• Puyehue Cordon Caulle Volcano in Chile erupted on June 4, throwing up a cloud of ash more than six miles high. Winds pushed the ash plume eastward, causing flight cancellations and delays all over South America and then in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The cloud started its second pass over Chile in late June, triggering further airport closures.
The volcano is expected to remain active, with another large eruption possible.
On May 23, another volcano began erupting in Iceland. In 36 hours, the Grímsvötn Volcano ejected 10 times more ash than did the Eyjafjallajökull Volcano in all of April 2010. With the ash cloud drifting east, airports in Europe and Russia were put on alert, and many flights were canceled or diverted.
My husband, Earl, and I took the 18-day “Patagonia Frontiers” tour from Odysseys Unlimited (Newton, MA 888/370-6765), March 22-April 8, 2010. The price was $9,990 for the two of us (international air not included).
After three nights in Buenos Aires, we flew to Ushuaia and drove to Tierra del Fuego National Park. We walked through the beech forest and could see lakes, the Beagle Channel and the snowcapped mountains of the Andes. This is where the Pan-American Highway ends, 11,090 miles from where it starts in Alaska.
In Inari, Finland, the Siida museum combines exhibits on the history and culture of the indigenous Sámi people with Finland’s northernmost nature center. The center offers maps and info on hiking trails, cross-country skiing, snowmobiling and more.
There is a permanent display of photos and artifacts, including findings from the Stone Age and Early Metal Age. In summer, visitors can walk through an open-air museum displaying buildings moved from the community of Tirro that exemplify Sámi life in the 1880s.
After 52 years of dormancy, Shinmoedake Volcano on the island of Kyushi in southern Japan began reerupting in January. A plume of gas, boulders and ash on Feb. 1 grounded flights at the airport in Miyazaki (about 500 miles southwest of Tokyo). Officials have restricted access to the mountain and expanded the “no-go zone.”
If you’d like to visit a destination that offers good weather, beautiful countryside, plenty of shopping and some of the best surfing in the world — and you don’t like rubbing elbows with other tourists — El Salvador is hard to beat.
But it’s not a place to go if you want a relaxing, hassle-free, pampered trip. El Salvador doesn’t have much of a tourism infrastructure, and few of the people speak English. Crime is a problem also; the country has one of the highest homicide rates in the world.
Over southern Namibia’s Fish River Canyon, a new viewing platform opened on Oct. 21. Located in Ai-Ais Hot Springs Game Park, in the Karas region, the facility also has a picnic area, informative display panels and bathroom facilities.
At 99 miles long and up to 1,804 feet deep, the canyon is the world’s second largest, after the Grand Canyon.
At press time, the Indonesian government was keeping the area around mounts Merapi and Bromo at the highest alert level, even though there had been a decrease in volcanic activity at the two locations.
Mt. Merapi, in central Java, began erupting again in October; it has killed an estimated 324 people. In November, heavy rains caused mudflows down its slopes, and hundreds of people along the Code River were evacuated.
Mt. Bromo, in East Java, began erupting with ash plumes in November and people were warned away.
Argentina’s Perito Moreno Glacier is one of the few glaciers in the temperate world that is still advancing. It is 240 feet high, a bit over three miles wide and part of a huge ice field containing the world’s third-largest reserve of fresh water.
by Bill Bechtell; Montara, CA