The strangest place on earth. (the Galapagos islands with their erupting volcanoes; includes tips on getting there)

I awoke with a start, banging my head on the roof of the lava tube where I'd taken cover for the night. These caves form when underground rivers of lava drain away, leaving behind a narrow tunnel with a roof of solidified crust. Large tubes can go for miles. This one was on the flank of Isla Fernandina, the most active and remote volcano in the Galapagos archipelago, which lies some six hundred miles off the coast of Ecuador.

I had come here with several naturalists to witness the volcano's latest eruption, which had begun two days earlier. Four of us had camped for the night only a few hundred feet from the eruption's main vent, which was sending up a pulsating curtain of molten rock wen over a hundred feet into the air. By the time we had arrived, a horseshoe-shaped cone had grown around the fissure. On the cone's downslope side, a glowing torrent ran out and down to the sea three miles away, confined only by a thin levee of solidified spatter.

What had startled me from sleep was the roar of the ongoing eruption and the bright orange glow at the tube's mouth. I panicked momentarily, …