Sunday, February 21, 2010

Lava and Antigua

Yesterday we visited in and arounf Antigua in the morning, and in the afternoon took a tourist bus ( the same type that we have been dodging on our bikes for weeks) to a volcano. The bus took us to elevation 1900m, and we climbed to the 2600 m lava flow. There were horses available, but we opted to scale it on foot. This meant also trying the near impossible task of avoiding all the horse crap on the path.

So Pete and I, and several busloads of people climbed up and down the volcano. It was quite interesting, if not a very natural or ' man against nature' type of setting. The lava flow was great. They don't have too much in the way of safety rules here, so dozens of people were walking around flowing lava, on rock that was very hot with lava flowing undernear (you could see it in the cracks about four inches below your feet). The bottom on my sneaker got very hot, on ladies footwear melted. She tied on a makeshift sole and limped down the hill.

This morning we will head to the Mexican border, cross over, and look for a hotel that carries the Canada/USA game tonight. Heading north, leaving CA and entering North America, and looking for a hockey game... just a couple of regular Canadian guys.Antigua street with a volcano in the background

Antigua, where you sometimes don't get far without somebody offering something for sale. The variety of goods and the presentations were fun to see.

Shoe shine boy, Antigua



Antigua



The bottom of the hardened lava, which we climbed over to get to the flow. It is a bit tricky to navigate this stuff.




Our backs were feeling the heat.





We were not alone in our quesdt for liquid rock.