We hiked an unusually positioned mountain range, close enough to the coast that you could see surf from 1,000 metres up. Whilst sheltering at the summit, wind and rain renewing themselves as the evening drew in, a Swiss post-graduate tried to tell us about plasma.

This was his area of study. He attempted to explain it to a small room of people, all soaked and frozen, people who started out interested but who just couldn't grasp what he was talking about and ended up losing focus.

The only thing I could glean about plasma is that fire is just one example of it, being neither liquid, gas, nor solid, yet generating intense energy. I'm not sure if I even understood this correctly.

We spent the next day hiking the ridge line in rain and fog that prevented us from seeing anything but the ground directly ahead of us.