Today I had a great experience, but in hindsight it was one of the stupidest things I've ever done......if things had worked out differently I would have hoped that I would have got a Darwin Award nomination.

I've had a passion for hiking and climbing anything that looks like a mountain for a while now. Since Hawaii I've also had a fascination with lava, so when the opportunity presented itself to climb an active volcano and see lava I jumped at the chance. We arrived back in to Antigua today and immediately took off on a trip to Pacaya an active volcano located about an hour away on the other side of Guatemala city. It is a big tourist pull so the mini bus (one of many) to the area was full with about twenty other travelers.

Pacaya is around 2,600m in hight with the current live lava field located around 2,300m from the bus stop it was around a four kilometer hike through jungle, volcanic tuff then lava flow rising around 600m. It took about an hour and a half to reach the lava field with the last 50m ascent hampered by volcanic scree and too many tourists in joggers trying to cope with it.

Here's where it gets stupid. The local guides get to a point where they walk out across the lava field to see the current flows, with all the foreigners following like sheep. Stepping across the recently frozen lava you catch glimpses of the occasional crack where you can see the fiery molten rock below. About five meters into the field I could feel that the ground wasn't super stable, yet the majority of the crowd seemed to tramp across it with gay abandon. At this point I started thinking about it and remembered how thin of a crust that we were likely standing on.......and started thinking to myself that I was pretty stupid to walk out on this. was thinking the danger is probably why they keep the crowds a kilometer away from the lava in Hawaii (not to mention the potential for litigation). Looking around for an exit it wasn't possible without jumping down off the current frozen outcrop that I was standing on as the herd of people trying to get out to see the flow was crowding it. I could see the flow from where I was, if the ground opened up and spewed lava I couldn't really do much, so I decided to make the most of it and videoed the flow. The crowd eventually passed by me and I made a quick exit off the lava field making it back to the edge of the sinter cone OK. Mum I promise that I won't walk onto any active lava fields again...........

While I was waiting I did get a quick photo of a girl trying to toast a marshmallow over lava . I was amused by the decidence of the act and the sheer stupidity of getting close enough to molten rock to hold a marshmallow over it.

I'll upload a video of one of the active lava flows onto facebook soon.