Masaya

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You can basically do two things in Masaya: shop at the local tourist market or climb the volcano.

Guess, what we did? Right, shop at the local tourist market and climb the volcano.

If you can't imagine yourself sitting in this chicken bus, consider renting a car for about 10 bucks a day

About the first I can be very short: It’s a bunch of stalls all filled with the exact same t-shirts, ceramics, cigars and other junk you don’t need for the survival of the humankind. It doesn’t matter that this market is the biggest of the country, every stand is exactly identical and as overpriced as the other so it doesn’t make a difference if you see all 500 of them or hang out at 1. To give you a negotiation-benchmark: We paid $3 for each shirt, drinks on me for the one who manages to pay less.

Volcán Masaya, or to be more precise, Volcán Nindiri right next to it IS worth the visit. As I was travelling with my 60-year-old mother, climbing was out of the question. Instead, we negotiated repeatedly with a series of cab drivers until finally one of them agreed to drive us back and forth to the crater and hang for out two hours to give us some time to explore for a lousy 400 cordoba’s (which should be less if you’re travelling solo).

Seeing the gigantic fog clouds floating on Nindiri’s crater immediately overwhelmed me. It’s so incredible to realize that you are facing an opening of the Earth, a skin pore of our mighty mother.

I saw so many volcanoes by now, but every time my mind goes crazy imagining what happens if you stumble and tumble down to the middle of the planet, maybe getting stuck in some kind of limbo or falling down (or up) on the other side of the world. Yes, I do know my body will be shrunk to ashes the first 30 seconds, but let a girl fantasize.

After seeing the misty smoke mingle with the clear bright skies we stretched up to walk up the crater of the Masaya, an inactive volcano that due to its fertile ashes is now filled with the most stunning green flora you can imagine. Balancing on a small path you can walk all the way to a look-out point that provides sights all the way to Granada and the majestic Cocibolca and Apoyo Lake.

Take a deep breath and grasp where you are. On top of the world you realize you want to go down and be a part of it.

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