My Secret Volcano Lair

Alright, well that was about every major thing I did on my trip to Fiji and Vanuatu, which, because I'm so...lazy...took place about four months ago.  Which reminds me, I still haven't written about all the stuff I did in Tasmania almost a year ago!  Oh yeah, one more thing, on the island of Tanna in Vanuatu I also hiked up to the edge of an active volcano at night and starred into the monster's fiery maw.  But nobody wants to read about that...or DO THEY?

Well, here goes: Land in Vanuatu, or at least on the island of Tanna, is passed down from generation to generation.  So for many generations, some family in Tanna cursed their forefather who, when he got out of his boat, picked a piece of land with a volcano on it.  Nothing grew in the garden, the house always smelled like stink, and their swim suits melted in the river.  But then, one day in the 1774, the island's first tourists showed up and they were super excited to see a real live volcano.  Captain Cook and his crew paid their entrance fee in buttons and shiny beads, birthing the volcano tourism industry of Tanna.

Frankly I was more excited to see a cult that worshiped American DC-3s, but once I'd done that, climbing an active volcano was next on my list (right above riding a tornado).  A trip to the volcano was included in the tour package that had brought me to Tanna, and I knew that it was very accessible and very active.  I've since learned that the volcano has erupted many times per hour for at least 800 years.  I also knew about Captain Cook's visit to the volcano after reading his Journals (he claimed that the glow of the volcano, and not an internet deal, brought him to the island).  I was eager to follow his footsteps to yet another Pacific sight.

We stopped on the way there for some nice distance shots, before arriving at the ash-plain.  It was about as close as I imagine I'll get to the surface of the moon (in the future I won't have time to travel, as I'll be leading the human resistance after the robots rise up).

We parked at the base of the volcano and hiked up to see...a lot of smoke.  Basically during the day, the volcano is too smokey to get any good photos, and then at night you have to figure out how to use that Fireworks mode on the camera and I just gave up and took it all in with the camera of the eye.  The photo at the top of this entry I stole from some internet site, but the smokey pictures below are all mine!

The ground shook, the volcano was loud, and every few minutes it would throw enough liquid hot MAG-MA into the air to make you wonder how many people died doing this kind of tourism.  Loved it.