This post’s photos were taken 15-20 minutes after the previous chapter’s.
We had walked up a little higher, staying on a marked path.
For several minutes, most of upper Etna had been invisible to us, but the clouds which had fully-enshrouded us were now fracturing, lifting, starting to “dissolve”.
At 11.40 am we were probably standing a whisker below 3000 metres above sea level; the pictured, freer-roaming folks were, variously, a little higher up or lower down.
All relevant humans were in an area newly “re-opened”, after the most recent eruption.
The two in the featured image were, I think, standing atop recently-emitted “ash” and lava; its nigh-black colour suggests that it has not long been “out in the open”.
Over time it will lighten in colour as it oxidises.
People could walk more freely than we did – and up a little higher – but to do so they were required to wear hard hats, and to be led by a registered guide.
As you can see, “compliance issues” were evident.
The “summit zone” was still off-limits.
As you will see in the next post, we were about to see a great deal more of the extraordinary terrain that surrounded us.
