Travel letter March 30 and 31
Guatemala. Volcanoes and a mysterious magnetic forceArrived Puerto Quetzal at 0300. Paper cha-cha here was surprisingly easy as compared to the other Mid-American countries.
Guatemala is famous for its 24 volcanoes – among them 9 active (or 28 and 11, depending on our source). After getting some more or less reliable info, I took a taxi to the foot of the active volcano Pacaya (2408 m) and walked /climbed up to the hot recently stiffened lava. My intention was to get as close to the lava river as possible. Walking on the hot stiffened lava was challenging as the rubber on my shoes was getting soft and on its way to melt. The heat was intense and the smoke was disturbing. At a distance of 70 – 80 m from the lava river I put my stick into a hole and it caught fire!! That was the moment when I realized that I had to stop and return to safer areas.
On the way back the taxi driver showed me the old conquistador capital, Antigua, destroyed by a earthquake in 1976. The summit of the day was a visit to a place where a “mysterious volcanic power” pulled the car uphill. And that was right – I saw it with my own eyes – the car was running uphill with the engine off!
One disappointment: No earthquakes during our stay. At least we found a description of what to do during a quake on the customs wall.
Erik (cpt.)
(Now Michael writing). The skipper spent all night wondering about the mysterious force – he could not sleep, so he hired another driver to take all of us (science needs independent observers!) back to the scene of the force. We brought water bottles, both for their content and their rolling ability, as well as a boat fender, also for its rolling ability. We figured that any supposed magnetism that might affect a car would not affect water or plastic. At the scene, both water, fender and waterbottle were pulled the same way as the car – apparently uphill. I do have to admit that it sure looked like it was uphill, but all high-level scientific experiments that we performed pointed to the fact that it was just a less steep uphill than we had just been on. Mystery solved – taxi driver disappointed. It was truly an optical illusion. Departing for Mexico.
Erik Dillerud