Volcanoes are just cool, for pretty much anybody, especially children. For Josiah and Jethro volcanoes form a major part of their lives in learning about them and building them in their sandpit, imagining the cascading lava through water poured over sand mounds shaped in a cone. We even built one out of Cretestone and tried to create an eruption with Salpeter and sugar!

And then we had an opportunity to visit the Philippines where volcanoes form a major part of that nations’ landscape. Residing on the island ‘formed by fire’ called Camiguin, which boasts no less than seven volcanoes, we could not pass up an opportunity to hike up one and inside its crater.

This Tale showcases a steep ascent of just over four kilometres and 1000 metres into the sky through dense lush forest formed by the nutrient rich soil of a volcano that is still termed as ‘active’.

Traversing this trail is only permissible with a guide, and ours was Gerry who has been taking tourists up to the crater rim pretty much every day since 2016. Jethro was his youngest tourist at 5 years old (photo credit: Gerry).

White Island.

Navigating the forest on the crater rim.

Mount Hibok-Hibok crater, above, and crater lake, below.