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My road trip in the 1972 VW ended as I left Managua to go see Leon, a nice colonial city surrounded by stunning beaches and active volcanoes. I spent most of my first day just walking around the city, drinking delicious Nicaraguan coffee and watching the hordes of gringo-backpackers around town. Leons is a backpacker mecca, and still now in low season, it draws crowds of central - american travellers. Its biggest draws are the interesting history, as revolution centre and primor capitol, the colonial architecture and one of the new flourishing enticements for the thrill seeker: volcano boarding.
Quite randomly, I met my Israeli friends from Lago Yojoa, Honduras, Ya´ara and Nave at the hostel. And as none of us are in the category of time-wasters, we signed up for volcano boarding the next morning.
Volcano boarding at Cerro Negro.
Cerro Negro, the volcano that serves as the volcano-boarding slope, is the youngest volcano in Central - America, with only 150 years of history behind it. It erupts frequently, and fumes constantly. The hike up is an easy task, about 40min, and the view from the top is nothing short of stunning. On a clear day you can spot the whole range of volcanoes across Nicaragua; some old and "dead", whilst others are active and constantly burping out clouds of ash and fumes from mother earths belly.
After trying sand-boarding in Peru, my expectations weren´t sky high for this trip, but I have to say this was actually alot of fun. You´re given a wooden sleigh and pretty much just shot down the side of the steep Cerro Negro. Needless to say, you can go fast. I have no idea what my actual speed was, but by the end of it I could see nothing but volcanic ashes flowing around and could taste nothing but masses of sand stuffed in both nose and mouth. When I finally touched down at the bottom of the volcanoe, I saw that my wrist - guards were completely crushed (I used hands for balance as I didn´t want to slow down by using my feet), so I´m pretty happy about not falling. I know the record speed is 85kph. I have no idea if I was close or not, but it felt rapidissimo. Fun!
What is not as fun, is getting stung by scorpions. I woke up in the middle of the night when something was causing my arm to sting. I figured I was just tired and didn`t mind. I went back to sleep, and this time I realized that something was definately stinging me. Some sheet-shaking and terrible norwegian swear-words later, I found the little b******. A small, black scorpion had crawled into my bed as I was sleeping and tried to chase me out. Considering my previous scorpion experience, I got partly pissed of and partly scared. To find out what to do, I caught the b****** in a piece of paper and brought it to the hostel computer and started an extensive google search. Luckily, this particular scorpion was not dangerous to people and I could go back to sleep. Or, at least try to sleep. Dangerous or not, scorpions are never fun to share beds with!
I also got in a nice day at the beach close to Leon. Beautiful and relaxing.
I ended up spending a week in Leon, not doing much but reading, pooping and going to the cinema, catching classics like "Aliens vs Cowboys". Becuase by day number 3 my stomach turned inside out and cramped up. I didn´t learn that I had parasites until about a week and a half later. So, "finally", I got a taste, though far from as bad, of what the guys in Pisco, Peru, went through more often than not.
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