Volcan Masaya

Well my roommate Jake is leaving on Wednesday, leaving the place to myself for the last few months of this school year; so we decided to go on a night tour of Volcan Masaya. Jake had not been to Volcan Masaya and really wanted to do the famous night tour before he left. We went on Saturday night, it's about 40 minutes from my apartment, and it was well worth the drive. This is the best guided tour I have ever been on. We got there at about 4:45 and met up with our guide on the top of the mountain at about 5. Our guide Carlos was a great story teller and very knowledgeable about the mountain.

Volcan Masaya is what the native used to refer to as the mouth of hell. Which is easy to see why they would think that, as you can see on some of the pictures. To keep the evil spirits at bay they used to sacrifice some men and children, but their favorite sacrifice was young virgins. They would prepare them, not really sure what that consisted of, but then they would drink their blood before they would throw them into the volcano. Pretty interesting history.

I'm not sure when the catholics came and blessed the mountain and "Christianized" it, but at some point they did (that part got lost in translation), they made a huge monument on the top of the mountain; a giant cross. So...that was the brief history behind the mountain.

Anyway...we looked down into the mountain and all we could see was smoke rising. You could really smell the sulfur, it was almost too much. We went to the cross monument took a couple pictures and then we hopped into the micro bus and went down to the bat caves. By this time it was dark. Oh and the sunsets there are b-e-a-u-tiful Clark, the gases set off the sunlight. Awesome.

The bat caves are sweet, they continue to descend into the earth for a number of kilometers, and there are bats everywhere. They fly around you, but rarely bump into you as they have a great sonar sense that keeps them from flying into other objects. It was pretty cool.

After the bat caves we went to a different vantage point of the volcano, and they gave us some gas masks because you can damage your lungs or pass out from the fumes coming out of the crater. You could literally see the lava flowing in the volcano, one of the coolest things I have ever seen. I could see why the natives thought

that it was the mouth of hell. It was amazing.

So Jake is leaving on Wednesday, I'll miss hanging out with him, but

it was good while it lasted, but life goes on. Hope you like the pics, I still have some more to steal from other people, I'll post those when I get them.

peace,

j