Mt. Pinatubo

 We had a very interesting field trip yesterday. [Actually, Saturday the 7th--took me awhile to write this] We got up at 1 am, left our apartment at 2, and drove over to a McDonald's in Pasig City (about 20 minutes at that time in the morning). There we met the rest of our group of missionaries, the Thelers, the Lemons, and the Jensons, and the rest of the people signed up for the TriPinas excursion up to Mt. Pinatubo. Mt. Pinatubo is an active volcano that no one knew was a volcano until it started venting steam and smoke about a month before it's first eruption, in 1991. It emitted 2 cubic miles of solids.

At three am we loaded into vans for the drive up to the base camp, about 57 miles. A good bit of it was in Manila traffic, so it took us 2 1/2 hours. At base camp, we rented hiking poles if we wished, and all of us "senior citizens" had to have our blood pressure read. Interestingly, all four in our group had identical bp.  Only in the Philippines! We then stepped into the back of 4x4s for a further hour and a half of driving over the ash that had filled the valley to the depth of over 300 feet, to the beginning of the hiking trail.

An example of the terrain we drove over in the 4x4s.

There we were in for a bit of a surprise, as we had thought it was a 1.5K hike to the crater, but it turned out to be 7! I had been sick all week with a cold/bronchitis, so was not surprised that I only made it halfway up the mountain before bagging it. But, we really enjoyed seeing the lahar and the beautiful green jungle, and meeting up with darling Aeta children. They are believed to be related to other aboriginal peoples in the Pacific area, and live a hunter-gatherer culture in the jungles near Pinatubo.

All fresh and frisky at the beginning of the day.

David overlooking our backtrail.

This was on the way back down, after I was pretty well dead!

Such cute and friendly kids, though a little shy. Their mothers were in the background, washing clothes in the river. Notice that they still do some of the universal photo posturing!

These two entertained us at the shelter where the group rested on the way up, and we on the way down, again. They made birdcalls and whistles with their hands, very nonchalantly, but making sure we were watching.

David is looking back up the trail, where we had just come down. The crater was on the far side of the furthest peak in the photo.