Pocahontas and Lucha Libre

Jannes and Brandon went to Nevado on Thursday night and did not return until Saturday afternoon. Thus I had the house to myself for a few days.

Thursday night I went to a costume party. I dressed like a mariachi Mexican with a big leather poncho and a big sombrero. My dance moves remained white. Unfortunately I have not yet learned how to dance in the US nor Mexico, but it does not stop me from dancing. I met a cute yet quite girl at the party dressed as Pocahontas. I approached her and said, “Hola, me llamo John Smith.” She didn’t think that was funny. The party was fun though.

Friday I worked in the lab all day. I ate lunch at a place we call the Lunch Ladies. Three of four women make delicious homemade food everyday out of their house. It’s a full meal and it only costs 35 pesos, which is about $3.50. It’s a bargain.

Friday night I wandered around the city by myself. I have found the faster I try to speak in Spanish, the more difficult it is for people to understand me. Go figure. But when I speak slow I sound retarded. Either way I will probably get ripped off from people and I am pretty sure that happened Friday night.

Saturday night was the highlight of the weekend. Brandon and Jannes got back in the afternoon so Victor and Irving took us all to a lucha libre (Mexican wrestling match). I could not have asked for anything more. I wish I could portray what I saw last night in words, but I can't. I got some great footage though.

Technology

Last night BYU, I mean Jimmer, played against SDSU. We tried to find the channel on our friends satelitte dish network to no avail. So we resorted to gmail chat. My dad got on video chat and carefully placed his computer in a good position so that we could see the whole TV in his house on my computer screen in Mexico. Despite the poor quality internet connection, we were able to watch most of the 2nd half and cheer for BYU with Brandon and my dad. I might want to do that for every game.

Tonight Brandon and Jannes are heading up to the Nevado Observatory(I went last week). So I will have a few days to myself. My plans so far are to go to the grocery store. Maybe I´ll find a friend who wants to go for a hike or check out some of the nearby caves or maybe the beach again.

News

Our professor, Nick, is back in town and things are starting to pick up. Tomorrow we head out to the volcano for some more sulfer dioxide measurements of explosions. Saturday we are going to some hot springs associated with the volcano for some measurements. We have spanish lessons once a week for free. We all study at night together. I have been reading some of the scholarly literature on the volcano here. I am trying to decide what I want my project to be on. We now know our way around, we know the best restaurants, we know a good taxi driver from a bad one. We know cool people. My friend George from high school is coming in march to visit. We are going to travel for a week. I have a sweet little itinerary lined up. It includes another volcano, ruins, lakes, islands, rivers, the beach, tacos, and agua frescas. Speaking of islands, I get to take a navy ship out to a volcanic island a couple hundred miles off the coast in March. The only settlement there, is a small Mexican navy base. We will doing some sort of research out there. We have been cooking our own food for dinner. So far I have had eggs and potatoes and yesterday I had some fresh bread with peanut butter, a cumcumber and unripe peach. It was nice. I have had a lot of chances to learn to cook in my life and I have never taken advantage of it. I think now it´s finally time. Tonight I really hope to find a place to watch the much anticapted BYU SDSU basketball game. Go cougars.

La Playa Cuyutlan

Friday afternoon Brandon, Jannes (new german intern) and I went to the beach with Victor and Irving. Victor knew a sweet spot where we could make a fire and sleep on the beach in a little palm tree grove. The name of the beach is Cuyutlan. It’s a remote little beach town about 40 minutes from Colima. Friday night we went swimming, ate tacos around the fire and played music with a guitar, bongos, tambourine and harmonica. It was really fun. The new intern, Jannes, is super chill and our two Mexican friends, Victor and Irving, are really cool and nice.

Saturday morning we went swimming and boogie boarding. The waves were huge and fun but it turned out to be quite dangerous. Irving got sucked out in a rip tide and almost drowned. Brandon thankfully is a lifeguard and swam out to help him. It was an intense moment. Besides that, Saturday was really fun and relaxing. Oh and we saw a group of whales about 200 yards out too.

Volcan de Nevado

This past weekend has been quite eventful. Colima is probably the coolest place in Mexico. It is a small state with a small population. The climate ranges from high altitude alpine climate to tropical coastlands. Unfortunately, Colima has experienced several natural disasters. In 2002, Colima experienced an 8.0 earthquake destroying much of the city. Some friends of ours recounted their experiences and it sounded horrifying. They said they thought it was the end of the world. The quake only lasted for less than a minute but they felt it was hours. They said the tremor was so large they couldn’t move or run for cover. Many people just collapsed where they were. After the quake and destruction, they said there was a resounding echo of crying and screaming for loved ones. In 2004 there was a huge eruption from Volcan de Fuego that covered the city in ash and caused roofs of many houses to collapse. Additionally, the state of Colima is hit by huge hurricanes and occasionally tsunamis.

The Colima Volcanic Complex, as geologists call it, is composed of 2 enormous composite volcanoes, Volcan de Nevado and Volcan de Fuego. The two peaks are only 4 km apart but Nevado has been extinct for thousands of years. On Nevado’s peak is the volcanic observatory where I spent all day Thursday and Friday morning monitoring Volcan de Fuego. I went with 2 Mexican students from the University of Colima. We got to the top by hitching a ride with the bomberos (firemen). They go up in shifts to oversee the equipment at the top of Nevado and report an unusual activity to city authorities. So we climbed in the back of their truck with all our own equipment and warm clothes and made our way up to the 14,000 foot observatory.
I felt like I was on an airplane up there. The valleys below are 14,000 feet down. From the peak all the way to sea level. The view was awesome, but the view of the active Volcan de Fuego was the best.

At the top we set up the equipment and watched for explosions. We used a fly spec to measure S02 flux and camcorder to record eruptions. Usually we would also use a thermal camera but it was not working. While we waited we played cards, watched a movie on our laptop, ate tuna and crackers, tried to stay warm, and I went for a short hike. The volcano exploded 3 or 4 times on Thursday. It was one of the coolest things I have ever seen.

Face-to-face

So there is a camera set up on the roof of a nearby building that takes pictures of the volcano every 5 seconds. We went up there this morning just as a small eruption was taking place. This evening after work I went up there alone and watched the volcano as the sun went down. I have decided to make it a nightly routine. It was awesome. The weather is perfect; high of 85, low of 60 everyday.

Kirk is hard to say.

Kirk is difficult to say for Mexicans, so I have adopted Pancho as my Mexican name. This is how every conversation goes:

Mexican: What's your name?

Me: Pancho

Mexican: laughter...What's your real name?

Me: Kirk

Mexican: What? Keyrik? Kik?

Me: No, it's Kirk.

Mexican: Ok Pancho is good.

Preliminary Rounds

Life is good. Especially in Mexico. Colima is such a chill town, or tranquilo as the locals would say. Colima sees very few tourists so there is a really nice Mexican feel to it. The city is centered around an old Catholic cathedral built several centuries ago. Actually Colima is one of the first places the Spanish colonized yet very few old buildings remain due to the large amount of earthquakes that occur in this very geologically active area.

The battle against the volcano is still in the preliminary rounds. We have not been up to the volcano yet for two reasons: 1)Our professor is out of town 2) We have been learning how to use all the equipment and how to analyze all the data in the lab. I'll let you know when we get up there, which will probably be the beginning of next week. I cannot wait.

Katharine, from Belgium (who leaves tomorrow unfortunately), has shown us all the cool spots to eat and have fun. On Friday a friend of ours, Hugo, drove us to a nearby town called Comala for lunch and a little tourism. The little town had the same layout as Colima with a catholic cathedral in the city center. All the buildings are white and the streets made of cobblestone. We ate all-you-can-eat tostadas, burritos, tacos, enchiladas, and flautas. Our meal was accompanied by subpar musicians looking for tips, including a classic mariachi band with guitar, violin, cello, trumpet, etc. It was really fun. After lunch we walked through a nearby museum displaying ancient clay sculptures from the region. Some of the pieces were estimated to be thousands of years old.

Friday evening Katharine had a going-away party at our house. It was really fun and a good opportunity to meet some more locals. Brandon and I were afraid no one would speak English, but we soon found out that most of the people who came speak really well. I guess that’s why they are friends with all the foreigners that come down here. Usually volcanology students come for 3 or 4 months and there are always at least a couple students living at our house. All the Mexicans that came were way cool, most of them are in college, were very friendly, and were willing to befriend us despite our Mormon values.

Speaking of Mormons…we saw a bunch today at Church. That was fun. Everyone thought we were missionaries and kept calling us Elders. I even read out loud in Sunday school – highlight of my day. I can communicate really well actually thanks to my Portuguese and the notebook and dictionary I keep handy at all times.

This week the old students leave and another new student from Germany arrives. We will be working in the lab Monday through Thursday and then Brandon and I are going to the beach Friday and Saturday. We heard there is sweet little hostel that serves breakfast right next to the beach, so hopefully we can find it.

Life in Mexico

Round 2

Yesterday Brandon and I traveled for almost 12 hours. One stop plane ride to Guadalajara. Taxi to Bus Station. Bus to Colima, our final destination. On the bus ride we drove around the enormous volcano which we will be studying and it was degassing a little bit! The volcano is 14,000 ft in elevation. We live with 3 other students; Katharine, Kristina, and Sebastian from Belgium, Germany and Switzerland respectively. Brandon and I share a room, two twin beds and a little bathroom. Brandon is feeling a bit out of place because he has never been outside of the U.S. or Canada. It reminds me a lot of Brazil.

Last night we dropped our bags off, got some dinner at some street cafe. I had a delicious gringa and a horchata. Afterwards, we went ice skating, yes ice skating. Despite the hot and humid weather, Mexicans celebrate the winter holidays along with all the festivities and activities.

Today we started our work and are starting to find our way around town. The other students all leave town this next week. And our advisor is at a conference in Costa Rica until the end of the month...So we have to learn how to run all the equipment, perform all the duties (which are many), learn the city and learn the language in a weeks time. Don't worry though, there is a Wal-Mart.

We do a lot of laboratory work and data analysis for Nick (our advisor). We also go on field trips once a week which usually last 2-5 days on the volcano. The data analysis consists of analyzing seismic data, thermal data, remote sensing data, and image data. There are seismic receivers all over the region and we have a few permanent cameras which take pictures of the volcano every 15 seconds. Once Nick returns we will be assigned a personal project, which I am most excited about.