So today’s adventure: Volcano Boarding! An early start as the shuttle bus picked us up at
7am, so perhaps I can be forgiven for still being only half-awake when the next
group of people from another hostel across town got on.
I was chatting away to this Austrian rock-climber guy when I
overheard someone talking in front of me and had a strange feeling of, ‘I know
that voice’.
Clearly they must have thought the same thing, because he turned
round, and for a second I thought I might have found our second doppleganger….however
it turned out to be the actual Mark Wardle, one of our friends from University!
Here the two of us are posing on top of the volcano. So random how you can go literally
halfway around the world and end up sat on a bus next to someone who you lived
only a couple of rooms away from in the same building in halls!
So while we started catching up, the bus made its way out of
town, and about an hour later we arrived at the Cerro Negro National Park. Straight
off the bus, we were handed a duffle bag full of kit, a wooden board and looked
up at what we’d let ourselves in for.
The hike up to the top of Cerro Negro took about an hour,
allowing for a couple of stops to admire the views along the way. Our guide
told us the mountain gets its name (The Black Mountain) from the fact that it
erupts so frequently that the vegetation simply doesn’t get a chance to grow
back. The border between the green and black in the photos below shows where
the most recent lava flows reached to.
At the top we were sandwiched between the heat coming down
from the midday sun, and the heat coming up from the active volcano underneath.
Digging a small hole just 3-4 inches into the black rocky ash meant it got too
hot to touch. Apparently this was the
perfect time to put on our boiler suits, and stand around for 10 minutes while the
guide gave us a safety talk.
What exactly is Volcano Boarding you ask? Well, you sit astride a shelf-like board
about 1m long and 30cm wide. One side is
polished smooth, and the other has a rope tied to it to use as a
handle/accelerator. Then you tip yourself over the edge of a 1km, 45 degree
slope. So off I went. In only a few
seconds I was hurtling down the side of the mountain, small rocks and black
sand spraying off all around me, and it was awesome! I reached a top speed just
shy of 70kph…..before …. I came crashing off….
Our guide had said we could use our feet as brakes to slow
us down if needed, however my experience suggests this was nonsense: the only
thing putting your feet down accomplished was to; increase the amount of rocks
and sand being thrown up, spin the board, tip you over, and send you rolling
head over heels for the next 20m. (In the guide’s defence, he may have given us
further information - I have to admit to getting distracted by a giant yellow
butterfly during our safety talk).
Still, no harm done.
I dusted myself off, got back on the board and cruised down the rest of
the mountain. A quick side note: I would
later discover during my tumble, my phone came out of my pocket and spun out
onto the mountain. Looking for a black-grey phone, in a mountain of black-grey
rocks, sand and dust is just as fun as it sounds. Fortunately after an exhausting 15 minutes my
phone and I were reunited. Incredibly it
was still working and with barely a scratch on it!
So in summary, Volcano Boarding: awesome.
Got the bus back, and after a fruitless check at the hostel
I found Becki wandering the streets, she looked very happy to see me, as it
turns out she’d had an adventure of her own.
A New Day - Off to
the Beach
It had now been 4 days since our trip to the beach, and it
seems that’s pretty much the maximum time Becki can spend away from the sea. So
with the start of a new day, we set off to the Green Surf Hostel in El Transito
on the Pacific coast.
Arriving in El Transito, a village of no-more than 1000
people, the hostel was no-where to be found. So we decided our best option was
just to walk along the beach, until we found something that looked hostel-like
(How many could there be!).
Well 15 minutes later we were well out of town and had
almost run out of beach when we spotted a tiny sign no bigger than your forearm
hanging against a palm tree, and we were there! It turns out our difficulty in
finding the place wasn’t entirely accidental, as this conversation we had with
the owner later in the evening shows:
“Your hostel is really hard to find, we only just managed to spot that
little sign”.
“Yeah I only put that up a few weeks ago, I don’t really like people to
come here”
Despite the apparent grouchiness, the owner was actually a
really nice guy, and made some really good ceviche (a kind of dish made with
raw fish, chilli and lime juice that seems to be all the range in these parts).
So the next few days were spent playing on the beach,
swimming in the sea, and enjoying some amazing sunsets. Only interrupted by the occasional
thunderstorm, and FYI; a thunderstorm over the ocean at sunset is something
amazing. I literally stood there for hours watching it!
One more thing; walking along the beach we kept seeing these
strange looking things. Apparently they are called ‘Sand Dollars’ (probably not
the scientific name), and are a kind of creature. While living they are a kind
of Sea Urchin and look a furry brown grey, but when they die, they get bleached
in the sun and this kind of shell-like skeleton is all that’s left. They come
in all different sizes but they all have these leaf imprint like star patterns
in the centre surrounded by near perfect straight line holes.
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