Since the weather has been cool and rainy with skies full of pewter coloured clouds most of the day,
I thought I would take you on a visit to somewhere hot and steamy...
don't get ahead of me...it's all legal and age appropriate!
Lets go!
A 20 minute drive from Granada lies the market town of Masaya.
Another 10 minutes through this beautiful landscape...
...iguanas and all...
...and we are in the Masaya Volcano National Park.
Nicaragua is a land full of lakes and volcanoes, some of those lakes being
ancient craters, now full of the most lovely water for swimming.
The road travels through olive coloured cloaked hills, laced with the black fabric of dried lava...
You are reminded of what a fragile environment you stand in...
In fact at the time I'm writing this the park is closed due to recent volcanic activity
and has been since the middle of February.
I can't begin to describe the feeling of standing at the edge of a bottomless
pit of rumbling fire, rocks, ash and one thousand degree molten lava...
The Spanish who came here in the 16th century baptized the volcano
"La Boca del Inferno"
or
"The Mouth of Hell"
They planted a cross on the lip of the crater to exercise the devil.
The power of the vapours is felt immediately in your lungs ...
...visitors sputter and cough as they take in the true nature of this beast...
In fact if you have any issues with your respiratory system, it's recommended that
you do not make this trip.
But like so many powerful, destructive forces of nature, it is beautiful...
...both rough and peaceful.
You see those small black specs in the mist?
Those are turkey vultures floating on the warm thermal currents.
How they can spend so much time there without it affecting them is a miracle.
In fact there's a species of parakeets who make their home on the inside of the crater,
living unaffected by the toxic gases.
It is a hot, hostile, volatile world...
Precious and spectacular...
...part of the fabric of the millenia of time that shapes this place...
...in the present as much as it has in the past and will do well into the future.
In the distance another volcano mirrors this one, just as capable of changing it's face...
...and the face of the land...
Just in case...there's always a reminder...
By the way, if you are in Granda, Nicaragua, you should hook up with Pablo Lorenzen S.
who is the manager of WTN Travel Day Tours.
He was super friendly and accommodating to us and we feel lucky to have got to know him.
Here is his website WTN Travel Day Tours
