Turrialba Volcano is the second-highest in Costa Rica, and as you can see, it is still active. At 10,958 feet/3,340 meters, one can see the Carribean from its peak on a clear day.
Turrialba was known to the indigenous Huetar people, who may have given the volcano its name from their language (Turiri Aba, meaning “fire river”), although Costa Rican historians also think the name might have come from the Spanish colonizers.
Last week, I climbed the last two and a half miles of the volcano’s peak, and witnessed the yellowish sulphuric plumes — I could actually hear the pressurized vents. Turrialba had started to awaken two days before (the geologists monitoring it thought this had to do with a collapsing shaft inside the main crator). I can well understand the mythology about volcanos that has arisen from the hugeness of their power. The gods Vulcan and Pele were intellectualized ways we could understand the profound impact of volcanos on earth’s geology, and really nothing that we humans do will be able to compete with such natural forces.
