Leon
Our first stop in Nicaragua is Leon - the old colonial capital and the Lancaster to Granada's York. Leon and Granada have been at each others' throats for centuries with their rivalry occasionally boiling over into electoral fraud, military coups and even civil war. Heavy stuff... Fortunately a compromise was reached between the two when Managua was chosen as the capital, thus defusing some of the tension.
Leon is a nice place though. It seems disorganised enough to be interesting, but developed enough to have some useful services - it even has a veggie restaurant. Unfortunately it does seem to be overly touristed right now with the early 20's gap year crowd - but it's no so bad that we can't find anywhere to stay.
When reading about Leon in the guidebook we were intrigued by the option of 'Volcano boarding' - which involves sledging down 650m of active volcano. We'd never slid down the side of any volcano before - active or not - so we figured it'd be worth a go at least once. Plus it was only $20 and they'd give us a protective suit!
It all started at 9am when the 13 (a worrying omen perhaps?) brave volcano boarders (us) were picked up from a local hostel by two pickup trucks and bussed to the foot of the menacingly black conical volcano. We were issued with orange jumpsuits and a piece of wood with intriguing additional fixtures and some sort of plastic square stuck on the bottom. We were never asked to sign any waver or asked if we had taken out any insurance. I could see that this was certainly going to be interesting... We set out towards 'Mount Doom' with more than a little trepidation.
The hike up was pretty tame, but some of our companions were flagging badly - perhaps too many jars the night before? We had to stop and wait several times for them to catch up. By the time we reached the top the view was incredible! On one side we had a view all the way back to Leon with the Pacific Ocean just beyond and on the other we could see the swathe of black sand deposited by the volcano when it had last erupted in 1999. Once the rest of our group had finally made the summit, we skirted around the crater to get a better look. It was certainly awe inspiring to walk along the rim of the crater as the steam rose from the ground and the smell of sulphur hung in the air.
Finally it was time for us to fling ourselves off the side of the volcano. We heard that the record descent was 22 seconds who reached somewhere in the region of 65kph on the way down. The slowest decent was an astonishing 12 minutes! We received a rudimentary instruction session before 'Right - who wants to go first?'. The 3 boys were lined up to go last so we sent the girls on their way first. As each pair made their way down the hill our guide offered instructional commentary such as: 'Look she's leaning the wrong way', 'Well, that's what not to do', 'She shouldn't have done that' etc... Tracy managed to get down the hill without too many problems, just coming off the once which seemed to be better than average.
When it came to the last 3 boys our guide decided that we should forget all the safety tips she'd given the girls like we should sit up straight and occasionally brake. Basically the instruction was lie back and steer by lifting one foot or the other into the air. Of course this all went straight out the window as soon as I'd left the top of the hill. Within 10 seconds any hope of staying on the board was dashed and we parted company in a rather ignominious fashion. Luckily I managed to stop it from continuing down without me and got back on. Once back on board (no pun intended) I actually managed to pick up some speed and realised what I was doing was incredibly dangerous. The surface is actually ball-bearing sized rocks rather than sand and as I went faster they were increasingly flying up into my face - rather like being sand-blasted. Thank dog for the protective glasses we'd been issued with. The bottom of the slope was approaching rather rapidly and I noticed that there was a rather abrupt gradient adjustment at the bottom. Faced with the 'devil & deep blue sea' options of staying on and hitting the bottom at some speed or coming off the board and potentially removing large areas of my own skin I chose the former and apart from a rather spine jarring jolt I escaped unscathed.
Before and after: a daring vulcanaught!
We were all united in our excitement at what we'd just been through - although we were all lightly coated in fine black powder as if we'd just spent a half hour as down a coal mine. Two showers later and that stuff is still coming out of my hair... Anyway, a good time was had by all and upon returning alive we were all handed an ice-cold mojito to drink.
So we're still hoping to have a look at the cathedral (the largest in central America I hear) and a civil war memorial/museum run by the mothers of the fallen soldiers before we leave for Matagalpa (I think - we're still undecided...).
Leon is a nice place though. It seems disorganised enough to be interesting, but developed enough to have some useful services - it even has a veggie restaurant. Unfortunately it does seem to be overly touristed right now with the early 20's gap year crowd - but it's no so bad that we can't find anywhere to stay.
When reading about Leon in the guidebook we were intrigued by the option of 'Volcano boarding' - which involves sledging down 650m of active volcano. We'd never slid down the side of any volcano before - active or not - so we figured it'd be worth a go at least once. Plus it was only $20 and they'd give us a protective suit!
It all started at 9am when the 13 (a worrying omen perhaps?) brave volcano boarders (us) were picked up from a local hostel by two pickup trucks and bussed to the foot of the menacingly black conical volcano. We were issued with orange jumpsuits and a piece of wood with intriguing additional fixtures and some sort of plastic square stuck on the bottom. We were never asked to sign any waver or asked if we had taken out any insurance. I could see that this was certainly going to be interesting... We set out towards 'Mount Doom' with more than a little trepidation.
The hike up was pretty tame, but some of our companions were flagging badly - perhaps too many jars the night before? We had to stop and wait several times for them to catch up. By the time we reached the top the view was incredible! On one side we had a view all the way back to Leon with the Pacific Ocean just beyond and on the other we could see the swathe of black sand deposited by the volcano when it had last erupted in 1999. Once the rest of our group had finally made the summit, we skirted around the crater to get a better look. It was certainly awe inspiring to walk along the rim of the crater as the steam rose from the ground and the smell of sulphur hung in the air.
Finally it was time for us to fling ourselves off the side of the volcano. We heard that the record descent was 22 seconds who reached somewhere in the region of 65kph on the way down. The slowest decent was an astonishing 12 minutes! We received a rudimentary instruction session before 'Right - who wants to go first?'. The 3 boys were lined up to go last so we sent the girls on their way first. As each pair made their way down the hill our guide offered instructional commentary such as: 'Look she's leaning the wrong way', 'Well, that's what not to do', 'She shouldn't have done that' etc... Tracy managed to get down the hill without too many problems, just coming off the once which seemed to be better than average.
When it came to the last 3 boys our guide decided that we should forget all the safety tips she'd given the girls like we should sit up straight and occasionally brake. Basically the instruction was lie back and steer by lifting one foot or the other into the air. Of course this all went straight out the window as soon as I'd left the top of the hill. Within 10 seconds any hope of staying on the board was dashed and we parted company in a rather ignominious fashion. Luckily I managed to stop it from continuing down without me and got back on. Once back on board (no pun intended) I actually managed to pick up some speed and realised what I was doing was incredibly dangerous. The surface is actually ball-bearing sized rocks rather than sand and as I went faster they were increasingly flying up into my face - rather like being sand-blasted. Thank dog for the protective glasses we'd been issued with. The bottom of the slope was approaching rather rapidly and I noticed that there was a rather abrupt gradient adjustment at the bottom. Faced with the 'devil & deep blue sea' options of staying on and hitting the bottom at some speed or coming off the board and potentially removing large areas of my own skin I chose the former and apart from a rather spine jarring jolt I escaped unscathed.
Before and after: a daring vulcanaught!
We were all united in our excitement at what we'd just been through - although we were all lightly coated in fine black powder as if we'd just spent a half hour as down a coal mine. Two showers later and that stuff is still coming out of my hair... Anyway, a good time was had by all and upon returning alive we were all handed an ice-cold mojito to drink.
So we're still hoping to have a look at the cathedral (the largest in central America I hear) and a civil war memorial/museum run by the mothers of the fallen soldiers before we leave for Matagalpa (I think - we're still undecided...).
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7:21 am
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