There's nothing duller than Kyushu in early April. Those words entered my head as I hauled myself aboard a bus leaving the Japanese city of Kumamoto in April, 1992. At that time, I'd been traveling around Kyushu, Japan's large southern island, for about a week. Several days of overcast skies and rain had dampened my enthusiasm for this trip. But the bus ride I was about to take would change that, and give me a new appreciation for the power of nature.

During my stay in Japan, I normally took trains wherever I went. But there were no trains heading in my direction. So, I had to make this leg of the trip by bus. I chose that particular bus because its route passed Mount Aso, an active volcano that was said to have had the most explosive eruptions of any volcano on Earth. Seeing that my hometown of Toronto doesn't have any of them, I couldn't pass up the opportunity to get close to a live volcano. Especially one, as it turned out, that was ready to blow.

The Lay of the Land

As the bus pulled out of the city, I couldn't help but notice that the ride was a lot like the one from Toronto to Montreal. The highway was peppered with beautiful roadcuts where mountain and hill were blasted and chopped away to create this thoroughfare. I looked up and down at the laddering bits of rock that jutted out just a few meters away from the bus. I wondered if the temptation to try to climb the roadcut had gotten the better of any of the locals.

Whenever the roadcuts ended, there were impressive stands of trees broken up by wide, deep fields. This struck me as odd, seeing how modern Japan is, in many ways, at war with nature. In his book Lost Japan, long-time resident Alex Kerr wrote: "It is said that of Japan's thirty thousand rivers and streams, only three remain undammed, and even these have had their streambeds and banks encased in concrete." Trees and forest have fared as badly, with centuries-old growth leveled in the name of modernization. But if someone tells you that Japan doesn't have any large tracts of trees, that person is either lying or doesn't know what they're talking about. While not as impressive as the forests of Ontario, British Columbia, or the Pacific Northwest, there's something almost otherworldly about a stand of trees in Japan.

For a little while at least, the shifting of the scene from rock to trees to field occupied my eyes and brain. There was something almost exciting about not knowing what would next be coming into view. But quickly, the familiar morphed into the prosaic. My eyes moved from the window and my mind started to drift to more immediate concerns. Like where I'd be staying for the next couple of nights; what I'd be doing at my destination, the city of Beppu; and, most important, of what I was going to eat for dinner that night.

Nature's Power

While shuddering at the thought of using one of the McDonald's coupons in my waist pouch to buy yet another 300 yen teriyaki burger and Coke combo, I noticed that the bus had started on a gentle climb. Reflexively, I turned my head to the right and was stunned by what I saw through my window.

At the point where the dull grey sky met the dull brown earth, there were deep black gouges in the ground. It looked like a giant had taken its forefinger and traced crooked lines into the landscape. The gouges, someone later told me, had been made by magma flows that had burst to the surface. As the bus continued to roll uphill, I marveled at the way nature could quickly unleash enough destructive force to scar the surface of the planet, then just as quickly turn that force off.

The bus hauled itself to the top of the rise, and turned into a large parking lot containing several buses, a few cars, and a couple of small buildings. This was a treat: a short rest stop just a few hundred meters from Mt. Aso itself. As I stepped off of the bus, my nostrils were assailed by a flatulent, sulphurous stench. The remnants of volcanic belching were wafting through the air. The smell was sickening, but at the same time strangely inviting.

At the Volcano

Most of the other people on the bus with me had retreated into the nearby visitor's center. Braving the smell, I walked to the edge of the parking lot and stared in wonder at the scars on the outer edges of Mt. Aso's crater. I followed the scars upward to the rim of the crater. That giant re-entered my imagination, and I swear that I could almost see him drawing in the earth.

With my eyes focused on the rim, I spent what seemed like endless minutes watching a plume of white smoke roll skyward from the bowels of the mountain. The smoke was white tinged with gray. It wasn't like the stream of smoke that comes from a chimney. Rather, it was like a thick, fluffy cloud slowly rising beneath the Earth.

I could have stayed there all day, just staring at this destructive wonder of nature. The smoke plume, the gouges in the land, and the volcano itself held me in a powerful hypnotic grip. The stark beauty of the volcano and what it could do was a fascinating contrast to the rocks and trees and fields that I'd seen less than two hours ago. But it was easy to reconcile this contrast, considering its source. Nature has a way of making it seemingly ugly and destructive offspring as visually stunning as its most benign creations.

All too soon, though, it was time to get back on board the bus and continue on my way. As I took my seat, I also took in the lesson I'd learned from this bus ride: always keep at least one eye on the window. If you don't, you'll miss something. And you'll wind up being a lot poorer if you do miss what's out there waiting to be seen.