Home time :(

I'm a bit sad to be leaving. It's been fantastic - the volcano, the fieldwork, the weather (although it hasn't stopped raining for the past 2 days - you'd think it was snowing the way everyone's so wrapped up!), Carlos' family. We were sat at breakfast this morning eating a traditional Mexican breakfast which Mini wanted to introduce me to. It's scrambled eggs with tomatoes, onions, garlic, and tortillas ripped into small pieces - a bit much for breakfast, but I ate it and it was nice. She sat down and said "Mum can make this a lot better than I can" and Carlos replied "Yes, definitely"!!!

I can't believe it's time to go home. It's flown by! And there are still a million things I want to do!

I went to Mini's parents house as usual for lunch today and was given so many presents, and asked if I could take Mini's dad away with me!!! Mini's middle sister, Margarita, is an art teacher. One of her ex-students, Hector Miguel, is incredibly talented and now sells his paintings, and teaches classes of his own. He showed me his painting the other day. They're really beautiful, abstract paintings. He turned up at lunch today and gave me 2 drawings and which he signed and personalised for me.

I don't even know how to begin to thank them for all they've done and given me.

To wrap up, here's a bunch of photos from my trip....

Bye bye Mexico.... until next year! Hooray!

Welling up...

Carlos, Donaji, and Minerva

I spent a fantastic afternoon skiving off with Minerva's family. Unfortunately I forgot my camera, so no pretty pictures today! Today is a holiday, so most people have the day off work. The uni was dead this morning! Carlos came in for a bit but left early, and then came back for me at 2 to go and eat lunch. We usually have a 2 hour lunch break, then work till 8.

Instead of going to Minerva's parents house as usual we went to Comala, where her parents have a party house. It has a bar, a big shaded area with hammocks, palm trees.... It's lovely and so peaceful. As usual, the whole family were there and we ate Pozole, a very filling chicken and corn soup - traditional food from Colima, followed by fruit, cakes, sweets, more fruit, more cakes... We sat around chatting and telling jokes and funny stories. I tried to tell a Mexican joke, but it doesn't translate well and I crashed and burned! But after I explained it, they all laughed as if it was the funniest joke they'd ever heard! Then after Mini's oldest sister told an embarrassing story I told them about the time I tucked my skirt into my tights and walked around work and across to the uni to buy lunch, and back before it was pointed out to me! Now that, they genuinely laughed at!!!

Carlos, Minerva and Minerva's whole family have welcomed me with open arms. Their hospitality and friendship has been amazing and it's made my stay here so much nicer. They won't let me pay for anything (although I did manage to pay for the Ballet yesterday - Carlos did try to pay me back though!), they make me breakfast everyday, Minerva's parent cook me lunch everyday. I'm incredibly lucky to have met such lovely people. For the first few times a battle ensued after breakfast about who was going to do the dishes. Eventually I won and now they accept that I wash up. It's the only thing I can do!! The other day I asked Carlos if I could contribute towards the food bills, as I'm living here for free. He laughed at me. Then said "You come here to work with me and you are welcome in my home. You are one of the family." That brought a wee tear to my eye.

Sunday is culture day!

It's the 70th anniversary of the University of Colima, and to mark it, they are putting on a ballet at the theatre which started today. The ballet was about the changing times in Mexico. It started off with pre-Hispanic dances to traditional drums which was fantastic. Then it went into Spanish times and they re-inacted the birth of Jesus as depicted by Alejandro Rangel Hidalgo (who I wrote a wee bit about last Sunday). During the interlude, a boy lay on the stage in front of the curtain with his radio listening to some of the first radio programmes - Carlos was shocked that he could remember them!! After the break, they danced to songs written by a famous composer Francisco Gavilondo Soler (better known as "Cri-Cri") for children. They were very popular through the fifties.

The Mexican culture and history is really interesting. You can see the influence of the pre-Hispanic cultures mixed with the Spanish everywhere. The entrance to Colima is marked by a sculpture of 2 dogs dancing. Dogs were celebrated by the Nahuatl people (Aztecans). Dogs were companions, workers, helpers through life, so when the owner died, the dogs were buried with them to guide them through the after life. Their belief was that if you didn't have a dog to guide you through the afterlife, you would be doomed to wonder the Valley of Darkness forever. Many of their ornaments were statues of dogs.

After the dance show, we went to the zoo. I always have a bit of a love hate thing going on with zoos. I love seeing the animals, and I know a lot of zoos are doing a lot of good, but I hate seeing the animals in such small cages. Some of the animals today were in ridiculous sized cages.

But it's in a lovely big park with lots of trees everywhere, and we spent a pleasant afternoon wondering around. At one point we were heading along to see the ducks (Donaji was flapping her arms quacking away!), and I saw something fall and hit the water with an almighty splash (more of a smack really). We all stopped and looked, and this dazed Iguana pulls itself out of the water and sits very still for a very long time!! It'd fallen a good 10m from the tree!

We also stumbled across a frog Mariachi band!!

a nice cycle...

Nothing much has been happening. We saw an Iguana yesterday near Minerva's parents house.

Carlos lent me his bike so that I could go to the lab this morning. I have loads to do, so I thought that I'd go in this morning so that I'm not running around like a maniac next week trying to finish things off and suck all the information I need from Carlos!

He looked out the bike for me ages ago, but I've been too scared to use it because of the traffic! They drive a little scarily, not quite as suicidal as Armenians, but scary all the same! I couldn't put it off any longer so I set off this morning. In the cool of the morning when I was whizzing along (mostly on the pavements!) it was lovely. I was thinking to myself, why haven't I been cycling in everyday?? I got to uni with no problems, and managed to get another 5 samples sieved. When I left at 1pm, it was blazing hot sunshine and not a cloud to be seen. It was roasting! I haven't done anything that can be considered exercise in ages, and by the time I got back to Carlos' house, I was dripping with sweating and my face was bright red! That's why I haven't been cycling! But at least I managed it without getting knocked over. Although at one point I forgot which side of the road they drive on, looked behind me, saw nothing was coming and rode straight out in front of a car coming towards me. Oops!

Incidentally, Carlos met Mark Beaumont who is Cycling from Alaska to Patagonia making a documentary for BBC. He is writing a blog and sends his videos to the BBC who update his page. Carlos spoke to him about Volcan de Colima, and showed him some stuff at the observatory, and he filmed it for the documentary. I tried to find it on his page, but I can't view any of the videos here. This is the link to the Mexico part of his journey, so if you have some time and are interested, there should be something there about Colima:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/cyclingtheamericas/2009/09/

Field work done... for now!

Yesterday was our last day in the field :(

It was another belter of a day, and Carlos and I drove about looking for sections further away from the volcano. All the sections we have so far from this trip are close together (within about 5km), as are the majority of all the sections previously described by Carlos, Ivan and Jim. Jim Luhr carried our some of the very first work on Volcan de Colima in 1980. Carlos and Ivan have been continuing his work, and my project is a continuation of his work.

It's good to have sections close together for correlation of the units, but when it comes to working out the volume of the eruption, you need to have a good distribution of samples from units across a big an area. The more distal sections will have smaller pumice and lithic sizes, and should be thinner deposits. However, it all depends on the direction of the wind, the strength of the wind and the topography. If there is a strong wind at the time of eruption, the pumice and ash will be carried much farther, forming thinner deposits over a greater area. Pumice and ash fall from an eruption will generally give pretty even coverage over the topographic highs and lows, as it 'rains' out the sky, whereas pyroclastic flows travel at speeds of well over 100km/hour crossing valleys and climbing up over highs of over 1000m, will leave thicker deposits in valleys and thin deposits on topographic highs. It makes it very difficult to correlate pyroclasitc flow deposits across an area, because the thickness can vary enormously over short distances. Hence sifting through ash looking for charcoal! It makes it a lot easier to correlate if we have matching dates!

We found some good sections, some with charcoal. Those without charcoal, I hope to be able to correlate with other units by doing a comparison of their mineralogy and geochemistry. We'll see...

Carlos and I got a bit fed up sitting in the truck, so decided to walk along a track to find a section. We ended up walking 8km, found a good section and took some photos...

While we were walking I asked Carlos about how he came to study volcanology. He had a bit of a detour in Marine Geology too!

So it was back picking out charcoal this morning and sieving pumice this afternoon...

Julia's world!

What an incredible day! We went up Nevado to find a section where we could see all the units. We found a cracking roadcut, and worked all morning in the baking sunshine describing and sampling it. I'm starting to build up a picture now in my head of the previous eruptions. We collected 16 samples today - another couple of days work in the lab!

Nevado with a wisp of steam from Volcan de Colima behind

Because we finished what we planned to do for the day by 2.30, I persuaded Carlos to walk up to where we could see Colima Volcano at 4000m. We wolfed down our lunch (I was starving!) and set off. I'd forgotten how hard it is to walk at altitude (having a sandwich sat in our stomachs probably didn't help!). After a few hundred metres we were both panting away and Carlos, who is 20 odd years older than me said he needed to take it slower. I decided to keep him company!!

A woman in the tree?

We walked up through pine forests, and it was completely silent. There were no people, no wind, and only the occasional bird twittering away. It was lovely. The peak of Nevado was towering above us, with the brilliant blue back-drop of the sky, not a cloud to be seen. We rounded the corner where you can see right across to Volcan de Colima, and it was completely covered in clouds!!! Ha ha! All I could do was apologise to Carlos for dragging him on a tough 45 minute walk!! But we hung around for a bit and the cloud cleared enough for us to see a ghostly image of the volcano and the fumarole steaming away from the dome. And for me to take another 20 photos!!!

Fumarole on side of dome.....

Through the gaps in the clouds Carlos was pointing out the different lava flows to me, and the second cone on the side of the volcano called "Volcancito" which means "little volcano".

Volcanicito on the left, the rough surface on the slope of Volcano de Colima is a lava flow from 1975 which is split by Volcancito.

By this point my face was beaming and my head roasting. I'd forgotten my sun hat and my sunglasses. And I forgot to bring the keys to the lab so when we got back we had to dump the samples in Carlos' office. I seem to have been in Julia's world all day. Driving up Nevado, Carlos pointed at something in the road, and said "Look, Armadillo". We'd past it by the time I realised what he said! I really want to see an Armadillo!

On the drive home the sun was setting, giving the volcanoes a lovely glow. You can see the fumarole going almost vertical it was so still.

Hopefully fixed the link!

Ok, I have re-done the link to the volcano photos and it should work fine of you copy and paste the link in your browser.

Carlos and I started picking out charcoal today from some of the samples we collected, so that we can date the eruptions using Carbon 14 isotope dating (we don't actually do it, we just collect the charcoal and send it off to a lab somewhere). Any trees and branches which were burnt during the eruption, usually by pyroclastic flows, will be able to give us a date to within 60 or so years, which when the eruptions we're looking at are in the region of 5000 years ago, is pretty good.

At first I was all excited and felt like a detective sifting through dirt looking for critical pieces of evidence! A volcano detective! But after 2 hours of sitting hunched over a pile of ash and soil picking out 1mm size bits of charcoal, the novelty wore off. I wasn't born with patience as one of my virtues!

But I get a break from the lab tomorrow as Carlos and I are heading back up Nevado to do some fieldwork! Hooray!

A cultural lesson...

Man I ate too much today! My stomach hurts. Again. We went to an amazing restaurant for lunch in Comala, a village not far from Colima. It's a beautiful colonial village with cobbled streets and white one-storey high buildings with tiled roofs.

The main square has a big church on one side, shops along 2 of the others side under arches, and this restaurant on the 4th side. We sat down outside under the arches. The waiter asked what we wanted to drink and had to shout above a band which was playing at the next door table. It's a tradition that started here 30 years ago. The men in the village form bands with guitars, drums, violins, trumpets, accordions, and go from table to table offering to play songs. When someone asks them to play they surround the table and belt out traditional music! It's fantastic! And the food just kept coming. Then we went for a walk and bought more food, and then maybe just a little bit more.....

Minerva was telling me this morning at breakfast about the swine flu outbreak. She said everyone was quarantined in their home. No-one went outside. When she did go out to buy some more food, she said the streets were deserted, anyone she saw crossed the road to avoid her, and they all had masks on. Everyone was scared they would catch it. She said the economy was hit from the affects of no-one going out - restaurants, bars, shops. All deserted. She said it reminded her of the Will Smith film, I am Legend - very eerie! People were communicating through emails and it didn't take long for their sense of humour to kick in - emails were flying around with photos from the film of the zombies!

2010 marks the 200 year anniversary of independence of Mexico from the Conquistadors from Spain, and the 100 year anniversary of the Mexican Revolution. 1910 marked the start of 10 years of violence during which 2 million people lost their lives, and the economy shattered. From what I can work out, the leaders of the fighting parties were all assassinated, and the reformists then ruled until 2000, who although had some radical social policies, managed to rebuild the country.

Last night we went to a dance show from the region of Oaxaca (pronounced WaHaka) to mark the anniversary of Independence. Throughout the year there will be lots of festivals and shows. The dancing is very traditional and is well known throughout Mexico to be the most beautiful dancing in Mexico. They have a festival every year in Oaxaca in June, where lots of groups dance and compete. Carlos told me it lasts for 2 days with many dances. He said it is stunning to watch. What we saw last night was just a taster, he said.

We arrived about an hour before it started and already the queue was all the way up the street, around the corner and part way along that street! So many people turned up to watch it. The theatre was packed. All the seats were filled and people were standing! It's very rare for them to come to Colima. The dancing was lovely and their costumes were beautiful... worth the wait.

After the show, all the dancers and musicians pile out into the streets and dance and play in the streets. It's such an amazing atmosphere. Unfortunately we had a sleeping 4 year old with us, so couldn't stay and soak it all up.

Before lunch (well mid-afternoon dinner really), we went to a wee village just outside Comala called Nogueras. It's a really beautiful, tranquil place where the designer, painter and illustrator Alexjandro Rangel Hidalgo lived and painted. He's very famous in Mexico and across the world. He illustrated Christmas cards for UNICEF, of Christmas across the world, always of a couple and how they celebrate Christmas. The detail of his work is incredible. He also depicted Angels of the world i.e. Angel of Kenya, Angel of Japan. If you're interested you can see some of his work here:

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alejandro_Rangel_Hidalgo

Talking of links, check this out for some awesome photos of eruptions!

www.photovolcanica.com/VolcanoInfo/Sakurajima/Sakurajima.html

Family fun

All this week I've been having lunch with Carlos's wife's family. Her mother cooks and the whole family descends! Minerva's sisters and their families, her brother and sister-in-law, and now me! They come any time between 1 and 3, and in total she must feed 10 people everyday! It's their main meal of the day and of course consists of rice, tortillas, beans and salsa and then fish, or meat with a sauce. It's really lovely to be included in this, and they usually bombard me with questions about the UK, about the Volcano - is it going to erupt soon? when? (If only I knew!) They also tell me about Mexican culture and about local cuisine etc.

Last Thursday was the 7th anniversary of a magnitude 7.6 earthquake which destroyed a lot of the buildings in Colima. They sat around at lunch telling me their stories about it. It was about 6.30 pm on a Tuesday when everything started shaking. All the lights went out and most of them ran outside. Minerva told me that it lasted for a minute, and after it stopped she went straight round to her mum's house. A lot of the houses in the street had been flattened, and were just rubble. She was crying for her parents and praying that they were ok. Their house still standing, but with a lot of damage. Luckily, both of them were ok. It was interesting to hear there stories especially in light of the Haiti earthquake. I think that has reminded them of how it was. There are a lot of people raising money for Haiti in the streets - dancing at traffic lights and collecting from the waiting cars.

This morning Carlos and I planned the next week's fieldwork, which made me much happier. I told him what my plans are and he agreed and suggested some sections to visit. Fantastic. The truck is being repaired, but Gabriel, the Director of the Observatory has said we can take another truck but we're not allowed to stay overnight! A bit of a bummer, but he's giving us the truck and Carlos's help for free, and we definitely can't argue with that!

I decided to take a walk into the centre. It's about half an hours walk from Carlos's house. You go from a nice little cobbled street housing estate with orange, mandarin and lime trees everywhere, to something that resembles the United States, to the centre which is very colonial, with run down buildings and again fruit trees everywhere.

The Primavera or spring blossom trees are starting to blossom. They're a stunning bright yellow against the blue sky. Beautiful. I swear I haven't seen a cloud since Ivan left.... is it some sort of sign I wonder?