Nica-fricanagua!

Time is becoming more of the essence the further south we go, so after we left Utila we headed straight towards Nicaragua.

It's not possible to get from Utila to Nicaragua in a day, even leaving on the early morning ferry from Utila. We didn't want to stop in San Pedro Sula so we jumped on a Hedman Alas bus heading to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. We arrived, got straight in a taxi to our hostel and got straight back in a taxi to the TICA bus station the next morning. As we left Teguc we both found ourselves wishing we'd spent at least a day there, but oh well, something's got to give.

At the Nica border the TICA bus conductor whacked a $5 levy onto the entry fee for taking care of the passports for everyone, but we couldn't be bothered to argue this time.

When we got to Leon, it was a bundle for the taxis and we ended up sharing with two Norwegian girls, Ingvild and Eli. We all headed to Bigfoot hostel, which organises the original volcano boarding tours, and that night we all went to the cinema to watch Iron Man 3, with just about every other gringo in town.

Volcano boarding! Yes! We hiked up Volcan Cerro Negro for 45 minutes, carrying our boiler suits and volcano boards - basically, rather crudely put together sledges. When we were at the top it was looking like a pretty scary ride down, but then our guide told us the technique for controlling our speed. Still, I was a wuss, so much so that halfway down I couldn't get my speed up and clocked a mere 15km/hr on the radar gun! Eli was about the same as me, Ingvild a little bit quicker, and Ciaran did a lot better than us all, wiping out three times!

After a beer and a bumpy ride back to the hostel, we got our free mojitos and then it was time to get boozy. Finally, a party town where neither of us was ill!!

We had been hoping to spend the next day climbing Telica, but they overbooked the trip and we lost out, so instead we wandered around Leon, which has really nice architecture and plenty of murals depicting Sandinista revolutionary themes - Leon was the home of the revolution.

As a brief aside... I'm sure I'm stating the obvious, but the United States government has stuck its oar into the business of just about every country going. Yes, I know, we all know that already, but actually, the more I learn about the history of the countries of Central America, the more I am totally appalled at the underhand sh*tstirring perpetrated by the US government over the years, leaving me wondering "what exactly gave them the right and how have they got off scot free?"

Anyway, after our day wandering round we finally got to see lava today! Real life lava! It's only a bumpy 90 minute drive from Leon, down the eruption evacuation road, no less, then a 45 minute hike (more of a walk, really) before you reach the crater of Volcan Telica. We were perched right on the edge of the crater, looking down into the pool of lava below. You could see a bit of lava but the guide recommended that we wait until it got dark, as we'd be able to see more.

It was a chilly 90 minutes waiting at the rim of the crater, with clouds blowing over us and sulphur constantly billowing out of the volcano, but it was worth the wait! And the stumble back down the volcano in the dark!

The darker it got the more visible the lava became, until we could see the pool of it bubbling at the bottom for the crater. It was so cool.

Something else that we really wanted to do and have been able to tick off the list!