Woke up today and decided to stay another night at Chili Inn despite the obnoxious music because it was too much hassle to try and get our stuff to another hostel before our volcano boarding tour. We grabbed some breakfast at "Pan y Paz" which was a delicious little french bakery. It was impossible to find because the locals thought it was called "Pan y Pan" and couldn't figure out what we were talking about. We met up with Hugh at "Bigfoot hostel" which has the best tour because they actually give you protective gear. We had an hour long ride in the back of a truck up through the jungle, but it wasn't too bad because they had built in some bench seating into the truck.
As we approached the volcano, "Cerro Negro", Alyssa and I became increasingly nervous. It was huge! And you could see people walking at the top like little ants. My fear of heights was starting to tell me I was an idiot for booking this.
We picked out our suit/goggle bags and gathered around for instructions on how not to die. As we were talking, we noticed a group of local people coming up to the base of the volcano. Our guide explained to us that today was a local festival in Leon celebrating the Virgin Mary. Apparently 50 years ago this volcano erupted for 7 days endangering the town. On the 7th day, they brought a statue of the Virgin Mary up to the volcano and the eruptions stopped. Because of this miracle, the city of Leon holds a festival worshiping the Virgin every year. The locals had brought a statue of the Virgin Mary to the volcano to show respect.
We began our steep, hour long climb up the volcano. It wouldn't have been so bad except you had to carry your own board and bag of equipment which became really heavy after a while. We took a break half way up where the view was so amazing.
We hiked up the rest of the hill and prepared for the slide down by putting on our orange jumpsuits, securing any belongings we had inside the suit and getting a short tutorial from our guide in how to steer, break etc.
There wasn't much to the boards; they are just pieces of plywood with a slick plastic glued to the bottom and a rope to hold on to. The only way to steer or break is to use your feet by digging them into the rocks. I definitely didn't want to go first; I wanted to watch a few people eat shit and then figure out the best way to avoid doing the same thing. I took some good pics of Alyssa going down the hill.
I had a decent run. I didn't fall off but my board kept veering to the right so I had to put my left foot down a lot which sprayed volcanic rock up into my face and unfortunately my mouth. I went 31km/hr or about 20 mi/hr. The fastest speed they have on record is 91km/hr which is like 57mi/hr. the person who got the record fell off at one point and shredded his face on the rocks, lol- no thank you. Apparently volcano boarding is rated number 2 on CNN's "Thrill seeker bucket list". This is the only place in the world where you can do this so I'm really glad we did it.
We got back to the hostel, drank a free mojito and showered the tons of black rock off ourselves. We grabbed dinner at this sushi/tapas place called "Manhattan" which was delicious. We split 4 different rolls since we weren't entire sure what each of them would have (there were a few words on that menu I'd never heard before).
After dinner, we went into the town to experience the celebration that pays tribute to the Virgin Mary. The stores put altars in the doorways and hand out candy to the children (similar idea to trick or treating). The cathedral was done up for the occasion and the entire town had come out to celebrate. There were lines of people waiting to see the altars and get gifts of rice, beans, matches and other goods. It was really amazing to see.
Posted with Blogsy
No comments:
Post a Comment