Antigua is surrounded by three volcanoes, with at least one more in its close vicinity. Of these, two are active right now. So today I decided to climb one of them - or at least go as high up as is generally recommended for tourists who wouldn't know an eruption before it hit them ;-)
The volcano I chose, Pacaya, is the one most commonly visited. It used to consist of only one cone, but the 2010 eruption split the cone into two parts - quite dramatic what nature can do, isn't it?
Since the newest layer of lava is only two years old, it is very fresh, sharp edges and all. But the coolest thing was that there were many places where I could actually see the direction in which the lava had been flowing before it became solid rock.
There was next to no vegetation growing on the 2010 lava, a few small patches of moss was all I saw. The areas that haven't been touched by the latest lava flow were therefore clearly visible at the edges:
As we got higher up on the 2010 lava flow, there were fumaroles everywhere, and at some places it seemed like the volcano was providing natural ovens in the form of overhanging hot stones. Tour groups promptly take advantage of these to cook marshmallows. Luckily, our guide had some marshmallows with her too, so we could join in the fun ;-)
Though without doubt geothermally active, the area had none of the typical sulphur smells. Without chemicals coming out of the ground, there is little to color the rocks, and therefore only few bits of lava had any color other than black. Most of these bits were yellow and red and were located close to fumaroles. The bright colors in the otherwise black lava landscape were a beautiful sight.
