Our final entertainment in Guatemala was a short visit to Volcano Pacaya, about an hour's minibus ride from Antigua. Pacaya is a highly active volcano, 9,500 meters in height, whose slopes extend near Guatemala City and Antigua. Near the top is a national park, where one can get a guided tour by horseback or on foot. Being timid of horses�"which they call "taxis" there�"we opted to brave the hike to the lava flow in only our boat shoes. And I wasn't wearing socks.

Pacaya is also one of four active volcanoes in Guatemala, and there are twenty potentially-active volcanoes in the country. Pacaya is also being tapped for geothermal energy by an Israeli company. Various spots on the volcano have been flowing continuously for the last five years, and it is constantly changing shape as cones build and collapse.

After a bumpy ride in the minibus there is an hour-and-a-half hike to the lava flow. The town at the base of the trail has equipped itself for the tourist trade, with kids selling walking sticks--"Stick? Stick?"--and shops selling flashlights for the twilight walk back down. They also sell marshmallows in case some nostalgic person wishes to scorch some with sulfurous fumes.

The view from the slopes of the volcano would have been breathtaking but for the thick fog that enveloped the mountain on our way up. Instead, we slogged wetly upward over a cobblestone path, then along a soft trail winding through some woods, and suddenly to a clearing full of giant radio antennas. A few minutes' hiking along a developed trail led us to some crunchy dark-brown scree, and then we were climbing on a barren, sliding slope at the angle of repose. Gradually the route seemed more and more crowded with people, as various groups�"our guide called ours the Pumas--converged upon the lava flow.

Suddenly the trail jumped up onto crunchy, twisted, cooled lava. The cool fog was pierced by mysterious blasts of warm air. A few moments later we were at the site of the lava flow itself, an improbably sharp, ridged cone on the side of the volcano. There were at least a hundred people standing around, mostly speaking Hebrew but also English and Swedish. We found two Hondurans who were happy to find someone who spoke Spanish.

Over to one side of this crowded ridge was the lava flow itself. As we walked closer, the ground beneath our boat shoes got hotter and hotter, and when the breeze shifted the air was burning hot, making our eyes sting. There was a trough of slow-moving lava pouring out of the side of the cone horizontally for several feet, and then spilling down the side of the mountain for hundreds of feet. Between the heat coming from the ground, the unstable rock and the crowds, it was terrifying. It was also fascinating: Somehow it was hard to fathom that there was actual liquid rock flowing by just a few feet away.

After eating sandwiches�"dogs had accompanied the hikers up the mountainside in hope of a snack�"the guide led us back down. The children selling sticks asked for them back, and wondered if we might donate our flashlights.