Here's the long-awaited (for no one) follow-up to my adventures in Nicaragua, which seems forever ago. And I'm only writing this now so I can start my Switzerland stories soon and not screw up my blog's chronology too badly. But this isn't really an active blog anyway, so whatever. Shut up, Chow, and start writing!
It appears as if I began writing long ago, then saw something distracting like a lamp, stopped and never resumed. Oh memoirs!
Parte Dos
El 28 y 29 de Julio
Top of Cerro Negro, Leon. Volcano boards on bottom of screen. This is the best photo Pete has taken in his life.
The morning we left San Juan del Sur to drive to Leon, the
power went out in the entire town. At first we thought it was our excessive
viewing of the “Starsky and Hutch” DVD bonus features in the treehouse, but
when we bought gas and noticed no one else had electricity, our disdain for
Owen Wilson subsided.
Blackouts are a frequent occurrence in SJDS, and the locals
could not be more indifferent. The whole town seems to shut down – restaurants
close, post signs that say no power, and everyone goes about their merry way
eating Ritz for lunch. We found an internet café that had a generator and
looked up directions from SJDS to our hotel in Leon. Let me tell you this –
whoever was driving Google’s little Homer-looking, satellite-image-capturing
mobile in Nicaragua really butt-fumbled the job. The directions Google provided
us took us on this 50% completed road that felt like an X-Games track that
Travis Pastrana should’ve been rally-racing across. The road was so bumpy,
everyone started to feel like the fish-ordering passengers in “Airplane.” At
one point, without exaggeration, you could see 15-yards of paved road,
interrupted by 30-yards of dirt, followed by another 15-yards of paved road.
This is not even including traffic that was impeded by cows. The ride took
around 3.5 hours, while it should’ve lasted 2.5. When we got into town, we
discovered there was a far better road – the most pristine and best-paved
highway in the entire country.
While SJDS is a lazy, surf/resort town, Leon is how you
might picture a Central American city – old mission-style architecture, open
plazas in front of aged churches, farmer’s markets, vendors selling various
leches, local teens playing soccer on a public basketball court. It’s what the
movies have led me to believe Cuba is like (this does not include “Bad Boys
II”). Walking around town, we noticed there was some sort of celebration in the
town square. After what seemed like Chinese dragon dancing, a guy came out in a
prehistoric Ironman outfit and started shooting fireworks out of his suit at
spectators. It was surreal; people ran from him and screamed like it was
Pamplona. If the local little kids weren’t dancing up and down with ear-to-ear
smiles, I would’ve thought this was the beginning of the next Zack Snyder flick
– only better.
It's a celebration, b*****$!
Communion is way different in Leon.
Basketball court is for futbol only. Thanks!
There’s a university in Leon, so there are several bars, but
none were really throwing it down on a Sunday or Monday night. We ended up
singing karaoke both nights. The bars have a huge binder full of English songs,
but none of them actually had available English songs. We’d put in requests for
myriad Michael Jackson, Bon Jovi songs, only to be constantly denied, so we
sang the two Spanish songs we know – the Antonio Banderas song in “Desperado”
and the chorus from Selena’s “Biddy Biddy Bum Bum” (and only the chorus – turns
out I don’t know the rest of that song at all). Needless to say, we were
totally awesome and brought the house down.
Futbol/balconcesto in the back.
Totes sobes.
Well... I am.
Of course, the only reason we were visiting Leon was to go
volcano boarding at Cerro Negro, a fast-rising tourist attraction that will
likely no longer be that far off the beaten path in a few years. I originally
saw ESPN’s Kenny Mayne do it in a “Wider World of Sports” episode a few years
back. You hike for 45-minutes up Cerro Negro with a backpack filled with a
jumpsuit, goggles, and water; in addition to a 4.5-foot slab of wood with a
tiny rope. That’s your board. To steer the board, you lean left or right while
tugging the rope. To speed up, lean back as far as you can. To slow down or brake,
sit up on the board and put your feet on the ash. If it sounds basic, it is.
It’s really not complicated or the least bit scary. I wouldn’t say it’s a
family activity, but most people should be plenty capable of doing it. The view from the top of the mountain is majestic. Surely there's better out there, but knowing you're about to slide down this thing on some bootleg piece of wood that Jake Burton (of Burton Snowboards) would cringe at... that'll put a smile on your face. Or at least it did mine.
Started from the bottom...
Now we're here.
A ski lift would've been nice.
Pacing ourselves.
Profound.
We booked our volcano boarding experience through a local
guide named Anry, who came highly recommended on Yelp (http://masadventuresni.com). With Anry, we were the
first ones on top of the mountain. Anry seemed very knowledgeable and
energetic; he also claimed to be one of the first people to ever go volcano
boarding. At the top of the mountain, there are some great photo ops, as well
as an influx of bees. It’s best not to get stung by the bees, but our friend
Mitch thought otherwise and got tagged. What an idiot!!! HAHA! #GoodFriend
Our guide Anry. He really likes "The Matrix"
Mitch has already been stung by bees.
Active volcano? Please...
After a very brief
tutorial, we did a quick 10-foot trial; then boarded down to the bottom. The
common sentiment is to slow down, but once you get comfortable, let loose and
go as fast as possible. The ride is awesome (one that sadly I couldn't document because my GoPro stopped working before this trip), albeit short – probably lasts 45
seconds to a minute. I was actually hoping my ride would be even faster, but my rope wasn't long enough to allow me to lean back and build up more speed. I think I was using a girl's board, which might also explain the flowered, pastel backpack that I carried up the mountain. The faster you go, the bigger the thrill, there's no doubt. And as riveting as it is to finish, when your adrenaline finally slows down, I couldn't help but question if the ends justified the means. I wanted to do it again, hike it all, lean back like Fat Joe and just fly. But you can't. You're gone in 45 seconds. It's so quick. Of course the ends do justify the means, you can say you rode down a volcano, but it sounds way more badass than it actually is. If you go, I cannot stress enough that it looks and sounds far more intimidating than it is. When you ride, lean back and let the speed take you. It'll be a shorter ride but far more fulfilling. This isn't the Disneyland PeopleMover where you want to just cruise and look around and capture the view. (I just realized I don't think Disneyland has the PeopleMover any more. So sad.) No, this is the Disneyland Matterhorn bobsleds (foreshadowing to Switzerland adventures! #ComingSoon), you want to go fast.
The view from the bottom
The other "adventure" we went on with Anry was the zipline canopy tour. On the website, it looked sick. You can zipline over a lagoon, dip into the water, maybe even unhook and jump in! That sounds stupid awesome. That is so far away from what we actually did. The canopy park isn't like other ziplines that are set up high in the mountains for you to take in a bird's eye view of your surroundings (check out my Puerto Rico blog if you want to see video of the tallest zipline in the world). This was more of a stunt park where you can try to pull crazy maneuvers. But we went in July, and there was no water in the lagoon. It looked like one random, really rich guy in the middle of Nicaragua was bored and set up some ziplines over his pond in the backyard. Needless to say, this part of the tour was more disappointing than "The Phantom Menace." This was the Jar Jar Binks of our Nicaragua experience.
The rich guy's patio.
You know he's rich 'cuz he has these.
Ain't no lagoons behind us.
All in all, I would highly recommend visiting Nicaragua. The surf is spectacular, the food is deliciously inexpensive or inexpensively delicious, and the opportunity to ride down a volcano is a one-of-a-kind adventure. At this point, Cerro Negro in Nicaragua is still the only place in the world where you can (legally) board down an active volcano. It's a unique experience, and I suppose that's why we travel in the first place.
Why we travel
Next up: New Year's Eve at the real Matterhorn in Zermatt, Switzerland. Here's the trailer:
Great photos!! I went to that town as well.
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