Day 163 - Hot lava

Granada

Nicaragua is hot so we were pleased we had picked a place with air conditioning, interestingly most of the cheaper places charge up to US$10 extra per night for air con, which seems expensive, and we've only encountered this once before (in Piura).

We wandered the streets looking at churches and colonial buildings, and close to lunch time we walked up to the fort to find it was closed. There was hardly anyone around and it was only after about 2.30 that the town became busy again. The difference was quite remarkable, the streets went from very few cars and people to being packed and the shops have re opened. We guess they must do the siesta thing here, and of course we were the stupid ones walking in the heat while everyone else tried to stay cool.

Granada has lots of attractive, colourful colonial churches and La Merced was striking in a different, un-renovated way but was nothing much on the inside.

That afternoon at 4.30 we joined our tour in a mini van to visit Masaya Volcano, which is notable as it is still active and you can drive almost all the way up to the rim. We arrived at the park about 5.15 and joined the long queue of cars and mini vans waiting for the park to open at 5.40. The queue was so long however that we didn't start moving until 6. The idea is that you visit the volcano when it is dark so you can see the lava.

We discovered that they let groups of vehicles into different sections at different times, it is pretty well coordinated so that when it is your turn you get 15 minutes at the crater rim with quite a reasonable amount of people, meaning everyone gets a good look and has plenty of time for photos. At the end of your time a whistle is blown and you leave so the next group can have their turn.

Seeing the boiling, spitting lava was amazing, we haven't seen anything like it, it can be described as an orange boiling sea in a blow hole. You could see lava spitting up the side of the volcano crater, and the while thing was quite mesmerising.

We arrived back in town just 8 and met Trina for a farewell drink, this time we are pretty sure we won't be crossing paths again.