wouldn't be able to do it by ourselves as it was obviously above our intelligence. Oh and not only did we do it, but we did it double time, so we were extra happy (yet back in the office there was not a single thank you or well done).... anyway back to camp. We were basically camping on one of the old lava flows and sleeping with rocks dug into our backs.... although for what we saw, it made the entire thing worth it, I could of come to Mexico for the year, done nothing at all the entire time but to see this one spectacle and left happy. Incandescence. Its a lovely word. Its a lovely sight. At 3am, red hot rocks being thrown down the volcano to burst and fragment like some upside down fireworks show. This shook us out of our sleep delirum and had us jumping around, howling and screaming with excitement as to what we had witnessed. A similar thing happened the following night. We heard the rockfall from our tent, sounding monstrous. Unzipping our tent, propped on our elbows, mouth wide open, gawking at the volcano as we watched the red hot waterfall coming down the left flank. Much bigger then the previous night.

It made me realise, that if she really decided to blow, we would be screwed. There were several times at night, when you would hear the treacherous rockfalls, the sound so loud, like its coming straight for you (whilst you are unwittingly in its path) where you would get a little scared. But thankfully, lack of sleep making us a bit stupid, we would just unzip the tent, a disinterested peak at the volcano (it takes red to get us excited) then zip back up and rest our heads back down on their rocky pillows. I realise that it may seem a little strange that the most active volcano in Mexico doesn't hold our undivided attention at every shake and tremble but this is what fieldwork, lack of sleep and being incredibly dusty (ashy?) does to you.


Hmmm anyway right now thinking of the Playon has wiped all else from my mind but I did have more adventures to tell....

On another note...

....is this honestly what you think you would be seeing on a trip to a Pacific coastal state of Mexico? The rides up and down this volcano has to be one of the most enjoyable experiences of my life. Why can't the rest of life be like riding in the back of a truck?

The first picture is of a toilet by the way! These were taken a few minutes after we reached the entrance to the National Park. It is around here you can go several ways, either up! This way is restricted access, only Protection Civil can drive up there. Another option is to drive along, up and down, this takes you to the caldera wall of the other volcano, Volcan de Fuego where you then climb down the caldera wall to the Playon (this is where the puma incident started out.... and the place I now try and avoid!).

We took the first route. About 10 minutes after this point we had driven to a point just over 4000m!

The reason we went up here in the first place was to collect thermal and SO2 data. You can see the observatory where we stayed in the photograph below (if its THAT small you can't see, it's on the right side of the photograph, you can just about see some antennae).

I want to cry!

I broke my camera on a trip up here.

I was taking pictures in the back of the Jalisco Protection Civil truck when we went over a nastier bump then usual and it got destroyed in the process. My poor poor camera.

Adventures from Christmas and new year still to come!

I accidentally left my mac (broken) charger in the bag of a guy I was traveling with for a short while. So the life support for my laptop is either in Singapore or some landfill site somewhere, maybe a landfill site in Singapore... who knows?

But for now: meet Martin, he will keep you entertained





This photo is from Guanajuato, where me and Martin had a bad breakfast before heading to Mexico City (27th Dec I think!). He borrowed my headband to stop his hair getting in his soup... but as we left the market he forgot he was wearing it and was wondering why people were looking at him funny-including myself whilst trying to stifle my giggles