Laguna Verde

If you drive south on the Panamerican road from Pasto towards Ipiales (border with Ecuador) few volcanoes with tops covered by clouds will appear on the horizon; eventually after 30 km of jaw dropping corners you will see a beautiful canyon. 3 more Km and you will reach the turning point (on the right, no signs of course) towards Tuquerres.

This is where the scenery becomes even more spectacular.
I don’t know if these roads are dangerous because of the rocks falling from the cliffs on top of you, the craters opening suddenly below you or simply because it is so difficult to keep the eyes on the road.
What I know is that we didn’t mind waking up at 5.30 am to be at Tuquerres at 8 as we enjoyed the road so much.

We then had our “breakfast” (chicken broth, rice, eggs, fried platano) at the restaurant 13 for £2 and spent another 30 minutes on a jeep to cover the 5km unpaved road to the ranger’s chalet at 3650 meters.

This is where we began to walk

It takes around 2 hours to get to the top of the Azufral Volcano.

The mist surrounds you pretty much all the time which is not too bad so that you can concentrate where you put your feet.

Once you hit 4000 meters you begin to feel a bit tired, maybe also because of the altitude, however the tiredness disappears immediately as soon as the mist opens up slightly to reveal the emerald colour of the green water in the volcano’s crater.

To get to the water (inside the crater) is another 30 minutes walk downhill.

We had the whole volcano for ourselves for the entire morning. In actual fact, looking at the ranger’s logbook it appears we were the only people coming to do the climb in the whole week.

The temperature of the water varies from boiling hot to freezing cold in the space of 1 meter. That depends on whether you are placing your hand where bubbling gases are being released.

We are told that it is this continuous release of gases (and pressure) that makes this volcano less dangerous than others.....

The emerald colour is due to the high content of sulphuric acids in the water. Once again the smell of rotten eggs is all around and you need to make sure you don’t spend too much time in the areas where the smell is strong

The rocks on the west side of the crater are white. There, you can clearly see the mark of where the water used to be and that the level of the laguna as shrunk over the years.

In actual fact there is also a second laguna (almost dry) in the same crater called Laguna negra.
No need to say the Laguna Verde will dry up too, due to global warming.

And yet something magic is happening in this place. In spite of the high concentration of sulphuric acids, a unique specie of algae lives in these waters. Amazing.

The 800 meters climb back to the top is taxing.

We made it back to Tuquerres by 3pm where we had our well deserved lunch once again at the “13”. This time they charged us £3 for steak, beans, rice, etc......

We still had time and energy to speak to local people. In Tuquerres they are specialised in 3 things: they make mattresses (colchones) that you can buy for £15, bricks (ladrinos) and most importantly women wash carrots with their feet (unfortunately we could not see them in action although we were very curious). These women earn £1.5 a day.....The £13 a day for coffee workers does not look so bad now!!!