So, that was Acapulco. Three visits. Each resulting in ambivalence.
I have no such feelings about Guatemala and Nicaragua. They were great days.
This was my first trip to Nicaragua. During the nasty days of the Somoza dictatorship, I was in my going-to-law-school and making-a-living phases. I took no vacations back then. If I had, I would not have been interested in enriching the Somoza coffers.
In 1979 the even-nastier Sandinistas ousted the Somoza family and imported their own brand of Cuban-inspired communism to Nicaragua under the benighted fist of Daniel Ortega. Nicaragua had a brief democratic respite. But Ortega returned to power, this time re-invented as a fascist dictator (the leap was not large).
The people he once purported to represent have now risen against him – just as the Venezuelans have risen against his bosom buddy and fellow socialist, Nicolas Maduro.
Dictators. Mobs in the streets. Teetering authoritarianism. What better time could there be to visit Nicaragua to see what the Sandinistas had wrought.
Don’t get your hopes too high. Other than a lot of defaced posters of Ortega and his vice-president (who also happens to be his wife and Evita-like successor), there was no hint of political turmoil in the area we visited. On our excursion, three policeman accompanied us. To offer-security, they said. In a dictatorship it is always questionable whether the safety of guests is being assured or political contact is being monitored.
But I was not in Nicaragua to preach the gospel of freedom. I was there to climb a volcano.
When I signed up for the cruise, I was concerned that the ship activities would cut into my exercise time. So, I looked for the most active shore excursions I could find.
That is how I ended up on the summit of Cerro Negro in Nicaragua -- an active volcano. The name almost made me decide not to choose it. "Black Hill" does not really have the ring of challenge like, say, Mont Blanc. However, at its base, it looked challenging enough.
Cerro Negro is the youngest volcano in Central America, first appearing in 1850. There are now 5 cones associated with it.
Its older siblings form an impressive chain of ash-spewing volcanoes. The presence of active volcanoes was a factor American engineers used to choose Panama over Nicaragua to construct the Panama Canal – even though the Nicaragua option may have required less excavation.
Anyone who has visited Newberry Crater outside of Bend, Oregon will be forgiven for confusing it with Cerro Negro. They are both about the same height (2500 feet) and are part of a larger string of volcanoes. As it turns out, though they are separated by thousands of miles, they are part of the same Ring of Fire that girdles the Pacific.
The ascent was just like any hike up the side of a volcano. Lots of loose rock and big steps. And the relentless feeling that each step takes far more exertion than the distance climbed.
No one can imagining saying it while they are climbing, but we all love indulging in the cliché that the effort was worth it. For once a cliché actually has the scent of truth. The view at the top was spectacular. Not only of the multi-hued crater in the original cone, but it is possible to see from the Pacific to the Atlantic (or Caribbean, if you are so inclined).
Almost every volcano I have climbed has a final stage I like to call post-panorama depression. After you get up, you need to get down. And getting down is seldom physically demanding or exhilarating.
This descent was different. It has to rank as one of the most thrilling times I have had since I gave up skiing.
Because the volcano is young, it has not yet recovered from its frequent eruptions. The cone is simply layers of volcanic ash.
There are two ways to descend. You can dress up like a Minion, and ride a toboggan at full speed. That was the option I wanted, but I had failed to tap my safe for money before I left the ship. I was a pauper on the slopes.
That left the only other option -- hoofing it. Rather than hiking down the way we came up, we headed down the same steep slope that the toboggans use. If you have ever tried to walk down a ski slope in powder snow, you know the challenge.
Our guide suggested shuffling down sideways. But, as soon as I discovered the snow metaphor, I had a better idea (one that the guide had suggested). Instead of shuffling sideways, I pointed my feet downhill and started a slow run that quickly built in speed. It was like skiing without skis.
The fact that there were large rocks buried in the ash and that some of the ash had solidified like ice on powder made the analogy complete. My Adrenalin high for the day was pegged somewhere past 15.
The next day we stopped in Guatemala, a country I had visited earlier this year.
Guatemala has managed to escape experimentation with the communism the Nicaraguans once found alluring. But its governmental history is just as sketchy and authoritarian. In an attempt to put down a Cuban-sponsored rebellion through the 1990s, a series of governments committed terrible atrocities, particularly amongst its Maya citizens.
My parents had a fondness for Guatemala through missionary visits in the 1980s. I must have inherited some of it.
I was surprised earlier this year that I had waited so long to visit. Our stop on this cruise was brief. So, I signed up for a second volcano hike. This time to Pacaya, one of Guatemala's three active volcanoes.
And active it was. We were miles away when we first spotted its ash plume.
The ascent was far steeper and longer than Cerro Negro. Realizing that tourists often trod off to more than they can handle, local villagers have followed the call of the free market by offering horses to those who try and just cannot hike the trail. For a price, of course. $30 (US) for the ride up.
Pacaya put on quite a show for us. Not only ash, but loud booms that made the cohetes northerners love to hate sound like a pilot light being lit. And when we got to the top, we were treated to rivers of lava streaming out of the cone. What fascinated me most was the sound the lava made as it cooled and solidified. Similar to the sound the ocean waves make when ebbing over pebble beaches.
Because Pacaya is ancient (being part of a caldera that is at least 300,000 years old), it does not have a fresh ash field for "skiing." Nor did we climb to the top of the active cone.
But, our viewpoint was close enough for danger. On a recent visit, our guide was nearly hit by a boulder the size of a car that the volcano had coughed up. We had to be entertained by the far more mundane practice of cooking marshmallows using heat from the volcanic rock under our feet.
At one point, I wondered why I had booked two excursions in a row that sounded similar. As it turned out, the only thing they had in common is that they were both great exercise -- and a lot of fun.
For people who believe cruises are for couch potatoes looking for their next buffet meal, I will invite you along on one of my next shore excursions.
Now, how about that zip line?
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