This morning I saw in our local paper a little article about a Central American volcanic eruption--Pacaya, near Guatemala City. A dear family friend lives near there (!) so of course alarm bells went off in our heads...went on line to find out a bit more...sent e-mails and still waiting to hear back...
The ash and sand have covered the capital city; like an echo of Iceland's recent eruption, Pacaya's activity has closed the airport, one of Central America's busiest:
(above cartoon from today's Prensa Libre,
rough translation: the little Guatemalan volcano saying
to its Icelandic 'big brother' :
"did you see that?--I can do it too...)
As if the volcanic activity isn't enough, the first Pacific tropical storm of the season has slammed into Guatemala and El Salvador, adding to the damage...The government of Guatemala has declared a two-week national state of emergency...
A hard bargain, living in volcanically-abundant Central America--the mountains are home to some of the most fertile farmland in the Americas, and population pressures push people ever further up the slopes...
Pacaya was dormant for most of a century until the mid-1960's; since then it's been periodically active...
When my wife and I were last in Guatemala in 2006, we stayed with a dear family friend who lives not too far from Pacaya. Below, a view of the steaming volcano from the highway near her town:
...and this view, from her neighborhood; abundant evening steam from the summit:
Several years before, on our first trip to Guatemala in 2003, S. and I ended up hiking up Pacaya...in sandals--a long story, involving miscommunication and a last minute change-in-plans on the part of our local 'guides'.
We were miffed at first, thinking of our comfy protective hiking-boots, sitting lonely and unused back in town as we trudged up the pumice-strewn trail...But the views from the summit, (2552 m., 8373 ft), even on a cloudy day--the roof of the world! Totally worth the scraped toes...
(The volcano in the distant background is the Volcán de Agua, on the other side of which is the city of Antigua; that peak--3,760 m (12,336 ft)--has been blessedly inactive since the mid-16th century.)
S. jokes that in the photo below, her Pacific-NW-complexion glows like neon against the black sand below the crater's summit...
Below--the view from Pacaya down towards the farmland of the Departamento de Escuintla:
...such a beautiful country, blessed and cursed by its volcanoes...
...hoping to hear back from our friends soon...
(So far, in addition to the airport closure, about 1800 people have been evacuated from villages on the slopes of Pacaya, and three people (including a journalist) have been killed directly from the eruption...And then from the subsequent tropical storm, 13 confirmed deaths, but 74 thousand evacuees...)
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