The volcano ate my money and trousers

by Ebony Rose (United Kingdom (Great Britain))

I didn't expect to find Papua New Guinea

To start with, it was an ordinary day, in the life of an extraordinary person! No, I got that wrong. Sorry, my bad. It perhaps was in fact just an ordinary person who stumbled upon an extraordinary day. The day didn't belong to me. I stepped off a cruise ship onto Papua New Guinea land not sure what to expect. But the land was certainly expecting me. A blonde, naive, 21 year old tourist travelling by herself. I guess you could say I borrowed an experience from the universe for a bit, and now it's filed in my memory bank. I've clicked on the zip file, unarchived it, and here it is, in all its scrambled glory. The volcano ate my money and my pants. I'd just walked off the cruise ship and started towards the crowded streets of tourist markets. I followed some of the tourists turning right down toward the old beaten trucks with open backs. I'd overheard some of them mention they were off to see a live volcano. I thought great! That's what I will do today. I had no plans, except to make plans on the go. I paid a fiver to get in the back of the truck and we were off. There were five or so separate trucks and as our hair whipped in the wind we drove over lava covered cities with chimneys stuck out the ground, pulling up at a lake crossing not too far from the volcano. Turns out they were boiling water holes, the name escapes me (as do most nouns to be honest. Blonde is a reference not only to my hair but to my permanent scattered state of mind). We were allowed to cross through the boiling water holes on foot for free or we were to pay another fiver to cross in the truck. Some attempted the journey by foot and one foot in, they were screaming and back in the truck. I paid my fiver, we all did, and carried on. Fast forward on, we were staggering vertically up a volcano with our shoes falling apart, but completely in awe of the uninterrupted view we had over this slice of PNG. This was worth the two fivers we'd given up. We made it to the top. Well.. In my head when I retell the story.. we did indeed make it to the top, but the secret truth is that I was too frightened and made it mere metres from the top and couldn't work up the courage to walk up the final few metres against the wind to peer into the live volcano. When I retell the story, I use everyone else's describing words and I emphasise my story to focus on the view, because I certainly had a view. It was as I was staring out to the water over the boiling waterholes, that I heard a great big noise that sounded as if the volcano was about to erupt. Oh no! I was about to die. Low and behold, there were rocks falling down around me and I felt it getting hotter and I could hear the others screaming. The flew past me on their butts sliding down the volcano in a rush to get to the bottom. I thought 'shit!' Promptly I followed suit, leaving my things, and slid down after them trying to get low so I would go faster. I was not going to die on this volcano. I didn't even check if my insurance covered volcanos. I got to the bottom last, and my heart was pumping. The others were all standing around laughing. What? I was so confused. We had just slid hundreds of metres to escape a lava exploding volcano and they were standing still. Was it the shock? Turns out they had just decided the quickest route down would be to slide on a pallet. I had slid on my butt, ripped my pants off, left my cash up the top, and had definitely not got the memo from the other tourists as to what was happening. Most certainly I was not re climbing that beast. The volcano had eaten my money and my trousers.