Our guide Camilo told us that Masaya means "the land of deer and flowers" but on the internet I found that there are three possible meanings to the name:
"Place where there are deer", "Place between several waters or lagoons" and in language chorotega it means "Mountain that burns", due to the volcano Masaya.
The last one seems very possible to me :)
In 1979, Masaya became Nicaragua's first National Park, named Masaya Volcano National Park (Parque Nacional Volcan Masaya). The National Park has an area of 54 km² and includes two volcanoes, The Masaya and Nindiri Cones, and five craters, Masaya, San Fernando, Nindiri, San Pedro and Santiago. Santiago is the active crater. It is the only volcano in the western hemisphere where you are able to drive to the rim and if you have good speed, crash through the small wall and into the volcano...
This is the view of the crater over the wall behind the cars.
There are some small parrots that actually live inside the crater. They have their nests in cracs in the walls. The toxic gases doesn't seem to affect them at all.
On the way up to the vulcano we passed this round hill. Our guide said that under this there is activity because this little hill is growing every year. (couldn't find anything about it on the net so far though...)
In the park is an underground tunnel which was formed by lava flows, where you can find bats and look inside to see the glowing lava in the dark inside the volcano. We didn't do this on our round-trip. It is recommended to do this as a night trip, so next time I'll do that :)
The last lava-eruptions was in 1670 and 1772. After that it has only been degassing, and doing some huffing and puffing. One of the huffs and puffs was in 2001. There was an explosion within the crater that threw big rocks as far as 500 m away from the crater. Several cars got hit, and one person was injured.
So when you go up there you realize that it is vise to follow the signs informing you to park your car rear-end towards the crater, making it possible to make a quick exit if the vulcano starts to rumble....
So don't go up there hungry either, with a rumbling stomach, you might scare the hell out of the people close to you, and even your self.... ;)
The Spanish called the active volcano "The mouth of Hell" and in the 16th century they planted a cross close to the crater to protect them against the Devil.
Before the Spanish came the natives also made human sacrifices into the volcano to keep the gods happy.
The cross is named after Father Francisco Bobadilla and is called "The Bobadilla Cross"/"La Cruz de Bobadilla". There is a path with a lot of steps all the way up to the cross. Great view.
The flat area here is the San Pedro crater.
The smell up there is a bit like if you have just burned of some matches. Sulfa.
If you want to get an even better view over the area you have to climb up to the top of San Fernando. It is a short but steep climb up there. I'm really out of shape so my climb didn't go very fast. My friend who was always ten steps ahead of me stopped a few times and said that we didn't have to climb all the way up. Either she was beeing nice to me or she tried to use me as an excuse because she was tired herself :)
Well - I'm like the turtle, slow, but I'm getting there, so I climbed panting all the way up :)
It was worth it. The view is great.
There is usually a ranger at the top. Looking out for fires and keeping an eye on the tourists.
We where kind of lucky by the way. It was cloudy so the sun was not burning our necks today.
On the downside, the view also was a bit hazy, but we still could see quite far.
It is wise to have something other than sandals on your feet... (I brought my sneakers and forgot to change into them.) I didn't have any trouble untill I was heading down again. Then I got tons of sharp small gravels between my feet and my shoes. I survived without any wounds though...
When the rain falls through the clouds from the volcano it becomes acid, so a lot of threes there looked like this.
There where other threes clinging on.
And some beautiful flowers.
We where told to taste this red flower. It tasted sweet. Very good taste :)
These I think our guide called Perro Perro, but I can't find that on the net...
On the way down from the Park this fella cought the drivers attention and he stopped the car so the Poco Loco Tourista could get out and shoot some pictures of the iguana :)
Interesting links:
In english:
http://www.living-history-nicaragua.com/masaya-nicaragua.html
http://www.vianica.com/activity/2/visiting-masaya-volcano-national-park
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaya_Volcano
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volc%C3%A1n_Masaya
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_de_Bobadilla
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Francisco_Mendoza_de_Bobadilla
Espanol:
http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volc%C3%A1n_Masaya
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