Land of the blessed

FROM VOLCANIC PEAKS TO CORAL-FRINGED SHORES, HOPPING BETWEEN THE CARIBBEAN ISLANDS OF ST VINCENT & THE GRENADINES IS BLISSFULLY EASY

- SARAH BARRELL.

"It felt like a jumbo jet rumbling, taking off. The the ground shaking."

Desron 'Lava Man' Rodriguez is a person of few words, but those he does utter can stop you in your tracks for this mild-mannered, softly spoken Vincentian can detail what it's like to climb an erupting volcano. "I didn't want anyone else telling me how it was up there," he answers to the inevitable question: why? "I had to witness it with my own eyes."

We're winding through the ashy foothills of La Soufrière, the still-smouldering stratavolcano that dominates St Vincent's northernmost tip. The largest and most densely populated of the 32 islands and cays that make up St Vincent & the Grenadines, this volcanic isle is a West Indies wonder. Black sand beaches are backed by small villages half-mooned around Caribbean bays devoid of international resort development. And St Vincent's windward Atlantic shores are wilder still. Its densely forested cliffs are home to more goats than people, and they graze amid palms and surf-sprayed cactuses.

We head inland from the ocean shores just beyond Georgetown, where the road rides over Rabacca Dry River, a gulch carved out by a 1902 eruption. Its banks are once again deep in grey volcanic ash, from La Soufrière's latest blast in 2021. At the road's end, La Soufrière's four-mile out-and-back summit trail has been cleared and reopened, climbing steeply over 576m. It's a journey Lava Man often makes twice a day-guiding visitors or just for fun, as he's done since he was a child. "I've always liked being outside, in nature," he says. And why should the top blowing off the mountain interrupt his daily walks?

In March 2021, La Soufrière began notable 'effusive' action, exhaling clouds of gas, with the underground magma activity sending tremors through the island.