A little volcanology

This week I had the opportunity to do a little fieldwork with a Nicaraguan volcanologist who is doing his PhD. research on Concepción Volcano. We went out on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday to take at look at some recent lahars (mud flows) that occurred this year during the rainy season. The first and second days went well and we took some measurements of two different lahars using GPS and measuring tape. You can see from the pictures below how destructive they can be. Amazingly nobody was killed in these lahars but someone very easily could have been. There are a number of communities on the island that are without protection from them and there is no warning system. Someone even told me that when they occurred there really wasn’t even a system to deal with it quickly, to check to make sure that people were okay.

Where the Los Ramos flow crossed the main road on the island.

A channel in the Los Ramos flow. You can see how high the rocks and mud were by the destruction of the bark on the tree.
Another channel in the Los Ramos flow.

Farther up the channel gets bigger.


The flow we saw on the second day, a little bit smaller.

Farther up on the flow this view is towards the lake.

On a lighter side, we also saw wild monkeys on both days. The first day they ran by us on the forest floor (but not close enough to get a photo) and the second day we could hear them all around us and we finally saw some up in a tree. From the noises they were making I thought that they could have been gorillas. But they were just little monkeys. I shouldn’t downplay them too much though, for I hear they are pretty smart and like to steal things and have been known to bite.

One of the male monkeys who was making a lot of noise.

Wednesday, however, was a little different. We went up to look at a large lahar that took place a few years ago. Unfortunately, it started raining in the morning (unusual for this time of year) and just kept on raining. We headed up anyways, and by the time we got to the lahar it was raining harder and we were soaked. And since we were out in an open area without trees (I imagine the lahar took most of them out) it was windy. Therefore, despite it being Nicaragua, we were cold! We took some measurements for an hour or so, but we were miserable. The rain didn’t look like it was going to let up so we decided to head back down. By the time we got to the bottom it wasn’t raining anymore where we were, although it still looked bad where we had been. So I headed home.

Waiting for the bus I had a nice talk with a man who lived near the bus stop. He just walked over to me and gave me a couple bananas, for some reason, and began talking. Basically, he told me that he liked to talk a lot and didn’t matter if people understood him or not. (He was possibly drunk.) I probably understood only half of what he said but he was friendly and harmless and liked to joke a lot. Apparently I am looking for a husband in Nicaragua and he liked to tell this to the other people who stopped at the bus stop to get out of the drizzle that had started. He probably talked to me for an hour. He finally said he had to go and I thanked him for bananas, so of course a few minutes later he came back with four more bananas for me. It’s the Nicaraguan way, I guess, because people are giving me fruit all the time. It is definitely a very giving culture.

Other than that not a lot happened this week. Last weekend I went to San Ramon to an event that was going on all day. In the morning there was a fishing tournament and later in the day there were soccer matches, games, and a “bull-riding” contest (a barrel tied up with rope) and food. It was nice, but kind of boring and so we left early, not waiting for the bus, to walk back to our town. Below is a photo of Concepción on our way back. It is so beautiful here!

Concepción in the evening