I've been wanting to take advantage of Florida's proximity to the Caribbean or Latin America for a while now. Florida is closer to these places than it is to Colorado and a simple hop compared to the journey to Idaho. But the last couple spring breaks we ended up going camping with Mark and the Yra to the everglades and the Florida keys for the first spring break and then to the 10,000 islands with Mark, Yra, and the Stringbean for the 2nd spring break. I can probably thank Conrad and Whitney for really taking my dreams of taking advantage of Florida and making it a reality. When I visited them over Christmas they told me they were planning a trip to Colombia, and they invited me along. Out of curiosity I looked a tickets to Cartagena and Bogota. Both at the time were $101 roundtrip from Orlando. Right then and there I almost pulled the trigger to visit them for a weekend in Cartagena, but just decided I needed to finish up some work on one of my collaborations, so I didn't do it. I tried to convince Mark to go to Colombia for springbreak since the Yra is from Colombia and all her family is there, but he wouldn't pull the trigger. So then it was up to Elisha and me to just go. By the time Elisha learned about her work schedule and okayed it to go, flights had gone up considerably, but they were still quite cheap. We had a few options. For $175 roundtrip we could either go to San Juan, Puerto Rico; San Jose, Costa Rica; San Salvador, El Salvador; or Managua, Nicaragua. I didn't have a ton of interest in Puerto Rico, and I've been to Costa Rica, so it was between San Salvador (from which you can easily access Guatemala, a place I've always wanted to go), and Managua. I made the decision to go Nicaragua for a couple of reasons. Getting to Guatemala would require transit and a border crossing from El Salvador, which might be a bit of a hassle on such a short trip. Bonnie, a grad school friend, had just gone to Guatemala over Christmas break, and I didn't want to copycat. One of the reasons I've always been interested in Guatemala b/c there is a famous volcano there where for the longest time it had a permanent lava flow, similar to Kilauea in Hawaii. Many travelers I met had talked about how cool it was and how you could get close enough to roast marshmallows over it. For some reason I love volcanoes a lot, which you may have noticed if you've followed my blog. One of my dreams has been to get close to lava (I got shut out at Kilauea when I visited b/c the lava flow at shifted towards a town and private property so they weren't letting people go near it like they do when it's in the NP.) and see a lava lake. I have a couple of websites I use to look at current volcanic activity and that Guatemalan volcano had been weakening and was actually no longer flowing lava. In fact, when Bonnie went, they still roasted marshmallows, but only it the hot vents, not in the lava. Guatemala did have one volcano actively erupting, but despite it's name, El Fuego, it was actually doing mostly ash eruptions and not lava eruptions. I saw that Nicaragua had 3 to 4 quite active volcanoes and in fact, one famous one that many people visit b/c it has a road to the top actually had 3 lava lakes at the time I booked the flight. So that's what helped seal the deal for Nicaragua.
2/21/16
We had a 9pm flight out of Orlando, so in the evening we drove from G-ville to Orlando and caught a short flight to Fort Lauderdale and then the next flight onto Managua. We arrived to Managua around 1:30 am, and I had arranged a shuttle to take us the 45ish minutes to Granada on the shores of monstrous Lake Nicaragua. In a good omen of things to come, as we drove past Volcan Masaya, we saw an orange glow above the crater indicating a lava lake.
2/22/16
We slept in a tiny bit and then enjoyed the nice courtyard of our hostel that was serving unlimited bananas and pancakes. After breakfast, we decided to explore around Granada on foot. It's a cute and quaint little Spanish colonial city full of churches and a main central park. They have horse-drawn taxis and a lot of the locals move their goods around on horse-drawn carts. At one point while we were in the central park eating icecream after a tasty lunch of pork and yucca, a tout approached us to try and sell one of his tours. The major tours in the area are a boat ride through the Isletas where you can see lots of birds and some monkeys and then hiking on volcan mombacho, which is extinct and has a cloud forest on top. For some reason we decided to listen to this guy, and I asked him what other tours he had b/c we weren't interested in those ones. He then said he had a night tour up Volcan Masaya going. Now this really caught my attention. Volcan Masaya was the volcano that normally you can drive to the top of and that currently had a couple of lava lakes. A bit of background: I had emailed several tour companies before coming, and they had all said it was closed. I had asked at a couple travel agencies, including our hostel, while in Granada, and they had all said it was closed. He informed us that the NP service was letting 1 tour group per day go up and it was his companies turn. This had me super excited, and we signed up pretty quickly.
We did some more walking around until we found a place that had 2 for 1 cocktails, making each drink just $1, so we stopped in for some icy and yummy Caipirinhas and mojitos. Just what the doctor ordered for all that heat. After cooling off a bit, we rented some bikes and biked out to the Asese Peninsula on Lake Nicaragua. From one viewpoint we could see one of the giant volcanoes (Volcan Concepcion) on Isla Omotepe. I had in my plans to climb that volcano, but in the end, we ran out of time on our trip and didn't even make it to Isla Omotepe. Next time! After the bike ride we climbed up a church steeple for nice views of Granada and then got ready for our night tour to Masaya volcano, which included swimming in the nice pool in our hostel courtyard.
Joining us on the night tour was a friendly Dutch guy. Masaya is only about 20 miles from Granada and it should have been a short drive. As we'd learned in a shuttle the night before, Nicaraguan's in cars drive very quickly and well above the speed limit. But we were going incredibly slow. Speed limit on the road was 80km/hr and we were often going less than 40km's/hr. The driver and the guide were busy texting and doing some business on the phone that I couldn't quite understand as they were speaking rapidly and quietly. As we got close to Masaya town, it looked like we were looking for someone to pick up, but we never did. We went passed the NP entrance and then turned around and stopped. They told us we needed to wait about 5 minutes, which we said was fine. Then we started driving again and we got a call from the tour operator who said the trip had been cancelled. He told us there had been some small seismic activity and they deemed it unsafe, but that we would get our money back. As we started driving again, we could see the clouds above the volcano were glowing, but our hearts were definitely no glowing as we were feeling bummed after such a letdown.
Something was telling me that there was something fishy going on though. From what I understand of volcanos with lava lakes, they are quite safe. Since they have an open lava lake, they are constantly degassing, so you don't get the violent eruptions like you did with the volcanoes who are blocked up and then build pressure and eventually blow. There are actually a handful of volcanoes in the world with permanent lava lakes that people often go to the crater to check out. They're in Vanuatu, the DRC, Ethiopia, and of course Mount Erebus in Antarctica, which scientists regularly visit. They have a live camera on the lava lake on Mt. Erebus, and while in the Crary lab, I used to like to watch it. Anyways, I highly doubted that all of a sudden it had gotten dangerous. And when you combined that with how slowly the driver had been driving, I figured something else was up. But nonetheless, it was clearly not our night. But then after 10 or so minutes of continued slow driving, the driver pulled over and said we could wait 10 minutes and then maybe it'd be okay. Less than 10 minutes in, he all of a sudden pulled a U-ey and we were flying back in the other direction.
My heart beat immediately skyrocketed as I was thinking, this is gonna happen! We made the turn into the NP entrance, and I was feeling really good. We stopped for a split second at the entrance and a guy jumped into the front seat, so that now there was 3 of them in the front in what was a compact car. The driver stepped on it, and we flew up the mountain, faster than Bro and I going over trail ridge at the crack of dawn trying to get to winter park for a mt bike race. We came to an intersection in the road where there were 2 motorbikes. The driver seemed surprised and turned off his lights, much too late, but then turned them back on after the guy who had jumped in said it was okay. But it definitely gave us the impression he was trying to be stealthy. We continued flying up the mountain until we crested the top and flew by the first (extinct) crater.
What we saw at this point was something I just can't possibly even begin to describe, nor something you could capture with cameras like ours. The top was swathed in an erie red-orange glow, made more eerie by the fact that the glow was lighting up and bouncing off volcanic vog. But the sight will forever remain in my mind. What we saw in the next 5 minutes time is something simply incredible and otherworldy. A cross between pure natural power and energy and a hellscape. To me the sheer power of it was breathtaking, the realization of how hot that lava must be and what it can do to a person, a landscape, a mountain was mind-numbing. A huge wave or rushing river is powerful and garners my full respect, but this was on another level. The glow, the heat, the molten rock couldn't help but make one thing they were looking into the center of the earth or the pit of hell.
As we sped through the glow with the crater ahead and to the right we climbed in the car even higher to a large area where there was a parking lot. We were completely surrounded at this point by the glowing orange vog. We jumped out of the car, and the guy who had gotten in the car led us to a concrete structure where he said we could stand, and that it was the only place we could stand. From there, we peered into the depths of the crater where we saw 2 lava lakes. These lakes weren't just calm ponds of molten rock, they were roiling and boiling and bubbling and producing quite a loud noise. Again, that power!
I could have stayed forever watching this spectacle, but after about 5 minutes the winds shifted and the sulfuric gases were quite strong in our direction. Sulfur dioxide can cause a pain in your lungs and something similar to an asthma attack if you were to breath it for too long, so the guy we had picked up told us it was time to go. At this point I was still in shock at how amazing the geologic process I was watching was and reluctantly went back to the car.
On the drive down, we were all buzzing with excitement and on a high from what we'd seen. We found out that the guy we had picked up was a NP guide. He told us some info about the Masaya volcano and also about the other volcanoes in Nicaragua, which of course sits on the ring of fire.
We'll never really know if what we did was legal or what the deal was, but it certainly made for a better story and was a great introduction and welcome to Nicaragua. Nothing like going to a 3rd world country and perhaps doing something a bit sketchy and under the table. B/c everyone we had talked to said there were no Masaya tours (though we did meet one guy in Leon who said his brother had gone up to Masaya during the current eruption) and b/c the NP itself had said it was closed, it was likely that some park rangers were making a bit of extra money but letting a few agencies take people up there since the volcano in its current state was still safe. But the slow driving, the disappointment of thinking we couldn't make it up, the shoving in of a random guy into the car, the insane driving up the volcano all added to what was already one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And I think the mystery of it all added to it as well. All in all, by the time we got back to Granada we were still high off the excitement and rush of it all. The trip was off to an amazing start, and I was so happy that my dream of seeing a lava lake had been realized in such a random and wacky fashion. If you had told me 12 hours ago that I thought I would be seeing one, I certainly would have told you no way.
2/23/16
We enjoyed the pancakes and bananas in the morning and then took a walk through the granada market and then grabbed a quick fruit smoothie before heading back to the hostel to check out in order to catch a bus to start our next adventure.
I put up a couple of videos of the volcano. Hopefully they work for you.
2/21/16
We had a 9pm flight out of Orlando, so in the evening we drove from G-ville to Orlando and caught a short flight to Fort Lauderdale and then the next flight onto Managua. We arrived to Managua around 1:30 am, and I had arranged a shuttle to take us the 45ish minutes to Granada on the shores of monstrous Lake Nicaragua. In a good omen of things to come, as we drove past Volcan Masaya, we saw an orange glow above the crater indicating a lava lake.
2/22/16
We slept in a tiny bit and then enjoyed the nice courtyard of our hostel that was serving unlimited bananas and pancakes. After breakfast, we decided to explore around Granada on foot. It's a cute and quaint little Spanish colonial city full of churches and a main central park. They have horse-drawn taxis and a lot of the locals move their goods around on horse-drawn carts. At one point while we were in the central park eating icecream after a tasty lunch of pork and yucca, a tout approached us to try and sell one of his tours. The major tours in the area are a boat ride through the Isletas where you can see lots of birds and some monkeys and then hiking on volcan mombacho, which is extinct and has a cloud forest on top. For some reason we decided to listen to this guy, and I asked him what other tours he had b/c we weren't interested in those ones. He then said he had a night tour up Volcan Masaya going. Now this really caught my attention. Volcan Masaya was the volcano that normally you can drive to the top of and that currently had a couple of lava lakes. A bit of background: I had emailed several tour companies before coming, and they had all said it was closed. I had asked at a couple travel agencies, including our hostel, while in Granada, and they had all said it was closed. He informed us that the NP service was letting 1 tour group per day go up and it was his companies turn. This had me super excited, and we signed up pretty quickly.
We did some more walking around until we found a place that had 2 for 1 cocktails, making each drink just $1, so we stopped in for some icy and yummy Caipirinhas and mojitos. Just what the doctor ordered for all that heat. After cooling off a bit, we rented some bikes and biked out to the Asese Peninsula on Lake Nicaragua. From one viewpoint we could see one of the giant volcanoes (Volcan Concepcion) on Isla Omotepe. I had in my plans to climb that volcano, but in the end, we ran out of time on our trip and didn't even make it to Isla Omotepe. Next time! After the bike ride we climbed up a church steeple for nice views of Granada and then got ready for our night tour to Masaya volcano, which included swimming in the nice pool in our hostel courtyard.
Joining us on the night tour was a friendly Dutch guy. Masaya is only about 20 miles from Granada and it should have been a short drive. As we'd learned in a shuttle the night before, Nicaraguan's in cars drive very quickly and well above the speed limit. But we were going incredibly slow. Speed limit on the road was 80km/hr and we were often going less than 40km's/hr. The driver and the guide were busy texting and doing some business on the phone that I couldn't quite understand as they were speaking rapidly and quietly. As we got close to Masaya town, it looked like we were looking for someone to pick up, but we never did. We went passed the NP entrance and then turned around and stopped. They told us we needed to wait about 5 minutes, which we said was fine. Then we started driving again and we got a call from the tour operator who said the trip had been cancelled. He told us there had been some small seismic activity and they deemed it unsafe, but that we would get our money back. As we started driving again, we could see the clouds above the volcano were glowing, but our hearts were definitely no glowing as we were feeling bummed after such a letdown.
Something was telling me that there was something fishy going on though. From what I understand of volcanos with lava lakes, they are quite safe. Since they have an open lava lake, they are constantly degassing, so you don't get the violent eruptions like you did with the volcanoes who are blocked up and then build pressure and eventually blow. There are actually a handful of volcanoes in the world with permanent lava lakes that people often go to the crater to check out. They're in Vanuatu, the DRC, Ethiopia, and of course Mount Erebus in Antarctica, which scientists regularly visit. They have a live camera on the lava lake on Mt. Erebus, and while in the Crary lab, I used to like to watch it. Anyways, I highly doubted that all of a sudden it had gotten dangerous. And when you combined that with how slowly the driver had been driving, I figured something else was up. But nonetheless, it was clearly not our night. But then after 10 or so minutes of continued slow driving, the driver pulled over and said we could wait 10 minutes and then maybe it'd be okay. Less than 10 minutes in, he all of a sudden pulled a U-ey and we were flying back in the other direction.
My heart beat immediately skyrocketed as I was thinking, this is gonna happen! We made the turn into the NP entrance, and I was feeling really good. We stopped for a split second at the entrance and a guy jumped into the front seat, so that now there was 3 of them in the front in what was a compact car. The driver stepped on it, and we flew up the mountain, faster than Bro and I going over trail ridge at the crack of dawn trying to get to winter park for a mt bike race. We came to an intersection in the road where there were 2 motorbikes. The driver seemed surprised and turned off his lights, much too late, but then turned them back on after the guy who had jumped in said it was okay. But it definitely gave us the impression he was trying to be stealthy. We continued flying up the mountain until we crested the top and flew by the first (extinct) crater.
What we saw at this point was something I just can't possibly even begin to describe, nor something you could capture with cameras like ours. The top was swathed in an erie red-orange glow, made more eerie by the fact that the glow was lighting up and bouncing off volcanic vog. But the sight will forever remain in my mind. What we saw in the next 5 minutes time is something simply incredible and otherworldy. A cross between pure natural power and energy and a hellscape. To me the sheer power of it was breathtaking, the realization of how hot that lava must be and what it can do to a person, a landscape, a mountain was mind-numbing. A huge wave or rushing river is powerful and garners my full respect, but this was on another level. The glow, the heat, the molten rock couldn't help but make one thing they were looking into the center of the earth or the pit of hell.
As we sped through the glow with the crater ahead and to the right we climbed in the car even higher to a large area where there was a parking lot. We were completely surrounded at this point by the glowing orange vog. We jumped out of the car, and the guy who had gotten in the car led us to a concrete structure where he said we could stand, and that it was the only place we could stand. From there, we peered into the depths of the crater where we saw 2 lava lakes. These lakes weren't just calm ponds of molten rock, they were roiling and boiling and bubbling and producing quite a loud noise. Again, that power!
I could have stayed forever watching this spectacle, but after about 5 minutes the winds shifted and the sulfuric gases were quite strong in our direction. Sulfur dioxide can cause a pain in your lungs and something similar to an asthma attack if you were to breath it for too long, so the guy we had picked up told us it was time to go. At this point I was still in shock at how amazing the geologic process I was watching was and reluctantly went back to the car.
On the drive down, we were all buzzing with excitement and on a high from what we'd seen. We found out that the guy we had picked up was a NP guide. He told us some info about the Masaya volcano and also about the other volcanoes in Nicaragua, which of course sits on the ring of fire.
We'll never really know if what we did was legal or what the deal was, but it certainly made for a better story and was a great introduction and welcome to Nicaragua. Nothing like going to a 3rd world country and perhaps doing something a bit sketchy and under the table. B/c everyone we had talked to said there were no Masaya tours (though we did meet one guy in Leon who said his brother had gone up to Masaya during the current eruption) and b/c the NP itself had said it was closed, it was likely that some park rangers were making a bit of extra money but letting a few agencies take people up there since the volcano in its current state was still safe. But the slow driving, the disappointment of thinking we couldn't make it up, the shoving in of a random guy into the car, the insane driving up the volcano all added to what was already one of the most amazing things I've ever seen. And I think the mystery of it all added to it as well. All in all, by the time we got back to Granada we were still high off the excitement and rush of it all. The trip was off to an amazing start, and I was so happy that my dream of seeing a lava lake had been realized in such a random and wacky fashion. If you had told me 12 hours ago that I thought I would be seeing one, I certainly would have told you no way.
2/23/16
We enjoyed the pancakes and bananas in the morning and then took a walk through the granada market and then grabbed a quick fruit smoothie before heading back to the hostel to check out in order to catch a bus to start our next adventure.
I put up a couple of videos of the volcano. Hopefully they work for you.
3 comments:
Nice descriptions! Glad you're dream was realized! It was indescribable, that lava!
Come se dice "lava" en espanol
You crazy kids! That lava lake must have pumped your adrenaline?
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