Friday & Saturday

I was up early to get a few photos that I had missed the day before, just a couple of several taken in the dawn..

The cactus symbol and tequila related statutes are all over the city.

Was a long drive day to get from Tequila and eastwards via Gaudalalara. Even early on  Sunday morning, Gaudalalara was busy with its major thoroughfares busy but we were soon through and back into the countryside.
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 The weather was changeable and it absolulely chucked it down only to clear a few kilometres down the road at the next  town with its colourful houses and bunting.

Our destinaton was Anhuguan which is not a well known place but it is over shadowed by its better known neighbour, the Puricutan volcano which is nearby.

In 1941, a farmer noticed a crack in his field and the next day there was a baby volcano in his field. Over the next four weeks it grew to five storeys high. It continued to erupt up to 1953 and became dormant but not before engulfing the village.

That evening it was Steve, Clare, and Paola to cook and with some uncanny gift or curse, they were again cooking in the rain but at least we had a shelter on site but a little rain wouldn't dampen spirits.

Paola cooking.

 Steve cooking.

 The shelter.

 Eating witht eh cook group Steve, Paola and Clare with L to R David, Lawrence, Gabi, Faye and Colin.

We were staying here for two nights so that there were options. Some did nothing, others went for a walk whilst Zoe, Paola, Becky, Lawrence, David and I went for a days riding up to see Puricutan with a local guide, Andreas.

 It was a damp early start and it rained in the morning but that didn’t dishearten us.

We arrived at the volcano and left the horses at the base. The cinder cone is steep sided and rises nearly 500m above the surrounding countryside and the associated 10 square miles of lava flows.

We stopped at a small off shoot of a volcano from the main crater and there was still rising from the ground around the smaller cone.

The sides are impossibly steep but the climb up was worth it for a view of the crater and the surrounding countryside.

On the way back to the campsite we stopped off at the location of the original village which now lies under the lava flows but the one building that survived was the church, now surrounded by lava and abandoned.