When my father was young, he heard of a volcano exploding and devouring an entire town. The only thing left after the lava flow was the church steeples. By coincidence, Michele and I journeyed to that volcano on our 1989 rail trip to Uruapan in the state of Michiocan. The lava flow still exists as if it recently cooled, black and motionless.

The trip to the Paracutin was planned as a day trip destination before we left on the trip. From Uruapan I negotiated a taxi to take us to the volcano. We negotiated a price using my broken and flawed Spanish. He said, $50 and I thought he said $15. It was the difference between the word “cincuenta” meaning 50 and what I thought was quince or 15. The words don’t sound the same so I’m not sure why I was confused. This was the first of several mistakes I made due to not knowing the language well.

Once we negotiated the price at $50 (I thought $15), the taxi driver became noticeably excited, and we jumped into the taxi and arrived at the town of Angahuan about an hour later. My error left us with just $20 for the trip to the top of Paracutin. The guide said that for that amount, he wouldn’t take us to the top, but we can go to the church engulfed in lava. He recruited a teenage boy with a bad attitude. Obviously, he’s been recruited to do this day trip too many times.

It turns out that just going to the church was enough. It was a long journey on horseback with the rest of the way done on foot. We met up with some Mexican women who were traveling with their husbands. One woman started to talk to me in Spanish. The other woman stopped her saying to her that we didn’t understand what she was saying. But the first woman stated back to her that we did understand. I did understand. She was saying that their husbands think they were goats because they were hiking in such rough conditions.

We explored the church. Michele went deep down below the lava and into a pocket of exposed church interior. I passed on that venture.

Watch the video: Mexico 1989: Volcan de Paracutin.