http://photography.nationalgeographic.com/photography/enlarge/santa-maria-cone-photography.html
This could be one of the most beautiful landscape photo's I've ever seen. Santa Maria is an active volcano in western Guatemala. Its las eruption in 1902 was one of the three largest explotions of the 20th century. One particular vent has, throughout this century, been forming another volcano alongside called Santiaguito.
Volcanos are an integral part of much of Latin America from El Salvador to Bolivia. As much as they represent a geological reality they have integrated themselves into the culture like hurricanes in the Carribean. Interestingly in Bolivia this summer one of the guys told me a story about the tallest mountain in Bolivia, Sajama, which happens to be a volcano. He said that legend has it the mountain fought with another. They threw huge rocks at one another and bled profusely. Sajama won when the other mountain (I forget the name) sent an army of great white rats to dig it out, but Sajama darkened the skies and the rats froze to death. Their bodies rotted into the ground and made it white (which it is, because of salt). Pretty cool that an oral tradition can preserve what was probably a real event this long with no written record.
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