Mount Mayon is the Philippine stratovolcano that Kaja Solness identifies as the place she intended to jump into. In the conversation with Harry Hole, it gives a precise, physical shape to her suicidal plan, but nothing indicates that she ever reached it.

Geography and Profile

Kaja describes Mount Mayon as a stratovolcano about 2,500 meters high, formed by successive layers of lava and marked by steep slopes. She says there are eighteen volcanoes in total, three on Luzon, and names Mount Mayon as her intended destination.

Eruptions and Death Toll

Harry consults information in Kaja’s personnel file: it records forty-seven eruptions since 1616, with the most recent in 2002, and says the volcano is suspected of having caused about three thousand deaths. The figures make the landscape she has chosen both geologically active and associated with mass death; the conversation offers no further account of individual eruptions.

Kaja’s Intended Destination

Kaja explains that she had been traveling to Manila and that Hong Kong was meant to be only a stopover. When Harry asks what she wanted in the Philippines, she says she planned to throw herself into a volcano, then identifies Mount Mayon. The exchange then turns from the volcano’s eruption history to her own crisis: she discloses that she had relapsed, begun drinking spirits on the plane, and been told to leave the aircraft in Hong Kong. She adds that Manila, apart from its volcanoes, seemed no better than Hong Kong. Mount Mayon therefore remains an intended destination in a conversation about despair and relapse, not a place the narrative confirms she visited.