KAMCHATKA LAND OF MYSTERY AND MISTS - Page 5

As an alternative activity, we went to the Volcano Institute for a lecture [Victor translating, of course] on volcanoes and the geological and volcanic processes which formed, and are continuing to form, the whole Kamchatka Peninsula. When we arrived at the Institute, kindergarteners were on the playground of the child care center across the street. The lecturer had received very short notice we wanted to come and was not quiet ready for us so several tour members started watching the children while we waited. Those playing in the sandbox were making [what else?] a volcano. Bob joined them and was such a big hit making balloon animals that the children continued watching him rather than returning to class at the end of recess. Finally, the center director came looking for them and the geologist came looking for us. The lecture room was a museum of volcanic products - lavas, cinders, ashes, rocks, minerals, glass, etc. and the forms in which they could be expelled from the volcano. I found this to be the best and most interesting of the tour's lectures.

The next day fog again delayed the start of the day's activity, but this time we did not have to reschedule or, even worse, cancel. That would have been a great disappointment because we were to take a helicopter flight to Uzon Caldera and the Valley of the Geysers, one of the tour's scheduled highlights. The helicopter used looked new and had comfortable, front-facing seats and a stewardess passing out candies but there was so much noise from the engine that talking was virtually impossible. We definitely needed the ear protectors provided. On the way north, we circled two extinct volcanoes, Karymskaya Sopka and Maly Seminchick and photographed them from the air. A rather interesting phenomena observed while flying was that the lakes formed in the craters of extinct volcanoes were all a slightly different color because of the different minerals leached into the water from the different craters' walls and floors.