Wanderlustin a Cultural Blog

My ears were burning. I came inches close to one of the many idiosyncratic characteristics of Japan; there is a festival for everything. When I heard of a fire festival on the world's largest Caldera and one of the Earth's most historically disruptive volcanoes, facts that are esoterically known to only maybe the residents of the surrounding cone, I had one thought: road trip. So I jumped in the car, headed three hours southwest of my scenic hometown settled among the westernmost part of Japan's mainland, and made way for a weekend trip that would be reckoned to be a pyromaniac's wet dream.

The Japanese islands are laced with volcanoes, some brazenly active and others not. Mt. Aso sits in the center of Japan's southern island of Kyushu and possesses merely this: the largest active crater in the world. The crater measures 71 miles (114 km) in circumference, 17 miles (27 km) from north to south, and 10 miles (16 km) from east to west, and is not bounded by the peak of bellowing smoke. Rather, the originial crater is marked by a Caldera, or a bowl-shaped volcanic depression. With in this crater lies roughly 100,000 inhabitants, a population that sits upon rich soil that gives way to countless wildflowers in the spring and summer. Such is the charm of Aso.

To prepare for this summer blossom, as spring nears local farmers carefully burn huge swaths of vegetation on the mountainside to cultivate the soil, ridding it of harmful insects. Kick-starting the mountain blaze is a fire festival that is held throughout March, beginning with the lighting of the Chinese character "Hi," (hee), meaning fire, on the mountainside. As I approached this spectacle by car from a distance, just after the sun set on my first night there, I could only imagine the preparation and precision it took to create such a thing, only to be admired from a distance.

If that was all to the road trip, I would have turned back that moment satisfied with the 6-hour aggregate drive, as the majority of the group did. But Gino and I stayed on, camped out in a temperature nearing freezing, only to be rewarded the next day by sights for burning eyes. As we drove to the top of the peak, bits of ash blinded the dashboard of our beat-up 91 Camry. There we were, standing inches away from a raging fire that was racing down the sides of the slope, contained only by nature and the roadways leading up to the volcano's summit.

We came down from our firey-high that day filled with stories about the unexpected satisfaction that this road trip was bringing us, settling into a nearby hotspring town. Bathing naked, as is the custom in Japan, we unwinded (separately of course, as is also the custom) soaking in the mountain water, said to have specific healing powers.

Of all the volcanoes in Japan, the majestic -- and dormant -- Mt. Fuji draws by far the most attention, rightfully so. The views of Fuji from a distance and from the moutain top are incomparable. Yet, who knew that only a short drive away lied another volcano that has been overlooked by the eyes of many tourists? Forget Fuji, as far as a short day trip goes with easy accessibility to the top and hyperactivity both in the crater and on the mountainside, the 5,000 feet (1500 meter) Mt. Aso blows the 12,400 foot (3775 meter) Fuji out of the water, or should i say sky.