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Published: December 23rd 2006
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Leon was another colonial gem but one which boasted nearby volcanoes and beaches, though getting to the beach was a nightmare as we were squeezed onto a busload of nonchalant, moody looking youts. Funnily enough small groups of the same youts were paying us a little too much attention on the beach so we decided going for a swim and leaving our stuff would leave us with no stuff. To confirm our suspicions there was even guy with his family just by us signalling under the quiet that our new 'friends' were light fingered and fleet of foot.
In Leon town itself the nightlife was jumping mainly because of the student population. There were plenty of bars and restaurants of all sorts. It still being La Purissima time meant there were parades and street parties with men with wooden frames loaded with fireworks strafing the crowd as they ran around celebrating.
Cerro Negro is not a classic big cone volcano but it is special as it's the only black volcano in a range of other green, red, brown ones. The best thing about scaling it apart from the fact you're standing on a young, active, gateway to interior
Art work
From Casa de la Cultura of the earth and the views is after walking around and up it is you can run, slide or skate your way back down the coarse sand-like side. It feels like you'd imagine a cross between quicksand and rough ball bearings would but with a steep decline. We would have done it again and again if the last bus to anywhere wasn't leaving.
Not having had enough of staring awestruck at mad geology, we hiked and camped on another active volcano called Telica. During daylight hours you can glimpse spots of lava 50 metres down as you peer over the edge of the crater but at night it was unreal.
Getting from the spot we'd camped on which was on the flat grassy part of what used to be the crater up the new active one took 15 or so minutes of stumbling uphill, over the loose volcanic rocks that were strewn around. The first time we went up Pontus, our guide let us know where to walk (to the left of that rock up there) otherwise we'd walk straight over the edge. Easy enough in the day but torchlight didn't light up the same reference points or
Gigantones
From Casa de la Cultura help very much with not tripping over the loose rocks. In fact the 'safety' rock appeared on our right out of the darkness just in time to not trip and spoil a good day.
Teetering on the edge of the crater in the dark, simultaneously alarmed and exhilarated, we could see the actual bubbling, hissing orange, redness and spattering explosions and inhale the smoke and acrid sulphur. It made us glad to be alive and to not have fallen in (or been a pretty virgin girl back in the day when they used to chuck the little princesses in). In-f-ing-credible. Hot fear mixed with hell-yeah! After blowing our minds from being stood a few metres above a real, live active volcano, we slept in tents on the plain just below it, soothed by its hissing and belching. That's what I'm talking about. And Nathalie....she loved it too. Maybe not exactly the same way but who'd have thought we'd spend a night under the stars, in a grassy volcanic crater, next to a fiery volcanic crater surrounded by cows, next to a tree that rains. A planning error meant the camera ran out of batteries but our guide is going
Sandino
Memorial for the revolution to send us some so we can add more here.
We hung out with some randoms, then the volunteer from Quetzal Trekkers who we'd hiked with and some Yanks, some toffs, swedes and dutchies and drank beaucoup de rum.
Oh and there were kids wandering around with drums, dressed as giant Spanish women called gigantones and dwarf indigenous guys for some kind of contest that no could explain fully.
FRANÇAIS
Leon, une autre ville coloniale...
Ascension de deux volcans... On fait la collection.
Cerro Negro d'abord... Vraiment super. On se croirait sur la lune... (Il paraît que c'est comme ça!) Pour monter, ça prend un peu plus de 2 heures. Pour descendre, 2 minutes! Vraiment rigolo (Voir l'entrée suivante pour les photos).
Puis
Telica, le plus impressionant de tous. On est allé jusqu'au bord du cratère en pleine nuit. C'est l'enfer au fond du trou: des explosions avec des rochers qui volent, de la lave qui gicle et de la fumée qui s'envole!... Par contre, panne d'appareil photo. Dommage...
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