This morning I was meant to have a sleep in, however the church bells and the fireworks (which don't actually have the pretty colourful display, rather just the very loud bang) at 7am put a stop to that!! Soon after the bell and bombs had finished, a siren sounded....I started to think that maybe it was a hurricane warning system.... am I supposed to assemble somewhere??? I soon convinced myself that if it was something serious our tour leader would knock on the door and let us know!! So I laid in bed for a while and then got up!! I had a great breakfast with Elena (from Italy) and Susan (from Switzerland). It was great just having a quiet and relaxed breakfast with the girls!!
I then went in search of a supermarket!! We had been past the supermarket the previous night on our orientation walk so I had some idea where it was!! I soon ran in to Stephanie (from NY) and Debs (from England) also heading to the same place I was heading... So we joined forces!! We picked up supplies for our afternoon activities and headed back to the hotel!!
We just hung by the pool and soaked up some rays and fit in a little lunch!! At 2pm our transport arrived for our afternoon tour!! The tour guide came in to get us... And lead us to our transport, a 4x4 ute!! Two in the cabin and 7 of us sitting in the tray!! Boy was this going to be fun!!! So 4 of us squeezed onto one side, whilst 3 were on the other side. And off we went!!
The on road stuff was fine. The main problem was the wind. Strangely enough, it took your breath away. Weird how that is!! I almost felt like a dog who had his head out the car window!!
Then we turned off!! This is when the real fun started!! The paved road soon turned into dirt rocky pathways!! This was real 4 wheel driving!! We were like 7 popcorn kernels in a pot!!! We were being tossed around like rag dolls!! And we were laughing the entire time!! It was fun!! We did have sore bums and arms from the rough road, but it was worth it for the experience!! Probably the hardest part was ducking for the low lying branches!!! I think we all ended up with a branch to the face at some time throughout the trip!!
We then made our way to as far as the trucks could take us... The rest we had to do on foot!! Now this was going to be hard!! We started climbing.... Up and up....we were continually hiking up hill, no reprieve with down hill stints at all!! Rocks were moving beneath our feet, and often we lost our footing, but thank goodness none of us actually ended up on our bums!! It was a hard climb. We stopped every 10mins or so... And by that stage we were all struggling for breath and were so thirsty!! Then after 45mins of climbing we made it to the crater of the volcano called Telica, which is an active volcano. During the day all you could see was smoke emerging from the crater. It was amazing!! We all had to be very careful, as the drop was 120m and there were definitely no safety fences!! The best thing to do was lie on your stomach and then look over the edge. This was a great experience!!!
We then took another short 10min hike across the rim of the crater to a prime sunset viewing location. Here we watched the sun go down. What a special way to watch the sunset, with a backdrop of other volcanos in the background. We all unveiled and ate our snacks that we had bought earlier... Kind of like a volcano picnic!!
As soon a the sun went down, we headed back to the crater, where again we laid down on our tummies, heads over the rim watching the glowing lava below. It was so hard to capture on camera, as on the screen it just looks like red blobs on a black screen, but at least when I look at it it will be a reminder of this amazing day!! At times the smell of the sulphur was overwhelming!! It literally took your breath away...and all you could do was cough!!! Barry was nice enough to scavenge through my bag and pass me my scarf, which I promptly wrapped around my mouth and my nose!! This helped.....a lot!!
Then the fun started, we had to climb down the volcano in the dark. In many ways this was harder than going up. We all had torches, however every step you took you weren't sure whether the rocks were going to move beneath your feet or not. I'm actually surprised I didn't end up on my bum on the way down!!
Half way down we stopped, turned off our torches and just laid under the stars admiring the beauty of it all.
Eventually we made it back to the ute, where 3 girls jumped in the cabin and 6 in the back, including Barry!! Barry looked like the pimp with all his girls in the back!! The ride on the way back seemed a lot less rough than on the way up!! Eventually we made it back to town, where we all jumped in the pool for a cool down!!! What a day!!