Wai-O-Tapu, April. The edge of Champagne Pool is a vivid, vibrant orange, and it catches the eye before any explanation. In the air, a thick steam of humidity and sulphur in which breathing struggles to find its rhythm, and the heat presses on the chest before I notice.
The water boils at 75°C and yet seems to move slowly, like something alive. That orange is not algae or pigment: it is arsenic and antimony sulphides, orpiment and realgar, which rise dissolved in a hydrochloric hydrothermal fluid from a deep boiling zone. They precipitate precisely at the edge, where the water cools and the minerals cease to be soluble. The colour is the precise point where the Earth’s interior meets the temperature of the air.
I stood still in front of it, with the strange feeling of looking at the raw planet: the deep layers of the Earth brought to the surface, exposed, with nothing above. I took a long time to realise I had been holding my breath the whole time.