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the crazy gross fruit marketI've listened to your feedback (well, Gramps'😉 and I'm going to try and enhance the descriptive nature of my blogs, encorpating more of the scenary and locals, instead of just enlighting you on the food we've been eating!
So, to begin with, we allowed ourselves a little sleep-in given we were pretty knackered after a couple of long days travelling. We took a short walk to the aptly named Volcano Cafe for breakfast which did really nice fruit smoothies and porridge. We spent the morning wandering around the streets of Leon. It's not the most picturesque of towns that we've visited, and it tried to mimic other Central American cities with the different coloured buildings however most were quite run down. The roads were not cobble stones either therefore there was quite a lot of traffic around, making you look both ways a couple of times before trying to cross. In the centre of the town is this big ugly, quite dilipated cathedral. This cathedral is apparently the largest in Central America however I think the Pope needs to donate a few tins of paint as the building was in desperate need of some restoration. We wandered through the old
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cathedral church and sat in the pews to get out of the heat. We were quickly told off by one of the church officials to get our feet off the 'foot rest'. Apparently it was only meant for kneeling whilst praying...oops!
We found Leon's local market and decided to take a wander through and see if we wanted to sample any of the local produce. Well, the market was bustling alright in the hot and stuffy tin shed. We wandered through and the local ladies had their own little stores setup selling fruit and vegies, or had cooked up rice and meat concoctions to serve up for lunch. It didn't look that appetising and considered it was just sitting luke-warm in a saucepan, who knows what I might catch from it. We decided that we'd seen enough of the market and walked down one of the alleys towards daylight. Unfortunately we picked the 'butchers' section and there was all sorts of meat and fish just hanging up (bearing in mind its about 40 degrees in here!) with flies and other insects buzzing around. The smell was disgusting and quickly decided we wouldn't cook up our own dinner tonight.
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streets of leon kept going on a self-guided city tour, walking past all these murals painted on the sides of buildings. Each one depicted a scene from the civil war that devistated that country for the best part of 20 years. I don't know too much of the detail but apparently a revolution that was started by a group of university students finally succeeded and booted out the dictator named Samosa in the 1970's. The prolonged civil war is the main reason why Nicaragua is one of the poorest of the Central American countries.
Leon's streets are just lined with 'designer label' clothing shops. We took a look in a few of them and even found Roxy dresses similar to the one Rach had stolen in Egypt. Unfortunately the sizing was completely out and we couldn't find the perfect one. Whilst they have plenty of clothing shops, they lack decent cafes/restaurants for dinner. There was only really street/market food available so we settled on buying 2 min noodles and some wholemeal pitas with ham and cheese from the supermarket! We needed to pack a picnic dinner for our volcano trek this afternoon anyway.
We were picked up from our hotel at
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war murals 2pm for our trek up Telica Volcano. We all crammed in the back of this jeep (there was 11 of us not including the driver and guide!) and took off. We were advised that the four-wheel drive to the foot of the volcano was part of the adventure and it was good advice!! Our our little jeep made it I have no idea but after 15mins of driving out of Leon, we left the nice smooth highway and turned off onto a dusty track. For the next 2 hours we bumped and rattled along, venturing along what I can only liken to an old goat track. Lucky we were in a 4WD as some of the inclines would have been difficult to hike up! We stopped along the way to see some native bird life, including Nigaragua's national bird (who's name escapes me!) which has this crazily long tail. We also stopped to eat some local bush tucker off a tree (again, have no idea what it was) but it was about the size of an apricot and stated like a sour apple!
We stopped at a nice view of the volcano we were about to attempt to climb.
Rach took up the offer to climb on the roof of the jeep to get an even better photo. The Telica Volcano stands at about 1,100m, and we'd get to about 600m in the jeep and have to hike the rest of the way up!
We took the jeep as far as we could before being instructed to jump and continue on foot. The start of the walk was pretty easy going and the guide let us stop to rest quite a few times. As we begun our hike, the Russian girl in our tour group asked Rach if she was a runner (must've been how she was just powering up the hill), Rach found this highly amusing and responded with “not likely”.
Before we took on the steeper sections, we collected a walking stick each to make the ascent (and descent) a little easier. Our guide told us about the volcano on the way up, including that it last erupted in 2011! This was only a little eruption however and the last big one was back in 1949. As we ventured higher and higher, the landscape changed and we were soon walking amongst boulders and gravel. You
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the national bird had to watch your step quite closely as it was quite easy to slip on the uneven terrain (as both Rach and I found out on separate occassions, Rach is still going on about her tumble and the devasting injury to her left hand...a little graze). There was no real set path and our guide approached the volcano's crator taking into consideration the wind direction. As we were getting closer and closer to the top, the gas from the crator got quite strong and we had to put scarves & hankies over our mouths to prevent inhaling the fumes. It was quite choking really and we coughed and spluttered quite a bit trying to get up. Luckily as the sun was setting the wind changed direction and sent the fumes floating across the other side of the crator. It was a little cloudy and unfortunately we didn't get to see the sun setting behind San Christobel, which is the largest volcano in Nicaragua.
As we approached the crator, it was awesome to see the old lava trails that ran down the side from the summit of the crator. We took a route around the crator to the lowest part
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all piled into the van of its rim. The first thing that stuck me was how deep it was! Beyond the crator's rim was a sheer drop of about 200m! There was smoking colums too that lined the volcano's inner walls. However the most impressive thing was the LAVA! We were instructed by the guide to be careful approaching the edge, and the only way to really see down into the volcano was to slide along on our stomachs. I was glad we did as I was a little nervy being on the edge of a sheer drop down into lava rivers. We snaked our way on our stomachs to the edge and peered over. I couldn't believe there was so much lava, I was expecting a little trickle however the inner base of the volcano was covered in lava trails. It was an epic sight and our photos probably don't do it justice. The other thing was the sound coming up from the volcano. The lava sort of rumbled and I was in awe of this thing, it was like a sleeping giant and I could only hope that it didn't decide to wake up tonight!! We tried to capture the volcano we best
we could however the light was quickly fading on us and soon enough it was pitch black except for this red haze coming up from the volcano. We sat down on a rock and had our picnic for dinner (ham and cheese wraps). We kept seeing these tiny flashes of light and were told that these were fireflies. We got our torches and and readied ourselves for the treachurous hike back down.
The hike down was quite difficult, especially with only our little torches to provide the light. You had to be super careful with your footing not to trip over and roll down the volcano! We were glad when we could make out the outline of our waiting 4WD, returned our makeshift walking shifts and jumped aboard for the bumpy drive back.
We got home around 9.30, completely shattered after our hike and bumpy ride back and were glad to have a shower to clean away the dust, sweat and ash. Such an awesome experience and was so glad we did the hike. One of the best highlights of the trip so far!!
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Volcano pics
What great photos, we have never seen a real Volcano, enjoying your blogs, xxxxxxx