10,000 miles away - Leon, Nicaragua

On our official finally day in Nicaragua, we or rather my friend, since I've clearly been freeriding, booked a tour service for an interesting tour. We woke up really early to be picked up at 6.30 am at home in Nicaragua and made our way to Leon and past to Cerro Negro.

Cerro Negro as the name suggests is a short hill of black volcanic sand. It's a new volcano and last erupted in 1999. It's much shorter than it's neighbouring extinct volcanos. As a volcano erupts, it increases in height.

Once we reached the base we were given our very own boards that we had to carry them up a hike of 45-60 mins. I nearly made it. We went up the steepest part of it and it was all fine. But when we came near to the top, the wind changed direction and was really strong. I felt that the wind would take my board and if I tried to stop it, I would go too. So I took two steps when the rest of my team went 10. Not proud of it that I just sat down after that. The guide took my board then and it was easy after that. We went up to the rim of the crater. From there, any direction you see, the hill is just black sand. It felt similar to Jungfrau except that time it was all white and snow and cold. 

The crater had nothing much to see except it's yellow because of sulphur and anywhere on the surface, if you dig enough, you'll feel hot wet sand and possibly fumes. Once we took in the sights, we went to other edge of the other side of the hill to do what we came for. Our guide gave us a quick intro and a demo on how to do it. And off we went, sitting on our boards and slide off the side of the volcano, in what is called volcano boarding. What fun ! It's among two or three places in the world where you can do this. I highly recommend it.

We had woken up early for this so by the time we reached Leon, it was early noon and we headed to one of the hotels we knew had a restaurant with air conditioning. Yes, Leon is really hot. So hot, head started to hurt when we reached the cathedral and waited to get to the top of the tower. The view from the cathedral was a bustling city with mountains not far away and you know one of them is active. We then roamed a market for a little while before heading back.