Habari Asubhi (Good Morning), This post comes later than I’d hoped due to thunderstorms rolling in yesterday afternoon causing a powercut here.
I will apologise now for a very picture heavy post, but it is worth it I promise!
Yesterday was certainly my favourite day so far. We started the day with a really fun experiment, though this did require a very early start. 5am to be precise. It was still dark as we left for the caldera.
A slightly sleepy selfie, taken just before leaving for the caldera at 5am
On the drive we were quite surprised to see such a bustle of activity on the streets considering the time and the darkness. What was probably most surprising was seeing the school children, both primary and secondary, walking to school or waiting for a school bus at this time in the morning. We arrived at the location of our experiment just as the sun was rising making for some beautiful scenery.
Arriving at the caldera just at the sun was rising
Dawn is certainly my favourite time of day wherever in the world I may be. On to the exciting experiment… Can we cook our breakfast eggs in the fumaroles?
The idea for this experiment came to me when we came across the fumaroles on day 7, and I have been excited for it since then! We knew we wanted to come back here early morning regardless of any experiment as the temperature contrast between the rising steam and the atmosphere makes it much easier to see and photograph the fumaroles.
The 'smoking field' - the temperature contrast in the early hours making the steam from the fumaroles much clearer to see.
We had 4 raw eggs (our breakfast) which we were attempting to cook on the fumaroles. As it was our breakfast if the experiment didn’t work we were going hungry! Vincent, our driver joined us for the experiment. We carried our equipment (a picnic basket and pan) up to the fumaroles, and set to work.
Carrying the equipment up to the site of the experiment.
The first task was to select the best fumaroles to cook with. When selecting the cooking sites we were looking for two things; high temperatures and space to fit the pan. We didn’t have a thermometer so testing temperature was done by putting our hands into the furmaroles…some were certainly hot enough to cook food on, they were that hot they were beginning to cook my hand in the few seconds I had it in there. As with any experiment we tested a number of variables… We had two of the eggs in a large pan of hot water…
one egg in a bowl of hot water…
and one egg just cooking in the fumerole. I was ‘chef’ of the fumarole with the bowl and ground-cooked egg and Helen was ‘chef’ of the pan cooked eggs. Once the experiment was set up it was a bit of a waiting game, only we didn’t really know how long to wait for. The water never got to boiling point so the usual 5 minutes for a boiled egg didn’t apply. It was a bit of a guessing game.
While we were waiting for the eggs to cook we enjoyed a much deserved coffee and an early morning steam room.
With such an early start this morning I very much appreciated a coffee while waiting on the eggs cooking...
...and the steam room was much steamier today! A great way to start the day :)
After 25 minutes in the fumarole I was pretty sure my eggs had cooked. It was crunch time for the first set of results… The ground cooked egg was first to be cracked open.
Chuffed that the first egg was a success, and I wasn't going hungry.
And it was a success! If anything it was a bit overcooked. The egg cooked in the bowl of hot (not boiling water) was next to be put to the test…
A bit upset that the other egg I was in charge of cooking, wasn't quite ready when I cracked it open.
To my disappointment it was not quite cooked through. I’m clearly not destined to be a volcanic chef. We decided to place the semi-cooked egg on the plate used to cover the bowl and see if it would ‘poach’/’fry’.
A little while later, after 40 mins Helen checked up on the pan cooked eggs. The shells had cracked slightly but they were still quite soft. She decided to cook them a little longer as not to go hungry. After 55 mins cooking in the pan Helen cracked into the first egg.
Helen enjoying her egg... success.
Another success, though it was definitely a good shout on Helen’s part to have cooked them that bit longer. Thankfully our experiment worked, well 3 out of the four eggs anyway. The egg we put on the plate to fry/poach did slowly cook further though it did not cook fully during the time we were at the fumaroles. Conducting the experiment was great fun. Summarising the results; the egg simply placed in the fumarole cooked the fastest, and cooking the eggs in water substantially increased the cooking time. This is because water absorbs a lot of the heat energy given off by the fumaroles, and so less of the heat is absorbed by the egg.
If we were to repeat the experiment I’d like to try frying the eggs. I think this would work very well as the pan got very hot, very quickly before we added the water. We packed up the picnic basket and got back to mapping. The rest of the morning was spent completing our mapping of the fissures, which were quite a bit more extensive than we thought. We returned to Maili Saba Camp (our home away from home!) for lunch. I had a nice afternoon of getting on with some uni work along with some sunbathing (likely the only chance to sunbathe while here) planned. However thunderstorms rolled in around 3pm and put these plans on hold as there was a power cut. I’d like to quickly say a thank you to all of you reading this blog, in particular those who have contacted me. I didn’t expect such an instant and great response, I’m really glad you are enjoying the blog. Hakuna Matata