Slightly more cosmic Guatemala

At Earth Lodge we met the lovely, though Northern, Granger family. Mother Emily and toddler Toby sayed at the lodge torturing the residents while daughter Ishabel (13) and father Bananaman accompanied us on the tour of the Pacaya volcano.

Oh how Adi and (Emily´s cousin and Earth Lodge manageress) Lucy must have been creasing when they handed over the bag of rainwear to Bob. It wasnt until we arrived in the van at the foot of Pacaya that he realised he was about to climb a volcano in a bright custard yellow, all-in-one, light plastic jump suit, that was about 3 sizes too small for his lanky frame (I think I am qualified to use the term ´lanky´ by the way).

Did we offer to wait and reupholster him, or have a whip round, or canvas for alternatives - No. I promptly christened him Bananaman and sang the Banana Splits theme tune and mouthed other assorted witicisms, which needn´t lower the tone of this blog, all the way to the top.

And my god it was the most dangerous thing we have ever done. In some reference literature it does mention people have been hurt and died doing this but you don´t really realise that until you are standing in an active lava field, you feet are warming, you can see red hot rock in between the cracks and fissures of fragile, twisted lava rock beneath your feet, and you can see an actual moving lava flow about 150 meters away. Oh and there is smoke bollowing out behind, intermittent hissing, the guide can only manage to keep the group of 10 within 100 yards of each other (useless!) and there are other tour groups of panicing americans taking flight at random trajectories across the flow as they realise how totally ridiculous this is. Of course, the ones in shorts and flip flops are getting melting plastic soles, warm legs, singed leg hair, and the occaisional nasty cut from rock as the scramble as the brittle lava rock beneath them gives way, breaks away, or causes slips.

Anyway, it was wikked and there was still plenty of time to get a few super hero poses out of Bananaman.
Never in a month of sundaes!