Flying in a Cessna 152 to Pinatubo
"I fly because it releases my mind from the tyranny of petty things..." I had that quote by Antoine de Saint-Exupery, the author of The Little Prince, in mind as soon as I entered the small cockpit of the Cessna 152, a two-seater airplane that will take me over Mount Pinatubo, an active volcano in Central Philippines. Little did I know that I still to contend with another petty thing called "the weather" while I was up there in the sky. Mount Pinatubo was always a fascination for me. Its 1991 eruption was the largest in the 20th century, wreaking havoc the surrounding areas, and causing ash to fall as far as Metro Manila. The ash and gases generated by the eruption blanketed the atmosphere and managed to delay global warming for several years, and the explosion was so violent that it blew a large portion of the volcano, creating a beautiful crater lake. I've been to the crater lake once , and I wanted to explore it again. This time though, I wanted to...