Today is a hiking day, so by 7:20 am I waited in front of
the hotel for my ride, and by 8 am my group got together high in the volcano
for the 8 km trek in (and the same 8 km on the way out). We had climbed from
the desert scrub of the coast up through the green mist forest to about 1,000 m
elevation, and were going to hike up to the top of one of the largest volcanoes
in Isabela, Sierra Negra volcano. The island is actually formed by five
different volcanoes, which give it an aspect very similar to the outline of
England.
As I think I already mentioned, Ecuadorians take very
seriously their role as stewards of the environment, so we were a properly constituted group of 9
hikers and one professional guide, Humberto. These time we were 2 Canadians, 3
Chinese, 1 Argentinian, 1 Mexican, and 2 other who never opened their mouths so
I cannot tell where they were from. I had good conversations with the
Argentinian young woman, and with the Canadian couple.
It took us a half hour of very gentle climb to make it to
the rim of the caldera, which was completely spectacular. A good 10 km in
diameter, the immense depression had been flooded by lava from the 2005
eruption, whose vent was along one of the ring fractures, so it looked like the
lava had congealed only yesterday.
Galapagos volcanoes are true shield volcanoes, with a
roughly circular outline, a caldera on top, and small flank vents that adorn
the shield as so many studs. In contrast, Hawaiian volcanoes are more like
croissants, with a pronounced arcuate shape, and rift valleys that extend along
the axes of the horns of the croissant, where most of the eruptions take place.
I am not sure what causes the difference, but I suspect that the Galapagos
volcanoes are on top of an ocean ridge, so the water around them is only 1,000
m deep and they don’t develop into giants. The Hawaiian volcanoes, in contrast,
rise from 4,000 m deep, are absolutely enormous, and are torn by gravitational
forces as their immense weight causes them to settle, spread, and tear apart.
S far as wildlife goes we didn’t get to see much. Humberto
pointed out the small and medium finches, and once again I had to conclude that
they are non-descript boring birds. We got to see lots of guayaba (guava)
trees, and even plucked some of the fruits to taste. Before you cry anathema
for plucking the local fruit, you should know that this is an invasive species,
tremendously successful, and that the park rangers would be very glad if it
were to disappear from this Earth. No chance, but at least it forms distinctive
tall bushes, and not tangles like those of blackberries. The latter are a real
issue for the movement of tortoises.
We walked along the side of the caldera for a good hour, and
then headed down the other side to see a relatively young cluster of vents and
their associated lava flows. It was hard going, because the lava was like
clinker and made for slow, careful walking. The colors of the
hydrothermally-altered rock were pretty spectacular and we all got some pretty
cool photos.
The way back was hard on the knees (or shall I say
particularly hard on my knees), but I actually had a very enjoyable hike
back chatting with my Canadian new friends. It turns out she is an
Instructional Designer, who works with faculty on designing courses to take
advantage of computer technology, online learning, and other of the new
approaches being tried by universities the world over. Since in a humble scale
I am all for trying new stuff we had plenty of stories to exchange. With such
charming company the way back felt remarkably pleasant, but the truth is that I
was exhausted by the time we got to the cars. I hate to say this, but old age is
catching up with me.
No comments:
Post a Comment