Fires. Floods. Tsunamis.
Ma Nature’s angry side doesn’t pull punches. But damn it if it isn’t also a helluva beautiful thing to behold.
And nowhere is either side of that coin truer than in the belly of a volcano.
To wit:
Doritos Inferno 360 VideoInside the Benbow volcano crater3:45
That 360-degree video was recently shot by Ulla Lohmann and her husband Sebastian Hoffmann in the Benbow crater on Ambrym, a volcanic island in the South Pacific archipelago of Vanuatu. They hiked four hours through the jungle to a base camp 2,296 feet above sea level then rappelled 656 feet into the crater before spending hours inside to collect the footage.
They had to lighten their loads, too, leaving extra rope and emergency water behind on the way down. Had one of their ropes snapped, they could’ve been stranded down there for hours without water.
Between the temperature (which can ratchet up to 2,192 degrees), the gases (carbon dioxide, sulfur dioxide, hydrogen chloride and hydrogen sulfide) and the tremors (it’s literally ready for an earthquake at any moment), you’d think they’d be in a hurry.
But you’d be wrong.
When speaking to the National Post, Lohmann recalled: “It’s like you have this really cool sleeping lion and you’re close to it … You have this hostile environment but your mother still protects you. You’re at the heart of it and you’re safe,” Lohmann said, calling it geborgenheit, a German word that means “the sum of security, warmth, protection, trust and love.”
The video was funded by Pepsico for the launch of their Doritos Inferno chips, and it debuted in Toronto on June 22nd with a full VR experience.
We hear it was warmly received.
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