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Published: July 13th 2012
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It was 34°C with 100% humidity on the day we decided to climb the volcano. Fortunately the guided trek doesn't leave until around 6.00 p.m., by which time the temperature had dropped to 33.9°C and the humidity was about 150%!!! Are we really going to do this?? Yes, of course we are!
The volcano in question is Stromboli. The furthest north of our favourite Aeolian Islands. It is 918 mts above sea level and we were going to climb every single one of them. That is, of course, just the tip of the volcano as all the rest is under the sea - all 1700 mts of it. It is positioned over the Eurasian tectonic plate and not far from where the African and Eurasian plates collide. It is also probably the most active volcano in the world too as the explosions from its craters, spitting molten rock, are every 5 minutes, on average. Just 12 sq.kms in total, about 400 people live on the island all year round but during the summer that number increases quite considerably.
It takes half a day to get to the island as first you have to take a boat from Cefalù or
Milazzo to Lipari and then the hydrofoil which stops at Salina and Panarea. The last stop is Stromboli.
The thing that strikes you immediately after disembarking, are all the tsunami signs along the road indicating the escape routes to higher ground! In 2002 they did have a mini tsunami after an earthquake where the sea receded and then rolled back covering all the lower ground but fortunately no lives were lost.
Along the road it was just us, the dogs and some sun-scorched road sweepers, who had no idea where our overnight accommodation was when we asked them. We were staying at Erika's who has rooms to rent. www.delfinogiallo.it tel. +39 3383796269. She's a Dutch lady who spends her summers in Stromboli and her winters in Rome, in between trips to other exotic places in the world, which sounds like a very sensible way to live. There is only one very small hotel as all accommodation is in the form of rented rooms or villas which belong to the local people. The beach is stony and black lava gravel as one would expect, but the sea is crystal clear and warm at this time of the year.
The big business on this island is definitely the volcano as it never fails to perform for the people who climb up to the summit. We paid €28 per person for the guided trek (you can't actually do the trek without a guide!) and a further €3 for the hire of the head torch which both Carmelina and I had forgotten to bring. We had Marco for our guide, who is also a guide on Mt. Etna. He said he spoke Italian, French, English, German and Spanish which were the nationalities that made up our group of 20 people. It turned out he spoke Italian with the odd word of all those languages thrown in for good measure!
The evening we did the trek there were at least 5 other groups who started before us, so each group was staggered to allow some breathing space between them. Usually it takes 3 hours to get up and 2 hours to get down. Marco decided we were going to get up there in 2 hours instead! We all arrived at 250 mts a.s.l., which was our first rest stop, panting, sweating, soggy messes! At 450 mts. we were all getting quite
used to it and had overtaken 3 other groups strewn by the wayside.
By 900 mts. we were beginning to think the Everest Base Camp trek would be a doddle after this one!
Once past the vegetation line you are walking in ash which is a bit like walking along a sandy beach uphill - you know, sink one slide one - but very good for building muscle in your calves. As we reached the summit, the sun had gone below the horizon and darkness was setting in quite quickly. It is, of course, at night that you can admire the volcano's activity. In fact, directly below us, at sea, there were quite a few boats anchored, all waiting to see the explosions. But, we can assure you, it's just not the same experience as seeing it up close from where we were.
At the top you have a brilliant balcony view of the two craters which explode at frequent intervals. Tonight, Hephaestos was hard at work forging his weapons and armour for the gods and heroes. Incredible firework displays of molten rock spewed from the craters every 5 minutes or so. All of us wowed in
unison at the sight of this awesome spectacle and after more than an hour of watching, mostly in silence, it was clear that a lot of us were pretty overwhelmed by this force of nature.
Time for our frugal dinner before we were told to switch our head torches on and put the bottom half of our trouser legs on too. Just as well we had brought them with us as those unlucky enough to be wearing shorts, spent most of their time emptying their shoes of volcanic ash on the way down. We were also given face masks to avoid breathing in the dust.
Off we set in single file down the mountain. There was a full moon that night which meant that part of the way we could turn our torches off and be guided by the moonlight. It was actually difficult not to gaze at the moon beams over the sea, it was so beautiful, rather than the person and path in front of us. Other parts we needed the torch and the face mask as we could hardly see for the dust being kicked up by all of us.
We arrived back in the village at around 11.30 p.m. and apart from that spectacle of nature up the top of the mountain, the next best thing was that huge, cold beer that we drank in record time, not to mention the never-ending shower that rounded off our day!
We booked the volcano trek through www.magma.it. The hydrofoil companies from Milazzo are: www.usticalines.it and www.siremar.it for timetables.
www.sicilianexperience.com
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