© Examiner Publications (Cork) Ltd
Photo: Graham Burns
Maria, who handles donkeys for tourist rides, waters her charges in the volcanic crater lake of Laguna Quilotoa, Ecuador, as clouds roll into the caldera. Quilotoa crater, 3 km wide, was created by a massive volcanic explosion 800 years ago, that had the force of about 200 megatons of TNT, or 13,000 times that of the Hiroshima bomb.