Travels in Colombia No.5: Volcan de Totumo

On the Caribbean coast of Colombia is one of the strangest tourists attractions you'll ever find: an isolated clay pot, twenty metres high, bubbling inside with warm, scented mud. Visitors to Volcan de Totumo come to bathe in the mud, receive unctuous massages, and take hilarious selfies. I went to Totumo twice. The first time, at night on the 9th of January; the second, almost a month later, when it was actually open. Here's an extract of what I wrote about my first time.

                                                                                                                    

9th January 2016

20:18 and we were slithering up a narrow road in the fragrant, warm spice of another Colombian night. We arrived at Cartagena de Indias yesterday to meet some friends for a road trip. The meeting date meant that we had spent only a brief night in the fabulous Medellin before pelting to the coast; still, I didn't regret our haste. Each sign that appeared on the road suggested a new world to explore: Taganga, Tayrona, Totumo. This last one jumped out of the dark, too quickly. Had we seen it, or only imagined? A U-turn later, we were retracing our drive. We approached a T-junction to our right, where a timid brown sign demurred the location: Volcan de Totumo, 1km.

Off the beaten road a winding track led us steeply upwards and then down, ending in a wide clearing of patted earth. The car's headlights illuminated snack stands, Parking for 3000 pesos, an eco-hostel; meagre signs of civilization, for the entire attraction sat in civil isolation, distant from any major towns. Even within the landmark itself there was a space, a gap in the centre of the clearing. When we left the car, and the headlights dimmed, we emerged into a sepulchral silence. On one of the weather-beaten huts, wrung hands of tattered tarpaulin clapped threateningly in time to our heartbeats.

As our eyes adjusted to the darkness, we saw it. A monstrous, sleeping bulge of earth, brown, pitted and wrinkled; where the torchlight shone on it, a decrepit elephant hide. We climbed the haphazard stairs carefully, this spine up the creature's back bristling with frozen mud. In the summit crater sat the mud pool. Above us, the stars revealed themselves in a tapestry of colours wilder than we could have imagined at the base.

Together we giggled nervously - schoolchildren caught in the act of trespassing. Surely no-one else was here, now? Still I felt watched; as I climbed down the slippery ladder I experienced the strangest tang of guilt, like sour milk. I dipped my feet into the pool and stirred cautiously at the fragrant stew whose recipe I was attempting for the first time. The mud was coolly warm, and released a fusty scent. 

One by one, we stuck our feet in and retreated. For a moment we stood around the crater, feet clarted with earth; the experience had begun to resemble a ritual. Now we headed down towards the lake, joined by two slippery-friendly dogs (where had they come from?). We washed our feet in companionable silence. Hanging from the branches of a delightfully obliging acacia tree, I dipped my toes in a silvery substance that danced fluidly like liquid mercury. 

Suddenly there was something in my head and underhand: the sense of the sublime. A feeling like honey flowed lazily through me. I tipped my head to the upper left, fixing my gaze on the sky as you would spin a globe and stop it with a finger at an exotic location. In this direction I could see the stars; there, far, Orion loftily holding forth as king in their midst; there, stars, strange and coloured lights like the green lights on the docks that Gatsby had loved. Here, the licking waves of quicksilver lavishing my heels, cleaning the chocolate mud off.

We returned to the car. Standing tall in the night, Totumo appeared a benevolent and dignified force; a mysterious warlock with his black cloak drawn tightly around him. He had just thrown up a handful of stardust and there it grew in the black soil above his wheezing head: cornflower, sienna, mint, in colour and stain incandescent, glowing and shining in the rich dark earth of the firmament and seemingly blossoming and putting out roots and buds endlessly until there we saw a thesaurus of stars across the sky. I imagined the infinitesimal distance the stellar sphere had turned since we had first stood here under it, and I carved out an infinitesimal piece to curate in my memory. The mud pool below, the skies above: we were all in the gutter, and looking at the stars.

                                                                                                                    

Mexico No.4: Inside My Head

16th April 2016

I think I have an idea for a new tattoo. It would include a jacaranda blossom, a twisting tree with roots that dig and grasp. That's all I know for now; but other ideas are coming, slowly but surely, nascent but growing: a pod of tadpoles in a shallow pool who occasionally wiggle their tails, creating convection currents that, now and then, reach the surface to leave a faint trace in my mind.

Why do I want a jacaranda? First of all, it's the colour. Have you ever seen a flower so uniquely blue? Jacarandas are also an encroaching sign of spring, a symbol of optimism and hope on the horizon, of warmer days around the corner. There's that quote that stays with me from Anais Nin's introduction to Tropic of Cancer: "this is a book that goes to the roots and digs under, digs for subterranean springs". The whole introduction is wonderful, a call to amours, to live the strenuous and the sensuous life: one that does not ignore shame and fear, but lets those emotions in and, paradoxically, the welcoming of negative emotions allows you to experience the positive ones more forcefully: joy, passion, generosity, curiosity (the best of them all).

Also, the jacarandas remind me of Mexico. They lend their name to my address: 968 Rinconada Jacaranda. They also grow up along all the major roads in Colima, and outside it, too. I can't forget driving along the free road to Ciudad Guzman, just before turning off to approach Nevado de Colima, and reaching that long narrow stretch of track where the jacarandas bloom. In February I first drove down this road, and the flowers were only just in season, on the cusp of ripening; a spatter of blue, like a hose spraying water droplets, was all that could be seen. Now it is April, and the trees that line the narrow avenue are waterfalls of grey-purple flowers, cascading from branches bowing down reverentially under their weight, a parade of cataracts that draw you upwards on a milky morning towards the cool mountain; and on the hazy afternoon that you return, two days later, the droplets of flowers catch flecks of golden light from the west, and draw you down a tunnels whose walls waft in the melting vernal breeze, walls of brushes dipped in blue that paint the ceiling of the sky to match their colour. The jacarandas are so bright they're almost incandescent. 

Jacaranda blossom on Calle Gonzalo de Sandoval

Sometimes I question if it's natural that I find writing flows easiest when I write about nature.  I mean, does my writing reflect what I feel; surely a moment of wonder should figure only faintly in my day-to-day writings? Instead I find the description of a sunset will swallow up the majority of a day's page. Actually, I do have an answer for this. You see, nature appreciation is easy. I think I've been gifted with a good sense of wonder: I can stop and gape at a beautiful sunrise any morning of the week, and I don't think I'll be jaded with time (unlike some, who'd put this activity on par with watching paint dry). For me it's simple: that panorama is beautiful, and it's large, and therefore I feel small, and my mistakes and worries wonderfully insignificant. With people there's fun and kindness and generosity and romance,  but these things are - obviously - all on a human scale, even if you're 6'7''. Conversely this relatable scale makes everything larger than life, and more crucial: the stakes are higher, every mistake becomes enlarged, worries inside my head seem magnified. Watching the sun fade in the valley, I'm pretty sure it doesn't worry about that time I spilled a drink on a date, but you bet I do on my next night out. I'm sure this raising of the stakes happens to most people, but to what extent? Surely not to the point where you're paralysed, as I sometimes am. I've heard it said from one perspective that you should 'feel the fear and do it anyway'; from another - less eloquent - that the 'I don't give a fuck' attitude will get you a long way in life. Both methods would allow me to shrug the world from my shoulders and throw away the atlas, adopt a smaller sense of scale and enjoy the people in front of the panorama. After all, who really gives a fuck? Most of my mistakes occur only inside my head. I suppose that's why I've been thinking of the jacaranda. I don't hold truck with the idea that tattoos should be avoided because you'd regret them later in life. If you design it well, it will be a beautiful reminder of a time in your life when you thought differently. After all, every one of us is always a work in progress.

First preliminary sketch of jacaranda; drawing ideas for tattoo.

Travels in Colombia No.4: Feria de Manizales

April 18th, 2016

The year began excellently, with a week-long stay at the 60th Feria de Manizales in the Eje Cafetero in Caldas Province, Colombia. While we were in Manizales we saw beauty queens, jugglers, birdmen, wild dancers, rappers, artists, street vendors, beggars, tourists, touts and vendors. This is a city that is painted red by the people that populate it, and I hope the two part-post I'm sharing below describes some of the colourful characters we met.


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Nineteen plates spinning in one!

The feathered man statue on the main square

Looks like one of the builders fancies catching a kiss ...

Colours captured in the Carneval parade

What would she give to be a little taller?

View of (some of) the city from Ecoparque Los Yarumos

Giddy night view of the decorations at El Cipre region

Passion at the salsa contest

The wild skirts and dancing, and the reflected glory of the folklore display

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2nd January 2016

Today was so much fun! While in the mall, faces dimly illuminated by our mobile screens, we were approached by a parce (Medellin slang for 'guy') in white uniform, who asked us if we'd like to ride his bus. This could have sounded suspicious; but his engaging manner allayed our fears, and as we left he waved familiarly at the lady who had just sold me a croissant. She seemed thrilled to see 'Don Alberto', and shouted to our retreating backs:

'Que les vaya bien!'

We followed Alberto to the road behind the shopping centre, where a small crowd of tourists were mingling in confusion in front of a double-decker bus. It seemed that we were the last of the pack: within two minutes we had been handed small cups of hazelnut lattes, and were whisked on board the bus. As we took some seats on the upper deck, it became apparent that we were the only non-Colombian tourists around. The bus took off; swaying and ambling slowly, then gathering speed; confronting a brace of taxis that blared horns threateningly, before cruising giddily around a sharp corner. The drive seemed designed to showcase all of the twists and turns of Manizales, built on the upper roll of a steep hill. We needed some distraction - and up it came, in the form of Don Alberto, bouncing up the stairs and twinkling at the passengers, before whipping out a microphone. In a rasping tenor, he gleefully informed the other passengers that there were some foreigners on the bus. A chorus of heads turned round at us. Where were we from? Scotland and England; to which the upper deck responded with a thunderous round of applause!  couldn't help laughing out loud. This was proving to be a rather good whim we had followed. For the next two hours the bus careened drunkenly around, conveying us through all the neighbourhoods of Manizales with barely a backward glance, and Alberto suavely held sway in the middle of the top deck, bellowing facts and regaling us with jokes and stories from afar. He covered the whole world within the scope of his patter! (Except Manizales itself, about which I learned nothing except that it was built in 1849.) For Alberto, the real story of the city was not in the buildings, or the street names, or any historical facts or figures: Manizales was now, Manizales was on the streets. Shop vendors were heckled at red lights; pedestrians were joked with from two blocks away. Twice more Nathen and I were applauded for being foreign tourists. Alberto began sing-songs at a moment's notice, with a chorus of thirty on the upper deck being no match for a man on a mission with a microphone. The highlight of the tour was undoubtedly in the dark: for every time that we went under a bridge a party occurred. The driver would blast his horn furiously, hidden LED lights on the bus's sides would flash, and the whole population of the upper deck would join in a cheer, 'Feliz Año! Viva la Feria de Manizales!'. Mad, fun, incredibly engaging. I was overwhelmed by the spirit of Colombia, and the joi de vivre of this incredible country.

Mexico No.3: A Sense of Scale

March 1st to March 3rd, 2015

All around the Pacific, the Earth has been sewn up. Like the stitching on a softball, a horseshoe-shaped scar curls around the outer rim of our largest ocean, a forty-thousand kilometre line of crumpled mountains and spewing volcanoes, of active faults and oceanic arcs and marine trenches which all together mark the boundary where the innards of the Earth have been sewn shut and where, periodically, the stitches fail and the inside comes spewing out. This line is called the Pacific Ring of Fire, and along its length we find over three-quarters of the world's active or dormant volcanoes.

Now, every geologist knows the importance of a sense of scale. It must be large enough to understand 'the bigger picture', and small enough to show us the finer details. Forty thousand kilometres is longer than most of us can conceive of, or than that the Proclaimers would be willing to walk. So let's look closer: the American Cordillera. Still too big? We'll divide and conquer: the American Cordillera can be split into three sections, which are the Andes, Central America, and the North American Cordillera. Although I can go further into detail, let's pause for a moment at this scale on the map.

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The North American Cordillera forms the northern section of the American Cordillera. It is not the largest section - the Andes are over 7,000 km in length - and yet the NAC punches above its weight class for both its proportion of the volcanic and seismic activity along the Pacific Ring of Fire, and for the amount of exposure in the academic community it receives - understandable, given the vast economic resources of these three countries. (Case in point: enter 'Mount St. Helens volcano' in Google Scholar and watch the landslide of papers and citations that your search generates.) 

The North American Cordillera extends from the far-north Aleutian Islands, to the southernmost tip of Chiapas, across three countries as diverse as Canada and USA and Mexico, with people with their own customs and their own thoughts, with different explanations of how the volcanoes came to be and what we should do with them now that they are here. 

Does geography influence how we create cultures and form customs? When I first studied the different cordilleras within the Pacific Ring of Fire, I thought it fortunate that these geographical divisions usually reflected differences in the local population's relationship to that volcano; a pretty naive view, because of course distance and division in geography would contribute to independent evolution - just look at Madagascar's indigenous species. However, it is interesting to note that some challenges of volcanology seem to remain there regardless of scale, problems that are encountered both in the local village and across oceans and time zones. 


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Now, earlier in this post I said I'd go into further detail. Within the Pacific Ring of Fire there is the American Cordillera, of which the North American Cordillera is the northern section; part of this Cordillera is the Basin-and-Range Province, within which you'll find the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt, and at the western end of this belt sits Volcan de Colima, which we are monitoring at the CIIV.

Here we are, finally, at the volcano: take a seat, catch your breath. Have a minute to enjoy the view: beautiful, no? However, even in paradise there is trouble. A good explanation of the challenges we face every day in monitoring could be our recent trip to La Mesa.

La Mesa is a large and prosperous avocado farm on the western side of Volcan de Colima. The farm is at 1700 metres altitude, and has a generally clear view of the volcano. We plan to monitor it for two days, with the following equipment (flyspec for SO2 flux, visual camera, video camera, thermal camera, infrasound).

Over the course of the three days (1st - 3rd March 2016), we encounter the following problems:

1. Locked gates. The land around the volcano is mostly farms and haciendas, as the fertile earth is perfect for cattle-grazing and crop-growing. Attempting to approach the volcano requires navigation of mazes of wood-and-wire fences, and searching for the one person on a farm who has an access key. As luck would have it, that person has usually gone to market that morning.
2. Equipment failure. Our flyspec has its good days and bad days, and the first day is a bad day. The laptop continually bombards us with messages that it cannot locate the motors, the GPS, the spectrometer. Scans will stop after two minutes, or with no warning. Fixing the flyspec is something of a trial-and-error effort: on the second day, it works almost perfectly.
3. Volcan de Colima's behaviour. I know, funny that this should be a big deal! Changes in activity levels and weather conditions can seriously affect our plans for the day. We planned to spend three days monitoring at La Mesa. However, on the 2nd the wind changed early in the morning; any eruption plumes were driven east, away from our monitoring site. So we drove to another hacienda on the other side of the volcano, which involved taking three hours of time out of our monitoring day. 

These are a sample of the main challenges that we encounter on our everyday monitoring of the volcano. What are the solutions? Surprisingly, we find that 'local solutions to local problems' is not applicable here - solutions apply internationally, and basically comprise of two things: money, and communication. If we had more money, we could replace the old equipment. Poof! Our problems with poor data and equipment failure in-field would not be a problem. Also, having more money would not render us so dependent on good weather for field trips; we could go more often, or set up some sort of semi-permanent network for monitoring. Better communication would work well on a number of levels: between the students monitoring in-field, and those working in the lab in Colima; between different departments in the university; and between the volcanologists and the people whose land we borrow to study the volcano. Better communication could be a key to a locked gate, a collaboration on a project, or more effective evacuation plans (coming up in a future blog post). Whatever it is specifically, better communication is something that works, regardless of scale.

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This was a hard post to write, and I'd like to do more justice to the subject (or subjects) that I've brought up. I really think that the problem lies in the fact that this is simply too big a topic for a Blogger post. Personally I think it would make a fantastic book to explore this area, south to north or north to south, and see how the volcanoes change and the people too. Don't you?

Travels in Colombia No.3: The Cocora Valley

December 30th, 2015

What is it that makes an experience unique?

Yesterday we discussed this on our walk to our campsite (beyond the 'Al Rio' sign we found at the end of this post). We had believed Salento to be a picturesque little town curled sleepily among the sunlit coffee bushes, waiting to be discovered. Instead, we had been confronted with cheerful vendors and loud-mouthed touts, curious tourists and cheeky kids. We were both disappointed by the town, although to different extents: I felt it weigh on Nathen's shoulders as he described a friend's truly unique experience, a New Year's kayak in a frozen glacial lake.

Today we woke up at half-past six. It was pleasantly disconcerting when I opened my tent curtain to see a sliver of fresh woodland, instead of a pre-wrapped, banal slice of city. We packed our gear, and crept up the footpath to rejoin the road with the 'Al Rio' sign that had enticed us to the camping spot last night. Now we walked not back into Salento but onwards, towards the north-west. In front of us was the Nevado del Ruiz National Park and the Cocora Valley, filled with wax palms and waiting for us to explore it.

Palms standing to attention on a windy ridge. Some of these are 60 metres high!

How delicious the first hour of hiking was! Even though our route (following a Colombian A-road) wasn't adventurous in itself, the coolness and stillness of the morning and the occasional glimpse of the cloud-wrapped future present painted a fresh coat of optimism on my morning. I was further encouraged by the incredulous stares of motorists, who would whip their heads round as they passed on bikes, or whoop words of greeting while clinging onto the back of an open 4x4. One wag shouted, 'you are so much more hardcore than us!' It was true: I had 12kg on my back and 9km to walk up a long and winding road that was increasingly hot from the sun and unblemished by spots of tree-shade - you bet it was hard. The unrelenting easy beauty of any photo I took seemed to add salt to my sweat, blood and tears. So it was a relief when, on the last 800 metres of road before the park entrance, a gentleman in a pick-up stopped to offer us a lift.

Whizzing along in the back of a ride we'd hitched.

The National Park turned out to have many unnatural amenities. We lingered over tiny cups of coffee, our first in the Eje Cafetero, and then started to hike through the valley. I was impressed by the size and height of the wax palms, which, when juxtaposed with the ambling tourists and the coffee stands gave an otherworldliness, a Liliputian air of everyday life in miniature. There among the monstrous trees was a tiny fairground: horseback rides, endless stalls of goodies, overpriced cocktails. This natural wander-land was rather unnatural. I wondered, was the rest of Colombia still untouched? 

We continued. The pack was painful on my shoulders, and I was thirsty, but still we walked deeper into the park. Eventually we arrived at La Cascada (The Waterfall). It had no waterfall, but we did find a route which wound down a narrow track to the most exquisite camp site. Dotted with red and purple jewel-flowers, littered with shadows and sun, graced with red-breasted woodpeckers and creaking insects. It was paradise, and just a pity that we had arrived too soon: at one o'clock, now was too early to pitch camp. However, we had no food, and the next hacienda, La Primavera, was 19km ahead, so we returned reluctantly to the valley filled with tourists. Still, we had tried; and found a secret spot that no-one else knew. A unique experience, of sorts.

Sunlight through the wild vegetation.

Even though today was just a walk in the park, it left an impression on me that will take a while to shake off. The juxtaposition of familiar and strange felt 'one-of-a-kind' - although I accept that many people wouldn't agree. So then, I suppose, the answer to my question: what is it that makes an experience unique? Why, it's you.

Sunrise over the hills holding the Cocora Valley.

Mexico No.2: The First Two Weeks

February 11th to February 25th, 2016

I love volcanoes. The power, the raw energy, the scale: the reason I came to the Americas. However, the only Reasoning with Volcanoes I did during the first weeks of 2016 was waving to the distant, snow-covered Nevado del Ruiz from the streets of Manizales.

I'm happy to say that I have now returned to my passion. Since February 10th, I have been living in Colima, Mexico, where I am working as a volunteer at Colima Exchange and Research in Volcanology (CIIV). It's a volunteer position like no other: singularly hands-on and do-it-yourself. CIIV functions simultaneously as a monitoring institute and publication mill and centre for academic research, and since 2004 has been run by Dr. Nick Varley with the aid of students that come from all corners of the planet wishing to get their hands dirty working on one of the currently most active volcanoes in the world. I'm very proud to be a small part of the huge team of volunteers who have worked here; as you can see, we are quite a crowd! (Here).

Location of Volcan de Colima, Colima: find it on Google Maps here. 

My first two weeks here (11 - 25th February) were as unconventional as I could hope for! I spent four days in the field, which included sleeping in sub-zero at 3000 metres, carrying camera equipment up a cinder cone, and familiarising myself with software. Work while back home in Colima was interesting, too: my days were split between getting to grips with software and office equipment, and preparing for Skype interviews. You know it's going to be a great placement when your first two weeks rival your recent travels in terms of adventure.

Here is a summary of the highlights of my first fortnight:

February 10: The bus from Ciudad de México reaches Colima at seven o'clock. After experiencing the cold winds and grey skies of a wintry capital, I am overwhelmed by the colours and the warmth of Colima. My flatmates aren't awake yet, so I doze over a coffee in the bus terminal until they are up, and then catch a taxi to my new address. Once inside, I say hello to everybody, find my new room, and promise myself an hour's kip. Wake up at four.

February 11: My first day in the office! CIIV is located in the Facultad de Ciencias (Faculty of Sciences) that belongs to the University of Colima. I spend my first few hours looking through the welcome pack, which instructs new volunteers. I marvel that every task that could possibly be conceived of is apparently already being taken care of by my co-workers; this illusion is dispelled by about my third day. My friends and I work hard, but there is simply more data that can be processed in the time that we have available, especially with the demands of regular fieldwork. As I step out at lunch, the heat of the city rises from the pavement to meet me. It's a blessing after the air-conditioning of the office. What's the saying? If you can't stand the heat, get out of the laboratory.

February 12: It's my second day at CIIV, and already I am in the field. We are monitoring the volcano from the shadow of a barn house in La Joya, a hacienda 8km south of the summit. We have a variety of monitoring equipment that we use to capture data from the volcano: FlySpec, which measures output of sulphur dioxide from degassing at the summit crater; a thermal camera, which captures the temperature of crater-rim fumaroles and explosions; a video camera, for visual evidence of eruptions; and a Nikon camera which we use to photograph eruptions.

Standard set-up of monitoring equipment at La Joya. On the trio of tripods are: video camera (left),
FlySpec (centre), VarioCam thermal camera (right). Laptop and battery are just about visible
in the shade.

The volcano really is quite incredible. Volcán de Colima, or Volcán de Fuego, stands proudly at a height of 3839m on the border between the states of Jalisco and Colima. The caldera in which the cone sits contains massive debris avalanche deposits and flows from prehistoric eruptions, while the central cone is composed of andesitic lava flows. Inside the summit crater a transient dome can sometimes be found; during periods of greater activity, such as July of last year, the dome is cannibalised by the forces rising inside the edifice, and enormous eruptions jet large volumes of ash and gas into the air (as an eruption column), or force them as flows down the volcano's flanks (as pyroclastic flows). 

In contrast to the lively and energetic venting of Fuego, the older edifice of Nevado del Colima is inactive. Nevado sits 5km north of Fuego. At 4271m, Nevado can often be seen over its younger brother's shoulder, quietly sulking, whether rugged and sunburned or dusted in snow.*

Back to the morning of the 12th. We arrive at our monitoring spot (La Joya) at ten o'clock and the volcano is already smoking - a terrible habit. It sporadically stops degassing until three o'clock, when a pale grey plume appears in the crater. It rapidly expands in size, ballooning upwards until the plume resembles a mushroom cloud. After only two short minutes, the emissions seem to have decreased and the wind begins to disperse the plume towards the west. Nevertheless, I am elated: this is the first Vulcanian eruption that I have ever seen!

Fuego de Colima from La Joya, with debris avalanche deposits in middle foreground.

February 20: After a week of interviews, I am able to return to the field. A team from the University of South Florida (USF) are visiting, so I accompany them with Nick to San Antonio, a barranco in the southern part of the caldera. While Nick and I take pH and conductivity measurements of the thermal springs, the USF team walk upstream to attempt to pinpoint the contact between older deposits and the deposits from the July 2015 pyroclastic flows. I am awed by the barranco's size: these canyons are BIG.

Nick in the lower part of the San Antonio barranco.

February 21: The BBC are here! I am extremely excited to meet the team, who are a welcome reminder of home. They are here to film the volcano, of course, and they are lovely, very enthusiastic about this opportunity. We manage to combine our scientific and creative ambitions: a trip up to Volcancito (a series of parasitic lava domes on Fuego's north-east flank) allows us to collect both footage and samples from an ash bucket. The hike is breathtaking: I am carrying 15 kg of camera equipment on my back. I have to regularly regain my energy by 'stopping to smell the roses', which consists of sitting on a rock and admiring the beautiful south face of Nevado. I feel incredible. There's nothing quite like prevailing up a volcano, laden with equipment, to make you feel big - and then standing on the shoulder of said volcano to make you feel small. It's five o'clock in the afternoon, and Fuego begins to stir. At this short distance, the hiss emitted by the degassing plume sounds like a beast lying within the volcano, growling contentedly. And as the sun begins to set, the plume of vapour released begins to grow; slowly at first, curling up and out, and then the rising vapour hits the sunlight's path and glows orange against the sky.

Filming via drone on top of Volcancito, with a gently degassing Fuego at right.

The CIIV team leaves the Beeb to film, and we begin our hike down Volcancito in the dark. We'll be camping tonight in el Playon, the shoulder saddle between the volcano and Nevado. At 3000m altitude, it's chilly, and before sleeping we huddle around a small bonfire for warmth. Looking north towards Nevado, and up at the stars, I can almost forget that there's an active volcano behind us - almost. At half past ten an eruption begins, and a feather of white vapour at the summit sprawls into a blossoming white cloud. Since tonight is clear with a waxing gibbous moon, the effect is spectacular. The white plume rising in the black sky, the stars, the cold: Colima blows my tiny mind.

February 22: el Playon is a convenient stop on the way to the refugio at the top of Nevado. This small building is staffed by the Protección Civil de Jalisco (Civil Protection of Jalisco State), and boasts incredible views of the summit of the volcano, so that we can take excellent FlySpec and thermal data of the northern flanks and crater. The PCJ staff work shifts, and arrive in a truck emblazoned with 'BOMBEROS' ('FIREMEN'), which we find very amusing: are they planning to put out the eruption of Colima with a hose? However, they do a good job, and ironically do an excellent job of building fires, in the large stove in the kitchen. The CIIV collect thermal data overnight, which involves operating the equipment during long shifts in the freezing cold, so a fire is really welcome. Unfortunately I won't be part of the team this time: I have to return to Colima city, and prepare for another interview. I can't wait for my chance to stay at Nevado overnight - ¡tengo que volver!

The refugio at the top of Nevado del Colima, with a view of the cloud-free summit
of Fuego. The refugio stands at about 4000m and is permanently staffed by
PCJ workers.

I do hope to return to Nevado soon. In the meantime, I'll keep my fingers crossed for more unconventionality in the coming weeks!

*Please note! I'm still learning to hit the right tone of this blog, and may vacillate between descriptive prose, informative travel talk, and precise scientific jargon. I understand that sometimes things can get muddled, and that my descriptions of volcanoes can be overly florid: I suggest you take them with a Pichincha of salt.