Volcano: a big hole in the Earth

This photo was taken by Kara.

It captures the rim of El Volcan Masaya and the smoke spewing out of the crater.

Finally, the most interesting part of the day: going to El Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya. First, we drove up about an hour (actually much less, more like 35-40 minutes) and stopped to look around the visitor center museum. I find most museums to get pretty boring after not being their for very long. We did see monkeys in the trees outside thought which was cool.

A black and white monkey can be seen in this photo as it climbs through the trees.

Taken near the base of El Volcan Masaya.

We took some photos of the group and surrounding landscape then we were off. Then, we drove to a parking lot. We had a guide who was telling us about how the Volcano had erupted 3 times in recent history: 2001, 2008, and 2011 I believe. 

As we looked over the edge, we could see the crater was humongous. It was emitting so much smoke (sulfur) that I couldn't see the bottom or the other side. It also smelled like the worst rotten eggs ever imagined times 100. It was a little hard to breath. The sun looked pale and reddish through the smoke.

On our way to the path that led to the top of the volcano, we passed this broken down view point structure. The sun can be seen in the background. Zoe is standing inside the broken structure.

Then we ascended the road and trail some more. Pretty soon, it turned very steep. It was afraid that I was going to fall as I have a slight tendency to do that. Eventually we reached the top and I couldn't help remembering the climb to the top of Dog Mountain at Camp Arrowhead and the Climbing Song to go with it. The view was 150% worth the climb. 

Photo of all of us at the top of El Volcan Masaya.

This photo was captured by David.

Beyond the smoke, we could see other volcanoes and both the giants lakes. Lake Managua and Lake Nicaragua or possibly one of the lagoons. I am not quite sure. Some of the volcanoes we saw from the top were classified as inactive and had no smoke, just green plants and a few scattered trees. The cool wind felt amazing on top of the mountain cause we had been so hot all day long. Going down was scary and hard. I hung on to Zoe for stability which helped a lot and went slow. 

Off to go explore a cave.