My second stop in Nicaragua I made in Leon in the north of the country. It is the intellectual and political centre of the country. The symbol of the city is a lion (Spanish: Leon).
Too much garbage everywhere
On the day of my arrival I visited a light show in the evening. Pretty nice. The next morning I woke up by loud firecracker blasts and saw the people with a coffin walking towards the church. Apparently this is the Nicaraguan way to say goodbye to the dead. Afterwards I walked a little bit through the city and was not very impressed. The most beautiful buildings were mostly the churches, otherwise there was a lot of garbage everywhere.
Boarding on an active volcano
For the next day I booked an excursion to the nearby Cerro Negro. This is one of the youngest and most active volcanoes in Nicaragua and one of the few places in the world where you can do Volcano boarding. A small transporter took us there on a bumpy road. Now we had to carry our board and walk up to the top of the volcano. It was not easy with a board on our backs and with the strong wind there, because the volcano is relatively unprotected. All around there is a flat plateau, which appears extremely green saturated by the nutritious volcanic earth.
A friend of mine had tried Volcano Boarding before and got serious abrasions. She went down the volcano almost without braking and then lost control of the board. She wasn't the first to experience this. Also on this day we saw a British man roll over several times and he certainly didn't look good in the end.
When it was my turn to back-board the volcano slope, I chopped my heels into the volcano as best I could so as not to pick up too much speed and lose control. Volcano Boarding is a bit like sledding, with the difference that volcanic ash absorbs a fall much worse than snow. So I went down the volcano relatively unspectacularly. Nevertheless, Volcano Boarding was a successful day out. Not because of the boarding itself, but because of the spectacular landscape that one could admire during the hike and boarding. Also the warmth of the volcano could be literally felt by putting one's hand on the ground.
In the early morning I finally drove to Granada. Fortunately I met a group of Spaniards/Salvadorians in my hostel in Leon who had a car and could take me there because they had the same destination.
