Slept in until 9 am. then John Paulo had egg ranchos ready for us. Ate, showered, and headed into town to get some souvenior shopping completed. Found a really cute dress and bags for the roommates. Then we headed to the hammock shop to get the hammock for 250 cordobas-- which is about 12 dollars. Its pretty sweet. We then headed back and got our bags ready for the volcano boarding and dropped off the souveniors. We wanted pizza and so we sat down at hollywood pizza, at 110 and it would be 25 minutes for the pizza, so we went to burger king instead. got a whopper junior and fries. mmmm. then we headed to bigfoot where we were 10 minutes early this time, boarded the truck and was able to SIT down, instead of standing in the middle. paid 25 cordobas for a beer for the road and set out on the hour drive through the boonies on the bumpy gravel road complete with twigs that would smack you becuase the truck was wider than the road. Met a girl from sweden and a dude from vancouver. Before long, we arrive to the volcano national park where we paid our 5US$ entry fee and used the bathrooms before hoping back on the truck for the 5 minute ride up the mountain. We got off the truck and gathered our orange bags, our sleds and goggles. then we started the 45 minute hike up the mountain. There was an older couple (fifties) that brought in the rear. We stopped twice after 10 minutes of hiking, before the steepest incline climb that took about 15 minutes, then it plateaued again. Got a group picture overlooking the distant volcanos and the distant sea (pacific ocean). Then we suited up in our bright orange jumpsuits. Why-- because they are to prevent road rash if you wreck your sled down the mountain.
Then Ross (our tour guide from detroit) gave us the DL on sledding. 1. sit back on your sled. 2. feet stay off the sled. 3. if you want to turn to the left tap your left foot twice. 4. if you want to turn to the right tap your right foot twice. 4. if you wreck-- Let go of the sled, and cover your face. Luis-Alberto and I were the fourth and fifth person to go. The first person wrecked. and the second person wrecked. Luis Alberto did not wreck. I went and it was quite intense.... if you lean forward you go slow, if you lean back you go fast. my sled kept trying to turn and i did not want to wreck. made it to the bottom without wrecking.
A couple people after me, wrecked just beyond the 'bunny hill' portion of the hill where the inclinde drops to 45 degrees. fell off the sled and tumbled about thirty feet down the mountain and his sled came to a stop in the path. just beyond where everyone up top could see. first person after him made it without wrecking. going directly OVER the sled. next person, was the vancouver dude totally wrecked at his sled. tumbled. tried to go up the mountain to get the sled, went ten steps and decided it was too hard to climb up the hill and turned around and went back down the mountain. Finally the dude that tumbled made it to his sled and made it down the rest of the mountain. Everyone else made it down with little concern and Ross our tour guide ran down the mountain. Then we all enjoyed a beer before heading back the hour and a half back to town. Made it back with only a few swaps of the twigs along side the road for our two free mojitos. Cory-- a dude from colorado, Daniel and Jeffrey were a couple dudes from canada and Braeden a dude from vancouver all showered and had a couple mojitos and beer with us before Luis-Alberto and I lead the way to a nearby italian place. We meandered through the restaurant to the outdoor patio where we ordered 5 pizzas (for ten of us) and 3 rounds of flor de cana cokes and soda water. We cheersed and had a great time. Then we went to another place where they had karokee and we ordered two more rounds before Luis alberto and I called it a night. Went home, it was 2am. had to be up at 7am to catch the bus back to managua so i could fly out at 115pm
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