One Day and Two Volcanoes

What a brilliant day ! This place has one of the most fascinating and beautiful andscapes that I have seen so far on my travels in central america. A national park with around two volcanoes and five craters and amazing bella vistas or good views of the surrounding area including laguna de apoyo, lake nicaragua and the surrounding pueblos. This is totally different to the volcanoes I have visited in Guatemala because this was actually an opportunity to look inside an active crater with billowing smoke and steam. Along with my trips to south africa and cuba this place has truly everything. I met some local nicaraguan children on my ascent up to the volcanoe and while walking around the local hills of park nacional massaya who were out on a trip with their parents for the day and I asked them to say cheese or ´queso´en espanol to smile for the camera while a took a sanp of them in the mirador. After that moment, every time we came into contact on my walking tour for two or three hours around the volacanoe trails they went around shouting ´hola queso´.

Now for a bit of historic bluff about the pictures I managed to take of the volcanoe and the history surrounding them............

´the cross overlooking the crater santiago was placed there in the sixteenth century by the spanish who believed the crater was some sort of pathway to El Infierno or hell and the cross was designed as a means of repelling the demons or demonios from the deep crater. You can see from the fotos that the volcanoe is still smoking and steaming and it was hot just to get within 2 metres of the edge of the rock. Legend also has it that pre hispanic tribes would often throw young women, probably virgins, into the boiling lava and steaming hot crater to appease CHACIUTIQUE, the goddess of fire and apparently evidence has actuactually been discovered of skeletons of human remains close to the crater.

The morning involved a trip to Volcan Mombacho which menacingly overlooks the colonial city of Granada but this volcanoe was a little bit dissapointing and mostly involved a trail through jungle forest and a few nice views of the city of granada.

Volcan Mombacho.....this volcanic park stands at 1344m over the city of Granada which you can see in the distance along with lake Nicaragua which is the biggest inland lake in the whole of central america. There is a lot of coffee cultivation on the lower slopes of the volcanoe because the soil is very condusive to growing the coffee beans we are told but the last eruption of Volcan Mombacho occurred back in 1570 although at times it is possible to see smoke rings from the city below which is a timely reminder for everyone here that the volcanoe is only sleeping !

I share an old army truck in the morning full of tourists on the ascent up Volcan Mombacho reluctantly because I wanted to walk the 5km trail but because I have set myself a target of seeing both of the Volcanoes in this area in one day which means I have around four hours to pass at both sites and an hour on the moped along pot holes strewn roads in between.

FUNNIEST MOMENT OF THE DAY...when a woman from Italy who is part of a group tour here dressed top to tail in D&G, Gucci, Prada and carrying a yorkshire terrier in her Louis Vuitton handbag totters around the volcanoe trail in a pair of high heeled stilletos which I find Hilarious.

Managed to get back to my base in Granada for around 6pm so it really was a fun packed sight seeing day which broke the norm from the few boozy nights in granada at the same bar and nitespot with the english boozers from huddersfield.

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