Masaya Volcano

Nicaragua is home to 27 volcanoes. Some shoot ash and gas into the air while others are a seething cauldron of molten lava. Masaya is a thirty minute drive from Granada and much closer to Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua. It erupted most recently in 2008 and was one of the first authorized National Parks in Nicaragua. The park closes depending on what emotions the volcano shows and in 2008 visitors were surprised by the eruption that killed two people. Tour companies are plentiful in Granada and their sales force stands on the steps outside the tours front doors and work the crowds in English and Spanish. Like all sales persons, they tell you what you want to hear, not what you need to know. Our evening $20.00 U.S. tour ( which includes a $10 park fee ) takes three hours to complete and includes a ride to the Masaya National Park, a thirty minute photo op of the volcano at night, a ride back to Granada on highways where motorcyclists and bicyclists wear no helmets and have no lights on themselves or their vehicles. This evening our bus is filled with eleven people from Germany, Australia, Canada, Austria and the U.S.. At our thirty minute turn at the top of the volcano, we exit our van and scramble to a waist high rock wall that separates us from a three hundred foot drop to the bottom of the crater, where, at strategic points, you see molten lava moving like waves. Gas funnels up into our faces and way up in the sky are night stars, even hotter than this volcano. Caught between molten rock on the inside of this planet and gases in the atmosphere, walking on a land that shakes from quakes and drowns in floods, how can we be convinced we are masters of this world? It isn’t our power that holds atoms together.