Cerro Negra

The morning dawned bright and we dinghied ashore, then taxied to meet Tim and his multinational tour group before taking positions on the back of an old cattel truck fitted with bench seats. Tim really had to gun it up the steeper dirt roads. We got a great look at the changing vegetation from coastal to arid, through the transition into the Scalesia zone up to the highland Pampa zone where mosses and liverworts clumped at the pale twisted branches of the trees and wild guava and blackberry choked the roadsides. After a brief and amusing riding lesson from Tim (Dad told him he’d never ridden in his life) Dad rode Radish along side a bloke from Texas and the local horse handler to the top of the volcano and Nick and I walked in pursuit with about 8 or 9 other friendly people. The volcanic crater is the worlds second largest, Norongorro in Tanzania being the first. The floor stretched to the distant rim with an unbroken charcoal carpet of crusted lava. The regular eruptions, the last of which was in 2005 ensure that no vegetation intrudes on this bleak expanse. We were lucky the day was so clear and from the high cinder covered slopes we could see for miles. A Parks guide gave a tour of the lava field to a steaming vent another 1.5km on foot. Every conceivable form of basalt lava could be seen. Hair like shards, silvery chunks, bubbly glass, rusty, dense, pumice, pink , globular, tubes, driblet cones, you name it. Nicks uni days came rattling to the front of his mind. We were dusty, dirty, hungry and tired. We ate a late lunch at a restaurant on the square and returned to PC.