Mama Tungurahua has some "issues"

Among those issues are: magma, molten projectile rocks, ash plumes, tremors (er, upwards of 200/day), and of course, the near-ever-present lahars, just to name a few. She is one angry mother.

The vulcanologists seem to think that this activity is a precursor to the "event". The cone, which stands at an imposing height of 15,087 feet, is literally full of molten material.

For the time being, Baños is at a yellow alert, as it has been since last year (please knock on wood now). The gov't has issued masks to the Baneños, to deal with the ashfall, but life goes on in a (more or less) normal fashion. However, the other side of the mountain's skirt is on orange alert, and people have been mostly evacuated. They are able to go home during the day, to work their crops and feed their animals, but are sleeping in various refuges that were built during the eruptions last year. Obviously, red alert is what we want to avoid here (or, rather, the conditions that provoke a red alert are what we want to avoid here). Salasaka, on the other hand, is out of the High Risk Zone completely. Although, it is adversely effected by the ash. And the earthquakes.

Anyhow, I am not there yet, although my return is imminent (very, in fact). Woohoo!

And, all of that said, at this point I will gladly trade a little ashy air for negative 9 degrees.