The end of our journey inescapably looms on the horizon. The clock is ticking and becomes louder every day, as we make our way south through Chile. Only two weeks after our scorching explorations of the Atacama Desert, we could not find ourselves in a more different landscape: we had to unpack all our cold weather gear to snowshoe in the winter wonderland.
To me and probably the whole Westernized world — minus the Māoris — Mount Ngauruhoe will only be remembered as Mount Doom, just like Nemo is the new name of the clownfish.
Difficult, then, not to imagine Frodo and Sam clambering up the rocky slopes of this volcano as I am peering at it. And where is the cave they entered to throw the Ring into the lava? I can’t see it. What? It was only a movie?
‘Sometimes I think a man could wander across the disc[world] all his life and not see everything there is to see,’ said Twoflower. ‘And now it seems there are lots of other worlds as well. When I think I might die without seeing a hundredth of all there is to see it makes me feel,’ he paused, then added, ‘well, humble, I suppose. And very angry, of course.’
Terry Pratchett, Close to the Edge
2.30 am. The alarm clock harshly rings us back from a short but deep sleep. More mechanically acting than fully realising what we are doing, we put on our warmest clothes — four layers should be enough — and help ourselves to a few sips of warm ginger tea from our thermos flask. Over a handful of biscuits, the excitement of what lies ahead comes to our dull senses. We tie up our hiking shoes, switch on the headlamps and, now fully geared, silently leave our homestay.
After staying in dirty, noisy and overcrowded cities for more than two weeks, sweating unceasingly and depressing between grey, lifeless concrete buildings, we definitely needed a change. A decision was quickly made: we would go east, to where a handful of volcanos dominate the relief of Java. Positively excited — for as most of you might know, I adore those peculiar mountains — we left Yogyakarta by night bus and found ourselves in a completely different surrounding by the next morning. The volcano itself was only one of the positive surprises which made the destination more than worthwhile.
