Nigel: This is backpacking
Maria: This is hell!
One shower, one change of clothes, two overnight ferries, one overnight train, a combination of 5 trains, buses and ferries, 9 hours of sleep and 57 hours later we arrived in Stromboli one of the most active volcanos in the world. It was just in time too since we had booked a guided trek up to the creator of the volcano leaving in 30 minutes time. We had no accommodation booked and took the first guy to approach us who hurried us away in his golf cart with us clinging one hand to the cart and one hand on our bags that were swinging wildly from the back. Once we got to the accommodation we checked in and started running to the trekking outfit that was twenty minutes away. Lucky for us our golf cart driver spotted us running down the street and caught up with us to give us a lift to the office. In no time we had our helmets and were starting our 1000 meter climb to the top of the volcano.
We watched the sun set from two thirds the way up the volcano and with amazing speed dark clouds surrounded us and reduced visibility to a few feet. With the wind howling we continued but got stuck just before the summit because there was too much methane in air all we could do was wait it out as it was too dangerous to go back the way we came in the dark.
Finally after a four hour climb we made it to the top. I was surprised we made it given the lack of sleep over the past few days since we where to cheep to buy couchettes on our overnight ferries and train. Maria was fairing worse than I was and curses were flying every few minutes and at one point there was a guy whistling at the top of the volcano at which she told me “I’m going to kill him! and I’ll listen to him whistle as he falls from the mountain.”
All in all it was definitely worth it. We sat at the top for an hour and waited for the clouds to part where we got to experience the deafening explosions in the cone and watch magma shooting out the top like fireworks while the guides would run up and down the line yelling DON’T LOOK INTO THE SKY! as ash was falling on our heads.
We watched the sun set from two thirds the way up the volcano and with amazing speed dark clouds surrounded us and reduced visibility to a few feet. With the wind howling we continued but got stuck just before the summit because there was too much methane in air all we could do was wait it out as it was too dangerous to go back the way we came in the dark.
Finally after a four hour climb we made it to the top. I was surprised we made it given the lack of sleep over the past few days since we where to cheep to buy couchettes on our overnight ferries and train. Maria was fairing worse than I was and curses were flying every few minutes and at one point there was a guy whistling at the top of the volcano at which she told me “I’m going to kill him! and I’ll listen to him whistle as he falls from the mountain.”
All in all it was definitely worth it. We sat at the top for an hour and waited for the clouds to part where we got to experience the deafening explosions in the cone and watch magma shooting out the top like fireworks while the guides would run up and down the line yelling DON’T LOOK INTO THE SKY! as ash was falling on our heads.
posted by Nigel Soon at 9:40 AM
1 Comments:
[sarcasm]I'm glad to see you guys don't let all this nonsense talk about "Natural Selection" stop you from going up active volcanoes![/sarcasm]
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