Volcanoes

Yesterday we went to Art's campground again to do some building work. It was mostly raking the grounds for leaves and large rocks, and setting up the tents and teepees. After a day of doing this, we camped out in the tents/teepees we built.

In the morning, we did a little bit more work (mostly moving stuff around and packing up) before coming back to the Residencia around 12. Soon after we got back, Chris, Vanessa, Singer, and I headed out again with Paul, one of the other students at the Residencia. We were planning on going to one of the volcanic sites on the island, and having a barbeque dinner there. This was my first excursion into the island interior, and I was excited to get out of Angra and see what else was out there.

The interior of the island is the most lush place I have ever seen. There aren't any houses there (most people live on the coast)...most of the land is used for agriculture and livestock. So there was basically miles of isolated green everywhere.

The first place we went to was a site where three tectonic plates - the African, American, and Eurasian - met. There were many sulfur vents active in the area, and a haze covered everything. It was pretty amazing (as was every other place we went to in the past few hours)...I'll put pictures up from it soon.

Then we went into a swamp-like area to grill and eat. not much to say here...the food and scenery were good.

Afterwards we climbed into the crater of a volcano, which had been overgrown completely by greenery. Like I said, I have never seen that much green in one place...it was pretty beautiful. Also all the volcanoes on the island are still active. good times.

On the way back, we passed by the American Base...and found out that apparently our government issued ID's (passports, drivers licenses, etc) are good enough to get us into the base. This is not what we heard before, so we'll be looking into that to see if we can get in. We did see american apartments, american cars, and american stores on the other side of the (heavily guarded) fence, which I think made everyone miss home a little bit.

It's kind of frustrating that it's impossible to capture what you're seeing on camera. The pictures and videos of natural scapes that I take on this island are small sections of what is out there...it's impossible to capture the breadth of the view and the feelings they inspire. Not for a lack of trying though.