I am just dreaming, right?

If our weekends keep on progressing like this, I am going to be a very, very happy camper! Just as I thought things couldn't get more impressive, we took off for Leon!

Two buses and four hours laters, we reached our Hostel 'Latina', where the first beautiful Nicaraguan woman I've seen greeted us. Apparently something went wrong with our reservation, but in the end, Alex's bedazzling charms did the trick and got us eight beds for the nine of us.

After some ‘fritanga’ (street food), delicious mojitos and dinner in a very touristy and loud bar/restaurant, we went to sleep in our comfy bunk beds with separate fans for each and every one. Alex thought otherwise though, as he started sleepwalking after half an hour. “Are you guys okay? Are you sure?!” Apparently, he was dreaming he had left the  hostel and couldn’t find his way back.

Besides that little incident, we all had a great night sleep, ready to hike an active volcano and spend the night at about 300 meters from the crater. Henri Rodriguez, our guide for the weekend, decided to bring his four-year-old son along. He was the cutest boy ever and didn’t complain for a second.

Henri brought us to the foot of the volcano in his Nissan pick-up truck and gave us a delicious Nigaraguan lunch so we would have the energy to climb this motherf*****. Afterwards, Henri decided to get us up a bit higher with his truck, which didn’t go down as smoothly as we had expected. A couple of times it felt like we would flip over or get stuck because of the huge divots in the road. Fortunately, we made it to our starting point without much further ado.

The climb was definitely easier and more interesting than the one of Mombacho, not as steep and less paved roads. With the crater popping out in the background, Henri stopped us multiple times to inform us about the wildlife (trees, plants, flowers, animals) on the volcano. About two and a half hours later, we arrived at the crater. The smell of sulfur was sometimes hard to bare, but the view more than made up for it. It’s just so unreal to stand on the edge of a volcano, with lava just rushing underneath you.

Time to put up camp about 300 metres away from the crater, on a nice little knoll with a pond. Half of us installed the tents, while the other half searched for timer to get a nice little campfire going. But before we would get the fire going, we had to rush back up to the top to see the sunset. Unfortunately, it was quite cloudy, but the sky still turned into every color of the rainbow, so it was undoubtedly worth it. Once it got completely dark, we went back to the crater, and this time, we could see the actual lava bubbling. An impressive sight beyond belief for a simple teacher from Zelem. I was even able to send a message to my parents, because it was one of the most amazing moments in my life.

Our entire crew was really flabbergasted after seeing this miracle of nature, so we had to come to our senses with a few bottles of rum (and coke). After a while our tongues loosened up and everyone started to share typical campfire stories. Some of us nearly peed our pants listening to J.P.’s story about how he almost drowned in his sink. But the later it got, the more serious and philosophical the topics became (like gravity, right Kelsey). Eventually, we had to hid the sack though, because we had to get up at 5.30 AM. We didn’t sleep a lot though, because it gets pretty bloody cold on top of a volcano apparently, and the fact that me and Aaron had to share the tiniest of tents, didn’t really help at all.

On Sunday morning, we had a lovely breakfast with a family who lives on the volcano. Their children actually walk up and down for 6 km each day to go to school. Now that’s commitment! We had some gallo pinto (como siempre) and actually rented three horses from the family to go down the mountain. It was actually the first time in my life that I rode on the back of a horse, so this already amazing weekend, had just reached the level of ‘out of this world’.

You’d think that be enough for one weekend, no? Well, we weren’t satisfied yet, because we still had the entire afternoon in Leon to do something completely crazy, and our tour guide Henri had the perfect idea. Apparently, he was the first person ever to sand- or ashboard down an active volcano, so what choice did we really have? Some of us overcame their fear of heights as we climbed ‘Cerro Negro’ volcano, only to reach the top and go down on a slim wooden board with nothing but a rope to pull if you wanted to go slower.

I have to admit that I was pretty much pissing my pants as we were walking up there. The road was quite narrow and the view on both sides was quite staggeringly high. But when I heard Henri saying that he was going to run down the slope to take some pictures of us, I calmed down. Although I still couldn’t believe this crazy Nica was going to run down a 700 meters high volcano, I felt a lot more confident on my little wooden board. The moment I sat down, it actually didn’t look that scary anymore, and I was the first one to put my feet in the air and plunge myself into the unknown. Getting up to 50-60 km/hour with little pebbles flying into your mouth is quite an exhilarating feeling, so once I reached to bottom of the volcano, I was screaming with excitement. It really was the perfect end, to a perfect weekend.