We climbed Volcan Cerro Negro

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Ahhh, here i am writing this from my hammock in the tranquilo atmosphere of the hostel gardens. Taking a break from Nicaraguas HOT HOT HOT sun shine! It hasnt been this Hot for a while, its the kind of heat that makes you constantly thirsty, a wee bit lathargic and not very hungry, which is rare! (but will do me no harm)

So, we had a bit of a lazy, slow, day yesterday, still managing to fully wander this town called Leon though, but were both suffering from a lack of sleep and energy both of which were brought on by a rare proper night out, full of drinking local beer, not eating all day! eek, and much dancing in a tiny little cheesy club with our new found friends we had met along the way in Santa Ana and also a Finnish guy who joined our merry group that night. Fun times

We decided to stay another day and climb Cerro Negro, its one of the many Volcanos round here and the one which you can surf down yey! Ive never done sand or volcano surfing before, Age has in Namibia and loved it so we thought we´d give it a go, fingers crossed I wasn´t going to topple over and land head 1st into the rocky lava!

The scenery of the volcano and surrounding it were so incredible, I could have stayed for hours taking millions of photos. It was all black lava rock, with white and yellow streaks and patches where the sulphur had bubbled and risen out, then parts of it were tinged in a deep earthy red colour, maybe from the heat, amazing!
After about an hour and a half treck with our little crew of just 5 including our guide David, which made it even more fab as there was only us on this huge huge volcano, we reached the top and perched on the edge, just to sit back forg a moment and take it all in. From here, looking north you could see 3 other volcanos all in a straight line, Cerro Verde, the one we were on is part of 6 that are all in a row, some active and some not. The ones that aren´t are covered in the lushest green vegetation which almost seems to glow in contrast next to the black black hard edgy lava rock.


Time to head down the slipery slope eek! Off came our back packs and everything was revealed from inside them, a snazzy protective suit made from denim on the bottom half and a yellow nylon material to cover my top, it was quite snug, knee & elbow and wrist protector pads, goggles like we wore in science class and thick plastic gloves, I was ready to take on anything dressed like something out of a 70´s game show!
It was a 40% incline and I was a bit nervous, im quite a scardy cat I think, anyway Bill, one of the guys with us was the 1st to go down and he is 69! he did it really slowly though and then I was watching and hoping hoping that my ride would be much faster, but also that I wouldnt fall off, because as you know, if there is the slightest possibility of me getting either muddy or dirty from falling off or in something or tripping over and losing my balance then it WILL happen, here´s hoping that I have grown out of this unfortunate trait and I will desend safely but swiftly too.
I was the last to go, Age was flying down, looked to be in control, David was standing half way down, poised, ready with my camera for my action shot, here goes nothing!
I climb onto my board, lift my legs up and start the slide, and I go all of about 2ft and the lava ash & pebbles has been pushed up onto my board and ive ploughed through it and come to a complete stand still - bugger! Up I get, tip the board up and the ash off and try try again, this time I start to pick up speed and so lift my feet up which makes you go faster and im away, horrah!! down the side of the volcano. kind of in control, constantly lifting my feet up and down off the lava to try and control my speed but trying to have the courage to go faster and faster, untill Im riding one handed rodeo stylie, peering through my goggles, eating dirt and loving it!
There were a couple of shaly moments where a coupole of shaky moments where I could nearly have been tossed over into the gravel but I managed to swerve this and keep on the straight and narrow! amazing, lets do it again!

Stayed yet another day and relaxed at the beach, ate good fresh fish and snacked on amazing street made tacos, filled with chicken with a kind of cabbage coleslaw on the side. Eventually used the chickpeas we had been carrying in our bag for the last month and made, fo rthe 1st time ever, humus, it was a bit varried and make shift as we couldnt find tahini and lemons dont exist out here, so used olive oil and bought what we thought were limes, but were actually a cross between limes and sour sour SOUR oranges, but do you know what, it tasted pretty damn tasty.

This morning were heading either to a lake on a volcano a bit further south or an old colonial city called Granada.

Adios Amigos xxxxxxx