Today we visited the yacht club, the village and the awe inspiring Volcano. The yacht club is small and quaint, decorated with various burgees and national flags, and serves surprisingly cold beer! The village folks were very kindly and welcoming. We piled into 4x4 trucks, sitting on wooden benches all around the inside of the bed, flush with the top of the bed! The road was quite bumpy, so we were very well acquainted with one another by the time we arrived at the Yasur volcano welcome center. Here we offered a kava offering to the chief for the volcano spirits. Dave, from Chao Lay was selected to offer the kava. There was dancing and celebration upon the reception of the offering. Afterwards, we piled into different trucks and went up the road to the start of the volcano hike. Here we climbed upwards a short distance and viewed the spectacular smoking caldron of the volcano. It sounded like a dragon breathing! We were lucky that the conditions were perfect for viewing that evening. What a special occasion this was! We have sailed past Stromboli as it erupted, hiked on Vulcano’s smoking slopes, and spent an entire day exploring the majesty of Aetna, but this was the first time were were so physically close to a live volcano!
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