We go VOLCANO BOARDING???! – [Central America E19] Moto Travel Diaries

I bit it. Whew! Hey everyone! Welcome back to Notiers Frontiers Diaries. In the last episode, we entered Nicaragua. We explored two craters of two different volcanoes. One bubbling fire, and the other one water. That's right.

So in this episode, we go from Managua, the capital city of Nicaragua, to a smaller town called León. So we went from Managua to León, and it was miserably hot. So we knew we wanted to stay in an Airbnb because camping, which we like to do spotted here and there, it's just awful sometimes when you're in a tent, because it's like a greenhouse.

It's like being in a Ziploc bag. For sure. It's terrible. So yeah, we do like to camp a lot, but also Central America was proving to have a lot of hotel opportunities that were really great. And they're real cheap.

And we got into using Airbnb, and not in the sense of we rent out our own little apartment in downtown. But we rent an extra room in a house, and we get to chit and chat with the owners. It's like almost a hostel situation.

And I really like that, because you get to experience the culture. You meet the family there, and they'll always know all the local delicacies and stuff. They'll know, "Oh, you got to go down the street, you have to try this and that from the local place that sells these things." In Nicaragua, they do a lot with plantains.

They have these "amarillas," and they have plantain chips. They have fried plantains, they're so sweet and delicious. Oh, I was loving it.

When we got to our Airbnb in León, it was nice. But it was just so hot. And we had a ceiling fan that would revolve once every three minutes. There was no actual...

It didn't do anything. We were suffering. And the windows were those type where you crank the little thing, and they open like... Like the slats. Glass kind of slats of... glass. Glass kind of slats of glass? If you're trying to keep things in or keep things out, it's not the most effective thing.

I don't understand that. And we've traveled around Central, South America, and Africa, and I'm a huge fan of windows that go up and down. And a lot of these countries where there's malaria or mosquitoes, or all these diseases, they all have the windows that don't shut properly. Right. So the mosquitoes can get right in.

And they don't have proper screens... Just it doesn't make a lot of sense. And this was like the accumulation of everything having gone wrong with our little Airbnb, because the windows didn't shut properly. And then someone had attempted to make it look like they've tried to put a mosquito net over it. As a screen? Yeah.

It was like someone casted a fish net, and they're like, "Yeah, that's cool. That's totally good." We ended up putting our tent on top of the bed that we were to sleep on because there was no way... Those mosquitoes... I mean, it was like every square foot of air space there were just tons of mosquitoes in it. And it was so bad. And the birthing place was in our bathroom. Yes! I wanted to take a shower, and it's just like, "Zz, zz, zz!" They had one of those tennis rackets. Yeah, they knew they had a mosquito problem.

Yeah, so they gave us the tennis racket, and then this can of Raid that they're like, "Oh, just spray everything with Raid." And I was like, "Yeah, no. That's where I'm going to be living." So we rented it for a week, so we had to figure out how we were going to best survive within here. And you don't even have to find them, and swing this little electronic tennis racket. You just go like this... You just practice your serves.

Your Harry Potter spells... And it's just, "Bz, bz, bz, bz." It is satisfying. It is. And I don't like to admit to people about killing things. That's not what were... but these were evil.

Yes! And they were vampiric, because they came out after... They would all swarm together. Oh, it was awful. And then we'd just be in our tent with our little flashlights on, making sure there's none in.

And then just all night, you can just hear them. It was creepy. Making little lines of battalions right outside the zipper. Just waiting for you to come out. It was nuts. We should have turned the little racket on and hooked it up to the fan that only made one revolution an hour.

It would just be this constant, "Zzz, zz, zz." So be warned - there can be mosquitoes in León. There will be mosquitoes in León. So we'd go into town, and as we would cross the bridge into town, sadly the river had a lot of garbage in it, which is something that's always sad to see. There's a bit of pollution as we travelled through some of these larger towns. We could say the same thing if you walk down the streets of Chicago though. It gets pretty gross in New York.

It's never nice to see anywhere. No. But especially not like in a metropolitan area. But also in nature. Yeah. But it did have all of the creature comforts of big cities.

They had like a good burger joint, which was the first time I've had it in a while. And so we got used to going to that downtown area every day, and just exploring. It was really nice once the sun would set, and it would get a bit cooler out. But then the mosquitoes would come out. But whatever. Yes, that's what you have to deal with. But we had some online friends that we were meeting up there with, who were also motorcycle travelers.

Yeah they were riding a Harley Sportster and a Harley something else. Yeah! All throughout the Americas, just like us. Jyl and Chris from the UK.

And so we met up with them for dinner one night in León, and they were telling us about this incredible experience that they'd just had going volcano boarding? And I didn't know what that was. I'd never heard of this "sport" I suppose. Yeah, I pictured Silver Surfer or something going down a volcano. But as they're telling us, it's pretty much like bob sledding down a volcano. I feel like it's almost like snow sledding, just regular sledding, but on a volcano.

Which to me just sounded... I don't know how that is even possible. It was a thing in Nicaragua. And apparently it only exists in this one place in the world on this one volcano in Nicaragua. And they had done this, and they said it was amazing. And upon hearing about it, I was a bit unsure.

I don't really know how to visualize this. I don't know what to really think about it. But we did think about it.

They said, "Oh, the money you spend on it goes to charities for the local school children to get school supplies and things like that." So we thought, well, maybe we should go volcano boarding. We joined the tour in León.

They took us in the truck to the base of the volcano, and they prepared us with everything that we would need - this huge board which was made of wood and was extremely heavy. That we would have to carry as we hike up to the top of the summit of this volcano. Yes. I hadn't exactly thought through what this would involve.

There was not like... there's not a ski lift that goes up there. So you do have to carry this super big heavy board up there. And then this protective gear. You have this backpack that pretty much looks like a parachute. It's just this huge thing. And then you have to jimmy the board in between your back and the backpack.

And it's windy as hell, so you're pretty much wearing like this wing suit. This sail. And Marisa's just getting tossed around. She weighs 75 pounds. I hated it. I don't weigh 75 pounds. 76 pounds.

She would have gotten just lifted up in the air, and then she would have been like Hawkeye flying around from Marvel. First of all, it was hot. Second of all, this volcano is technically still active. Once you get to the top of it, you can feel the heat of the ground. You just dig a little bit of the ground away, a little of the loose soil, and then it starts steaming.

Yeah, you can see steam coming up from the ground. So not only is it hot outside, but the earth is like an oven radiating at you. You have this huge board that's pushing you around, and I personally struggle going up on hikes that go up a mountain. I'm always the last person, and I have to take a lot of breathing breaks.

And thankfully Tim, you stayed with me for those breaks. I wouldn't ditch you. Yeah. You carried my board for me. I had two boards, and wind. And I'm like, "Ahh!" I know! I felt so bad.

But I was just really struggling getting up that mountain. And hiking is not difficult, but I've climbed Mount Saint Helens, and a South Sister, and we had just climbed that crater lake. And so I'm aware of what hiking can be. But it was pretty tough on the legs, and your thighs start to burn.

Then you got these stupid boards. It was strenuous, for sure. But we did get up there. But there's this one little section that trails off to get to the actual summit where there's a crater to your right as well, and then the side of the mountain on your left. It just reminds me of... because you have to walk single file, and that side profile

picture from the Lord of the Rings. Oh yeah! The Fellowship. We're like little ants on top of this mountain ridge. And that whole region is covered in volcanoes, and so you can see as you're walking along that ridge, and there's all these colors to Cerro Negro.

It's not just negro, which is black, but the reds, and the oranges, and the yellows. And then you see all these volcanoes just rippling off in the distance, some of them still active, some of them dormant. Amazing. Just a very unique hike in and of itself.

It was well worth all the struggles of getting up that mountain. And we hadn't even done the boarding yet. So once we got up there, and took a little breather, they were like, "All right, it's time to get suited up." So... We all break out our Minion suits.

They're almost like hazmat suits. The whole thing just covers you, and the reason why is because you're going to be boarding down this volcanic pyroclastic cone-type sharp stuff. They're like little black rocks that are super, super sharp. And as you can imagine if you're sledding on snow, there's snow going everywhere. Well that snow on the volcano is sharp and black, and can be very... it can be very harsh on the skin.

"Harsh on the skin?" Like knives. Knives can be "harsh on the skin." You needed a protective layer. So we all looked like a dumber version of Breaking Bad, all in our little stupid suits. And then the backpack that you had on your back, you had to wear it on your stomach, and then zip up the suit. So we looked like a bunch of pregnant Breaking Badder people. We looked stupid.

But what we were about to do was stupid. So we looked the part. Well, it wasn't stupid. I just don't know the first guy who went up there and had been like, "Hey man, what if we like brought like... a board? And then like, you know, then we just went down it... on the board?

They're like, "Yeah. Let's do that!" But I'm glad that dude did that. Yup. Very well protected in terms of... It's not that this is hard necessarily. It's just sharp, and you're covered. So typically the worst that happens is you get, you might get a few scrapes on your jumpsuit.

And little fun fact - that's where they had broken a land speed record on bikes. That's even crazier. That's even crazier.

And they had pictures of the dude who had the land speed record, because it's... I don't know what the elements that made that such a special place. But it's pretty steep. It's very steep.

And it's all just this soft... I guess you could say pyroclastic... You just said that it was "hazardous to the skin." And then you're like, "But if you're on a bike, it's soft."

They give you a little brief on how to go down, to use your feet as the brakes. Whatever. I mean, there's not like a whole... You don't watch a video. You sit on the damn board... You can't steer.

You can only, if you push your heels in, the more you push them in, the more you're braking. That's what they said. So we all line up, and the guy in front of me, who's kind of overweight, he made it past the viewing point of where I could see him, because it's that steep. And he's just inching and inching, and then he's like, "guhhh."

He was going very slowly. And I was like, screw the brakes man! If this guy... This guy should have momentum. This guy should be... you know? And so it was my turn, I went. And you shimmy, and you shuffle, and you shuffle, and then you go.

And then I got to a point where I couldn't brake, even if i wanted to. I was going like super sonic. Crap flying around... And it was like I was entering the atmosphere of Jupiter or something.

It went from like, "Oh, this is kind of cool," to, "Well, I'm gaining speed," to like, "Oh!!!" I felt like Sonic the Hedgehog, and just, "I don't know what's going on anymore!" You said you tried to put your heels down to brake. And it was just... Like it would ricochet your heels back up at you. Yeah. It was crazy. And then! So I'm just flying down like a meteor, and there's a guy in the middle of the mountain that yells at the next guy when they could go, just to make sure everybody's safe, and if they need help or whatever.

And I'm just like, "Woo!" And he was like, "Tim!" And then I get to the end, and then the end of it is not as graceful and smooth. And there's bumps as it enters back into the earth. And I hit one of these things, and I did like Tony Hawk freaking gnarly 360 flip.

I bit it. And I couldn't see any of this. So I had no idea. I just thought he went down.

But I'm a cautious person, I like to not take huge risks, despite the fact that we travel around the world on a motorcycle. And you're going volcano boarding. And I'm going volcano boarding. Take those facts aside, she's not a risk taker.

Nope. And so I was like, all right, I got to use my feet as brakes. I immediately started off braking, and I kept the brakes on.

I kept at whatever slow speed I wanted to go at. And I was able to enjoy the views. "Oh, this is really nice." I was just going down slow and steadily, and looking around like, "Wow! Beautiful!" And from my vantage point, I'm like, "Oh, that's got to be Marisa." They're like, "How do you know? They're all in the same stupid yellow jumpsuit?" I'm like, "Because she is like the equivalent of a booger falling down a sand dune." It's just, that's Marisa.

I was going ****ing fast. I was going fast and I biffed it at the end. Did you? Are you ok? Yeah. Yep, that was me. And she did make it all the way down, and she was very happy.

I was like, "How was your ride down?" I was like, "You got to see this." And I showed her my little video. She had another GoPro, and it was like a minute and 16 seconds. I showed her my 25 second clip of me just plummeting down, and then brghghghg! She's like, "Whoa!" "Are you okay?" He's like, "Yeah, my ankle hurts a little bit." But then once everybody got down off the mountain, they said, "Does anyone want to go again?" And I was like, "Oh, no thank you. I don't want to do that hike again.

That was enough for me." And I wanted to, because I wanted to have a peaceful journey down. You didn't want the volcano to have beaten you.

Yes. You wanted to beat... to conquer the volcano. And it felt I think after your rocketing down the side that the volcano... ...had chewed me up and spit me out, and tumbled me. And so I made, even with my bum leg, I made the hike all the way back up. And then I had my leisure Marisa stroll down. And it was much nicer. You used the brakes? I used the perma-brakes.

I might as well have had an anchor and throwing it behind me, and dragged down. Yeah, it was much more soul satisfying to be able to look around, and not think that I could perish. So we did not perish on our boarding down the volcano, though we almost did, at least you almost did. But we had an incredible time, and that was just the beginning of our volcano adventures in Nicaragua.

So stay tuned for the next episode, and I hope you liked this video. If you did, please give us a big thumbs up, and hit the subscribe button below, and we will be seeing you next time. Peace, everybody! Bye! Stay safe.

2022-03-29 05:31

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