Vince Versus the Volcano

PACAYA VOLCANO, GUATEMALA, March 10, 2008 -- It was a foolish thing to do, as was repeated by some Brits afterwards, but as I sat watching others walk over a dried up lava path -- under which a lava stream flowed -- I, as a part of this clandestine group of intrepid tourists who had paid to hike up a mountain to get as close to an active volcano as humanly possible, thought that I must fully experience the moment.

Before continuing, I must make the point that for a quarter-hour I watched others take the path, dancing and shuffling over the steam to get a better and closer view of the flowing lava. I don't need to see that, I'm close enough, I told myself. Maybe twenty-five to thirty feet away. That's close.

But others continued to brave the path. Then others. Then all who hadn't yet could be counted on a hand, and I was one.

I danced over the path. The heat rose and felt like it was blistering my legs and melting the soles of my running shoes. As I got to the viewing area, I heard a shriek, "Go, go!" Others who had come before me rushed back past to safe ground. I took one good, quick look at the lava ten or twelve feet away and scurried back on the path, hot coals on my soles.

The rush, I learned later, came after fellow hiker, Jerod from Seattle, heard a cracking noise. Our normally easy-going group leader took on a frantic face. He was the one yelling "Go." As in run for your life.

I made it back to higher, safer ground, as did everyone else. Minutes later -- was it two or three or four? -- the path of dried lava on which we all had walked cracked and slowly formed into slabs that jagged up and down like an old concrete sidewalk. Lava oozed around it.

I contemplated death by lava, loss of leg by lava, disfigurement by lava. Like the Brits who said it before me, it had been a foolish thing to do. Yet, not too foolish. Nothing happened except a good story.