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*If someone does a trip, probably only a few
can ever report
of the strongest hurricane
that even got its landfall in the time for our
arrival on the western coast of Mexico. In
addition, even towards our target area, the
currently active volcano Colima. Our journey was
stopped
abruptly
in Huston, as all flights to
Guadalajara and also in this area got
understandably cancelled. On the US television,
we were able to follow the 'landfall' with
windspeeds up to 350 km/h on the west coast
near Manzanillo and we expected the worst
devastations in the 50 km distanced area of
Colima volcano.
Everything was pointed out for
coming home soon :-(
Hurricane Patricia
Source and image credit to NOAA / US Gov
Luckily this hurricane monster of the class five caused on
the coast relatively less devastations and weakened
in the
inland
surprisingly fast into the category 2.
But the immense rainfalls washed away parts of roads rapidly.
And so it came that a 15m deep canyon due to lahar cut of
the road
before the bridge
in
front of the driveway near
the village of San Antonio. Fact was,
our street got hit really bad.
On our arrival day the bridge was barely visible under the
Lahar boulder. Note the huge rocks. The picture in the
middle shows the still intact bridge before
(Image credit to Google Earth).
After about 5 days dredging and repairs the bridge was again
passable.
Nevertheless, there was the possibility of spectacular rides
through a ford to reach the village.
..and now to the
Volcano Colima
When you finally left the nerv-racking procedures behind,
you will at least be rewarded with a view of the imposing
volcanic cone with its 3860m
 
The photo team
from left: M.Szeglat, Th.Boeckel,
R.Roscoe, M.Rietze und H.Cervantes
Volcanic Lightning
The at the volcano starts and thus the infinite rigid incl.
hallucinateing into the darkness. When you then espied an
eruption it came after a short time to more or less lightning formations.
On the second night there was a more stronger eruption
ending whith a bright flash that lit the about two kilometer
high ash cloud colorfully.
MOVIE
(10MB)
The daylight eruptions were also highly impressive.
According to the Air Traffic Control VAAC the ash clouds
raised up to five kilometers.
After a second heavy rain front we only thought let's
get out of here. The swelling of the river in San
Antonio would have cut us promptly the way back.
Strombolian activity
So,we moved to the
south side of Colima near the town Tonila. From
this position, we had a better insight into the crater
lip. Previously red Strombolians were very rare, but
in the Halloween night a more violent eruption
promoted plentiful incandescent material.
A few impressions from the very pleasant town of
Comala. Adios!
*Matthias Claudius 1786, Urinas journey around the
world .
More at
ALPE
vulkane.net
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