Nicaragua Trip: Day 5

Our fifth day in Nicaragua was a very eventful one, well, at least in the morning. One of the main attractions (and for good reason) in León is to take a trip out to Cerro Negro Volcano (Black Hill) and sled down it. They call it volcano boarding, but it's really just sledding-down a volcano mind you. Our guide said it's the most active volcano in Central America (I haven't confirmed that-but he was pretty legit), it's a young volcano, created in 1850, and has had 23 eruptions-one for about every 7 years of its existence. Its last eruption was in 1999. So the possibility of an eruption was quite present-adding to the adventure.  Before moving to Costa Rica, I had never experienced an earthquake, nor did I know much about them at all. Unlike Iowa, Costa Rica sits right on top of the intersection of the Cocos Plate and the Caribbean plate-and is full of volcanoes and potential for seismic activity. Nicaragua, we learned during our trip, is exactly the same-full of volcanoes and frequently victim to major earthquakes. What I've learned from two years in a country frequented by earthquakes is very simple-you can't predict them (well not within a better range than like 100 years) and the key to surviving an earthquake is constructing buildings to withstand earthquakes-because I received far too many conflicting messages about what to do/where to go during the earthquake. And with the two I felt-they were both almost over by the time I felt them. 

(our guide explaining some plate tectonics)

The trip up the volcano was awesome, it was the four of us and a young German girl doing her government service* abroad (at the hostel's community outreach program) and our guide-who worked for the hostel. *(This German service for young adults may be required, maybe not-she didn't explain it with the detail I would've liked.) He was super cool and did some of it in English, and when he didn't know, he'd just do it in Spanish and have one of us translate for the German girl. It was a gorgeous hike, great views of the surrounding area and two or three other volcanoes in the chain. As you'll see in the pictures, Cerro Negro really is a black hill, as ash and dried lava (I don't know the proper term) has covered most of the base rock of the volcano. We went to an area where the sulfur smell was super strong and the rocks were too hot to touch-you couldn't stand more than five or ten seconds or your feet would start to get super hot. 

(post volcano boarding)

He showed us how to use the sleds, use our feet to brake, and we put on coveralls and goggles. I volunteered to go first and take everyone's camera so I could get shots of them coming down. This was nice of me, except that I wanted to go super fast, and had trouble with the right foot turns you left and left foot turns you right concept. So, I flew down halfway, crashed. Went another quarter, crashed. Barely got going, crashed again. And, then, I think, finally, made it down-with rocks throughout my coveralls, in my mouth, and in my goggles. But-the cameras were all fine-and I got videos of Brian, Barton, and Andrew on their ways down. 

(where we sledded down)

Hard to believe, but the day got more exciting than climbing around and sledding down a volcano. On the drive back our guide, who's been looking at his phone, looks up to say there's been a huge earthquake in Costa Rica. And he was right-a 7.6 earthquake struck Costa Rica on September 5th-when we were climbing up an active volcano. We didn't feel a thing. This was a huge earthquake though, and the same seismic activity caused a volcano to erupt farther north in Nicaragua. So, upon returning to the hostel-we received word that there was a message for us. So, I called the number, and it was the Peace Corps office in Nicaragua making sure we were okay. This happened because when a Peace Corps Volunteer goes on vacation he has to fill out a detailed itinerary and get it approved by staff and turn it in. Peace Corps then alerts the posts at the countries the volunteer is traveling in (if posts exist in those countries). What made the day exciting were a few emails I got from a volunteer working in the office saying that she was supposed to call us to locate us after the earthquake (common Peace Corps procedure) and that at least Barton and I weren't registered in the system as being on vacation. Which was odd-as we had received the call from the Nicaragua post. We had both personally spoken with our boss and confirmed he signed and turned our vacation forms in-so I sent back an email saying that and didn't worry about it-as I was on vacation. 

We spent the rest of the afternoon (after trying to wash ourselves of ash and clean up our scrapes and burns) touring the Rubén Darío museum. León is famous for being a city that fostered a few poets, and Darío is its most famous. Along with a poet, he was a statesman, journalist, and public intellectual. The museum is housed in the home where he grew up and occasionally lived. It's a great museum and it was nice to read through some of his poetry. The section on his many lovers (with samples of poems he wrote for each one) was my favorite.