Nica and back

A few years ago, I may have ventured to Canada for a weekend outing. These days, I head to Nicaragua. It was a long trip but a few hours at a beautiful, almost unoccupied beach for some body surfing (at which I am inept, always swallow ridiculous amounts of the Pacific causing my throat and nose to burn from the salt) and a day hike up Cerro Negro was well worth the trip. Our timing maybe impeccable considering the volcano San Cristobal (near Chinandega) is predicted to erupt next week. We could see the smoke billowing from the top. The volcano was a pretty incredible sight, the smoke causing a clouded sky and a little protection from the strong sun.
I was amazed at how much the Nicaraguan terrain varies from the now familiar Honduran geography. Other parts of Nicaragua may be different, but the area near Leon consists of fairly flat lowlands, marked by dramatic volcanic peaks (both active and dormant). In Honduras you see mountain upon mountain, valley, mountain, more mountain. Like Honduras this time of year, Nicaragua was green and beautiful. In fact, the countryside was surprisingly green considering how low water level seemed to be in the rivers and streams. Nevertheless, a beautiful country and from the little bit I saw, I plan to return and highly recommend it.
Leon appears to have quite a bit to offer visitors. As I mentioned, there is a beautiful beach about 45 minutes from town, the largest cathedral in Central America and plenty of restaurants, hostels and tour agencies leading various expeditions to the surrounding volcanoes. The hike up Cerro Negro was the purpose of our visit, or rather, the trip down. The hike up Nicaragua’s youngest volcano (about 150 years old) took less than an hour, packing wood boards, beautiful orange jumpsuits and goggles. When we reached the top, we dropped our boards and ventured a little further to peer directly into the upper crater. You could smell the sulfur and see where it mixed with the graphite, calcium and basalt to form the mountain. Since this is an active volcano, if you scratch away the surface, the sediment is hot to the touch; an incredible reality after those geo-science classes in college. You know you are a nerd when you consider collecting sediment samples to bring back to geo professors back home. I probably would have done it had a container been available. That, and I suppose it may get lost in the next 14 months or so.
Suit up in orange and welcome to Volcanoboarding 101. I admit, I was slightly disappointed when I discovered we would sit on the board and sled down since I anticipated standing, as if snowboarding, but it still proved to be a good time. Yes, we packed wooden boards up the mountain so we could ride them down. In all, we were a group of about 20 and headed down the mountain on 2 tracks. The girls went first so we could watch the boys crash and burn from the bottom, a much better view since you cannot actually see the bottom of the volcano from where we were “pushed off” the mountain. That is not to say that the girls didn’t crash as well (I definitely did), but the boys tend to go faster and therefore, had some impressive wrecks towards the bottom. Faces covered in black dust and pebbles in places they shouldn’t be, we headed back to the hostel for free mojitos. Since we only had a few days, we hoped a bus to start the long trip back to Honduras. Nope, no shower first, we settles right in a busito with all the Nicaraguans, covered in dust and a little blood. Good times.
This week I am taking my first trip to the Bay Islands before diving head first into training and FBT with the next group of Youth Development volunteers. Hopefully I will come back with some good stories and even better pictures. Mel and Ner: Bienvenidos a Honduras!
photos: Beach near León; Cathedral in León; Cerro Negro, mid climb; Guys Volcanoboarding (yes that cloud of dust on the left is a person and the dots to the right in the of the hill are also people); Matt and I from the top of Cerro Negro, the smoking mountain in the upper left corner is San Cristobal.