one for the forest service
These days the mountain is mostly reforested, except for the lahars. We spent a while exploring the lahar and collecting water from a little brook (giardia? who knows?) and using the word "lahar" in sentences. For instance, between the clumps of ashy rock there is a great deal of soft sand arranged in little coves, so that if one wished one could probably camp out on the lahar quite comfortably. For those interested in the etymology of the word "lahar," it turns out to be Indonesian. At the end of the hike we had to ford barefoot a rushing and frigid tributary of the Kalama River, which had washed out the trail.
Wrote a couple of paragraphs in the car on the way home, while the radio gave us Beethoven's "Eroica" as part of this silly but endearing classical countdown of theirs. Oh dirty, dirty paragraphs! If this book ever gets published the Guatemalan advocacy organizations will have my head.
