León
NICARAGUA
Volcano Climbing the Nica Way
By LYNDI
Thursday, July 10, 2008
Aaron and I arrived into Leon to find the real Nicaragua. All the lovely, cool weather in Miraflor and Esteli was just a fluke. Nicaragua is, in fact, amazingly hot and humid. After walking from the bus terminal into town, we put down our heavy bags at the first hostel we could find – Bigfoot Hostel. The hostel was kind of a shock to our system after being out of the tourist circuit in Miraflor and El Salvador previously – we were surrounded by young backpackers, big western breakfasts, and happy hours. Excellent.
The thing about Nicaragua is that quite recently, it has become a mecca for backpackers. The country is so cheap that nearly all gringos in Central America beeline for Nicaraguan cities like San Juan del Sur, Grenada, and of course, Leon. The good thing is that you meet lots of other travelers and have a lot of options of where to stay, eat, and travel. The bad thing is that it is almost overrun with the young, cheap, gringos. Much like ourselves.
We quickly came to find out that Via Via Hostel (directly across the street from our hostel) was a plethora of information for the average traveler. The first thing that caught my eye was their “Nica Chica” package. For $12 I could get a pedicure, facial, cocktail, and chocolate. Um…. yes please. Aaron wasn’t nearly as interested, so while I treated myself to a half hour of luxury, Aaron educated himself by visiting Leon’s really nice art museum with collections from the 1500s through today. Now let me just say that I have had two pedicures in my entire life, and then only through a little bit of peer (or sisterly) pressure. But my feet were in such dire need of proper attention, it didn’t seem like much of an option. I kid you not, after the many volcano hikes, barefoot walking, and basic savagery my feet have recently undertaken, they were in no shape for anyone to be viewing – much less pedicuring. When the little Nicaraguan lady was ready for me, before she pulled my feet out of the soaking tub, I told her in my best Spanish “I’m really sorry about my feet. They need a lot of help”. She took one look at them and said “Si.” Well, that was awkward. But at any rate, she whipped them right into shape and even painted a pretty design on them. Which, by the way, I promptly ruined them that night by tripping over numerous objects after a few too many Flor de Caña rum drinks. Or shots. Whatever.
Via Via Hostel may be the best resource in town for the simple fact that they employ Harry. Harry is a Dutch guy that has been living in the area for 5 years and knows just about everything about everything. So Aaron and I went to talk to him about transportation to other parts of the country, but found out about the local “Galleras”. A gallera is a somewhat nice way of saying “cockfight”. I know in many parts of the world, cockfights have a terrible reputation as a cruel method to get animals to fight and sometimes kill each other. But in Nicaragua and many other parts of the world, it is a cultural and local past time. And no, they don’t put knives on the roosters feet or anything. Harry couldn’t promise that no animals would be hurt at the gallera, but he did say he puts together small tours where there is bottomless drinks and snacks to go along with some friendly local betting, so before we knew it, we were on our way.
We arrived at the gallera early, around 3pm, so that Harry could introduce us to the rules and regulations of cockfighting. It’s actually quite similar to boxing, with the roosters warming up in little boxing gloves and everything. But, since these are fighting cocks, they trim all the feathers they can, and even trim their back nail that naturally grows really long and lethal. Then when they get in the ring together (after endless negotiations by the roosters owners to see what the prize money will be), the roosters naturally get pretty upset with each other and go at it. The fight ends after three rounds, or if the rooster puts his beak on the ground – which is nature’s way of saying “I give up”. We actually had a great time talking to the locals, placing a few bets, and trying their local concoction of cheap beer mixed with cheap rum. Yeah, it doesn’t sound that good and doesn’t really taste that good (shocker). But after some tasty tacos, sketchy drinks, and winning 10 cordobas, we called it a night.
But the next day was what Aaron and I have decided was the best day yet in Central America. It started with us waking up around 8 so we could be ready to go volcano boarding at 9am. Volcano boarding is exactly what it sounds like – you hike up a volcano, put on some safety goggles, and go balls out down the backside of the mountain on a sled. We took a truck up to the base of Cerro Negro which is an active volcano just outside of Leon. Cerro Negro is actually a very new volcano, having only popped up in 1850, and then regularly exploding every 7 years or so until it formed a nice, easy to hike up mountain. It’s a bit unusual though, due to the regular explosions, because nothing has had a chance to grow on it. Therefore, the entire volcano is black volcanic rock and ash – also known as the perfect slide.
At the base of the volcano, we gathered our safety suits (which looked remarkably like inmates’ suits) and volcano sleds and then began the hour and a half hike up. The views at the top were stunning since you could clearly see where the green valleys near Leon meet the deep, black rocks of Cerro Negro. After admiring the view for awhile, it was go time. Our guide gave us a brief description of what to do (a.k.a. “don’t fall off because the volcanic rock will really hurt”) along with a few tips for steering (which I found to be completely ineffective while hurtling down the mountain at 35mph). When she asked for volunteers to go first, I broke the incredibly awkward, 2 minute silence by raising my hand. Before I knew it, I was seated on my sled and given a gentle push to start me propelling down the mountain. Everything happened so fast, but I do distinctly remember thinking “Holy crap… I have zero control over this sled” and then “wow, I really can’t see anything with all the ash and rocks flying in my face” and then “Ow! I totally just wiped out and need to find my sled before it goes down the mountain without me” and finally “That. Was. Totally. Awesome.”
Since I was the first down, I also got to watch everybody else come down the mountain. Nearly everyone wiped out once or twice but had an enormous grin on their face at the bottom. Everyone was extremely dirty and grimy after their trip down, but somehow, Aaron and I were the worst. I can’t really explain it, but while most looked like they’d hiked a dusty volcano, we looked like we’d been mining coal for the past week. The tour ended with a very refreshing mojito back in Leon (where, no joke, people pointed and laughed at our faces upon arrival).
Aaron, Kristy, and I had moved to nearby Hotel Colibri where we could get a room with three beds and a full kitchen for $5/night. Since we had access to a nice kitchen, we decided to cook ourselves up a feast. A lot of our meals have consisted of a) Corn flakes and milk or b) peanut butter, jelly, and bread. So Aaron and Kristy headed to the grocery store and picked up enough food to feed a small army. And between the three of us, we were able to polish off tuna cakes, garlic bread, fresh salad, and fresh from the oven oatmeal, chocolate-chip cookies. Using the oven was a bit of an adventure in itself. Not fully understanding how to use it, I turned on the temperature to 180 degrees celsius (I don’t know – is that what you bake cookies at? I couldn’t do the minus 3.2 times 1.8 or whatever the actual conversion to fahrenheit would have been).
At any rate, after heating the oven for about 5 minutes, I opened the oven door to see how the heat was coming – almost as if my bare hand could cleanly and accurately determine the correct cooking temperature. However, there was no heat at all. Kristy pointed out that we had to light the oven – one of those old fashioned kinds. So we closed the door, pressed the lighter…. and blew up the oven. Not kidding. It was the most intense heat against my face, and actually burned off some of Kristy’s body hair. Apparenty, we’d had the gas running for five minutes, so when we lit it – it was a nice, homemade bomb. But, lesson learned, heart attack averted, and cookies eventually baked.
We had to eat a bit of an early dinner because that night we had a very important trivia date. Hostel Via Via hosts a trivia night every Sunday, so Kristy, Aaron, two girls we met in Miraflor, a random Canadian and I teamed up. Teamed up to dominate all of the others, that is. It was close for awhile, but between Aaron knowing that the first Nobel prize was won for the invention of dynamite and me knowing that the English Channel was first swam across in 1926 – we won ourselves a bottle of rum. We ended up donating most of the bottle to the Canadian, however. But the victory was sweet enough.
So, seeing as how it would be impossible to top a day of volcano boarding, cooking with friends, and winning trivia nights, we decided to head out the next morning.
