Day 12 - I looked into a dragon's mouth. He had awful breath.

Day 12

Sheepishly I woke up - and today was normal. Finally. We drove up from the village here into the clouds. At 845m of elevation we stepped out to witness the stunted jungle plants growing up here. A culvert ran along the concrete road, its contents being contributed to at intervals by hot water rushing out of the volcanic cliffsides. The cliffs were stained bright rusty orange, like 70’s plateware coated with uranium based paint. The stain is likely caused by minerals dissolved in the hot water as it shoots up through the earth’s crust, which then come out of solution as the water cools on the surface. We hiked the trail in from here and 45 minutes later came out at Boeri lake. The scenery here has a strange Appalachian like quality. It is surrounded by mountain peaks which do not seem so high because we are near their top. Each peak’s ruggedness is disguised by the foliage which clings to all faces but the most daunting overhangs, and the low cloud cover and short plants made the lake look like it belonged somewhere in northern Quebec. After we hiked back out of the clouds, we continued down to Trafalgar falls, the highest waterfall we witnessed yet. I clambered over the huge slippery boulders to the foot of the phenomenon. The falls crashed into a pool here, with such force from over 100 feet up that wind rushed past my ears and mist soaked my clothes. As we hiked back out from Trafalgar, the incessant rain which had started recently continued its onslaught, and did so until now. Thankfully this was accompanied by sunshine, as usual. On the way out we followed a sign that caught our eye to some Sulphur springs. The springs were spectacular. It was unfortunate that an Amercian man and his girlfriend bought up the property on which the springs can be found, and will in January begin charging people to see them. We walked around the large complex that he was building out of bamboo and mortared stones. Pathways had been lain, changing and eating facilities, staircases were all being built. We could see he would make millions from the people coming in on Cruise ships with his sulphur spa hotel. The saddest part was the young man trying to make a living under a bamboo shelter at the foot of the American’s driveway by selling packets of sulphur cream: simply mud that he’d packaged with labelling from the sulphur pool. My mother bought one. He knew it was only a matter of time before he would be ousted from his place of business. We clambered to the back of the property down the steps which were being built, and saw the most impressive sulphur spring of all. In the earth, on the hillside, the volcanic activity of this area had blasted out a metre wide and 3 metre deep cave. The rim of the ccave was all shades of red, green and orange, and on the roof (on top) of the cave, there was no more grass, just short columns of sulphur formed over time by stem curling out and around the mouth. From inside the cave came a pounding bass the hot sulfide gases escaped – shooting violently up through the water which lined the caves floor, and slamming the entire grey solution into the ceiling of the cave with such force that spray shot out to the 10 feet away that we were standing. The water was blazing hot, it was amazing to witness the power of the earth here. On the way out I paused on the the unfinished floor of the foundation of one of the American’s buildings. I ‘hosed’ it down for him. My small contribution. We left this place and drove the steep roads and the tight switchbacks right through the town of Wotten-Waven, and doubled back up the mountain side to our Laudatian abode. On the way home I got some shots (which I hope turn out well) of the sky opening over the ocean, and sunbeams flooding through the porthole as if god herself was trying to point out the location of some sacred spot on the sea. The treefrogs are out around this wet place as dusk settles.