Walking On The Moon: Regatta de Blanc

After motoring north, we came to Sullivan Bay.  On the east coast of Santiago Island, this part of the world has very little life, but life is young there, younger than the hills.  

Sullivan Bay is a compelling, eerie landscape of black lava from only about 150 years ago.  Yes, I’ve walked on lava flow before, in Hawaii on the Big Island, but that was 17 years ago.  And in Iceland, but it was an older flow with more life.

There is a hiking trail that you walk along, although since it is lava, it’s hard to know exactly where the trail goes in-between the spaced out small white pipes.  Most of the area is barren and black.  

But not all of it.  As Ian Malcolm wisely and famously said way back in 1990, “Life finds a way.”  And we saw not many signs of life, but it is clear that life has a foothold, and is tenaciously not letting go.  There are grasses, and we all marveled over a cactus that had not only taken root, but is growing well.  

Every so often we’d see a small bird, obviously passing through on the way to a land with more promise (or at least food).  

At a couple of points, we stopped for many different photos, included a stunning part of the landscape.

At another point, our Naturalist, Anahi Concari, lowered herself into a crevasse hole that about swallowed her up.  A few others in our group did so as well, including Sanjiv and also Claudia.  I briefly considered it, and thought that the odds of banging a hip or knee into the lava with bloody results were way too high.

(Editor’s Note: How high?  Blogger: Oh, 100 percent. Editor: So you made a smart decision for a change?  Blogger: Nice gratuitous shot, even if there is a grain of truth to your comment.)

We did a big loop walk around back of a big hill.  At some point, about when my camera battery died (I’m an idiot!) we walked on the red cinders of another, smaller volcano explosion.

It was a two-hour hike, not because it was overly long or strenuous, but because it was a stark beauty, and we all marveled at the wonder of it all.  The views were incredible in all directions, and as we trekked over the undulating surface, I had to remind myself we were on Earth, not some other planet.  The sun was going down fast, which cast interesting shadows across the land.

I can’t speak for everyone, but I was certainly humbled and amazed by what we found.