The Weekend of July 6-9 in Leon

Saturday

On Saturday, all of us (Greg, Chris and Tracy, Chris, and I) travelled to the city of Leon for the weekend to have some fun. We arrived around 2:30pm and immediately grabbed some lunch near the market where we got off the bus. I had some fried shrimp and was very satisfied. Then, we walked quite a distance to the hostel where we wanted to stay, which was located near the Central Park.

Our hostel was only $8 per night for a dorm bed. It came with bedding and access to nice bathrooms, a pool, pool tables, wifi, and some other amenities. It was pretty quiet and laid back, which I really liked. After we arrived, everyone but Greg decided to go check out the main cathedral in the central park. It is where Ruben Dario (a really famous poet in Nicaragua) has his tomb. It took over 65 years to build and is nearly 200 years old. It has World Heritage Site status.

Then we toured a museum dedicated to the revolution in Nicaragua. Our tour guide had actually fought in the war and gave a great quote: “War is good because you are liberating your country but war is bad because you are killing your countrymen.” He gave a really great history of the revolution from the early 1900’s until about 1980. We were also able to go onto the roof of the museum, which used to be a courthouse. It is relatively tall and was actually used for snipers during the revolution.

View from sniper roof.

Inside the museum

After the tour, we met back up with Greg and had a great dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant across the street from our hostel. It served some great pizza, appetizers, and drinks.

Sunday

On Sunday, we all got up relatively early, so we could go volcano boarding. We walked to a nearby hostel that runs tours and signed up for the 9am session. At 9am, we were all in the back of a truck with people the UK, Israel, Germany, and the US heading to the volcano called Cerro Negro. It was about an hour away.

Cerro Negro (the front face)

The climb up was pretty short because the volcano itself is only slightly more than 700m. It is the most active volcano in Central America and the youngest in the world. In fact, it is getting quite hot and is due for an eruption soon. It currently has spots where sulfur is emitted in the cone. Due to the wind direction and the way the volcano erupts, the front part of the cone has only “black powder”. All of the large rocks are forced to the backside by wind while the lava comes out of cracks in the base.

At the base

Sulfur in the cone.

Once we reached the top, everyone put on a bright orange jumpsuit and some goggles. After a quick lesson on how to steer and brake our plywood sleds, we were ready to go. Our guide insisted that the females go down first. The Israeli girls refused to entertain the idea of going first, so that left Tracy and I.

She was pushed off first and I followed about 30 seconds later. I thought things were going really well until the board started to go sideways, and I realized I was going to crash. It started to roll. I got the breath knocked out of me and ended up having to climb quite a ways back up the volcano to retrieve my board. It was like snow. My feet sunk in and it would just give way. It was really hard work. I remounted the board and took off again. Just before I hit the 45 degree drop off, the board slid sideways again and I rolled. However, this time I held onto the board, so I wouldn’t have to retrieve it. I hit my head, but it wasn’t that bad. I remounted and was able to finish at 32kph, which is about 20mph. It’s really not that great, but I feel content considering I am confident I wiped out the first time at a much higher speed than this. Greg hit 57kph, which is 35 mph after taking a nasty fall also.

After I finished with my board

Greg coming down

Greg after the fact.

After everyone finished, we took the truck back to the hostel where we started. As a part of our tour fee, we were given two mojitos as a job well done. Then we went back to our own hostel to shower since we were covered in volcanic ash and rock. Then, we went out and checked out a little of the night life and grabbed dinner before calling it a night.

Monday

We got up pretty early to catch a 7:15 microbus to Managua on Monday morning. The intention was to meet Alvaro for a meeting, and then take Chris and Tracy to the airport. However, it did not work out this way. Instead, we spent about two hours in the airport waiting. By the time Alvaro arrived, we could not take them to the meeting with us and instead just said our goodbyes.

We then figured out that the meeting was cancelled and started to make our way out of Managua. This was easier said than done because there was a huge demonstration of some sort that had stopped traffic completely on the Pan American Highway. While we were trying to get through, I even saw a guy with a small mortar gun wearing a bandana over his face. It was kind of scary. Luckily we had 4 wheel drive and could just drive off the road and go around.

We ran a few errands in Dario and Sebaco, which took most of the day, so we didn’t get back to the office until around 5. It was too late to go back to my host family’s home at that point, so I just stayed in the office. Plus, my foot was swollen and bruised from volcano boarding and I had popped a huge blister, so I needed to take the time to really clean it up well.