Volcano Boarding

To begin with, we were all a little anxious about this after seeing a girl at our hostel with scratches  all over her face and two black eyes from volcano boarding the other day. With some trepidation we climbed into a van and headed off. A mom and son who were in the van already were from Huntsville, Alabama. She didn't know Nina though. Her son was not feeling well, so they didn't go.

We headed into the Volcano Park to the trailhead. We all got jumpsuits goggles, gloves and volcano boards, that looked like a cross between a sled and a snowboard. Then, we hiked up Cerro Negro, the volcano. It was a pretty strenuous hike, but we stopped from time to time. Our guide, Miguel, told us about the volcano's past eruptions. The first was in 1880 or so and the most recent in 1999. 

Once we got most of the way up the volcano the wind became really strong. It felt like we might get swept off the ridge, especially with the boards in our hands. 

After getting to the top we dropped our boards and walked over to the caldera at the summit. The ground felt warm.   If you dug down a bit you could really feel the heat and see steam coming out.  Back down with our boards Miguel asked us to suit up.  We looked like a cross between Gumby and the Michellin Man, in these huge, heavy green and yellow jumpers.  Miguel gave us some tips about What we should and should not do.  Poor aunt Les was really wondering why she had said yes when asked to come along on our vacation.  All we have done is hiked up and down a bunch of mountains on "trailish" paths since we got here. So Tilghman and Sully were the suckers who went first.  The place where you go down is a 40-45' angle but it looked straight down.  The boys did great and made it safely to the bottom with no wrecks and the girls followed suit.  We all had a fun ride down , it only took a minute, while the hike up was at least an hour.  Great day but we are completely cooked.