León, Nicaragua

Leon is surrounded by a string of active volcanoes. We climbed Telica on the evening of a full moon and could see seven volcanoes including two of them venting smoke against the setting sun.

After the sunset we peered over the ridge of Telica and down into the bubbling lava 200 meters below. The volcano made an airplane like sound that was indescribable! Standing on a sheer cliff looking down into the cycle of earth regeneration was one of the top awe inspiring events of our trip.

We also climbed Sierra Negro to give its infamous volcano boarding (aka rock sledding) a try… it made for an exhilarating way to avoid the normal knee crushing mountain descents.

Leon itself is a nice little city filled with markets and churches and is easy to walk around. We visited in Leon’s hottest month of the year (April) and the city hadn’t seen rain for almost 8 months! Needless to say, the hiking was dusty and dry with about 2-3 inches of fine dirt on all the trails.

To beat the heat and dust we took a day trip to the coast to a deserted beach. The highlights of our beach trip included watching some cows stranded on an island trying to cross through rushing water, and drinking beer from a bag. Since bottles are for deposit, the locals drink their soda out of a bag with a straw… but since we don’t drink soda, the bartender had quite a laugh when we requested a roadie (cervesa para llevar).