Volcano Surfing at Cerro Negro, Nicaragua (Nov 2007)

“Maybe we should have stayed at this hostel instead,” I mutter as we walk into the Bigfoot Hostel. It’s a bit grubbier than our newfound homebase in Leon, but has a much compensatory social vibe that is definitely lacking in our Hostel of Silence, the Lazybones on the other side of the old town. Too late now and we’re only staying one night in this town, Leia left the beach yesterday and established our bulkhead in this city while Melissa and I stayed to soak up hammock-y sunshine and take surfing lessons, an endeavor which as usual ended with me spat out on the beach coughing up saltwater. It was good that Leia left a day early though, good I think for all of us, this trip has involved a lot of tension amongst travelers and it was nice for Melissa and I to have a day when we weren’t worried about somehow offending Leia, and good too for Leia to have a day when she navigated herself around Nicaragua all alone, building some confidence as a third world backpacker. It’s always frightening the first time you’re on your own with nothing but a backpack on a dirty bus, heading to a town you’ve never set foot in where you don’t speak the language, but she seems to have done just fine, booked us into the agreed-upon hostel and has also reserved our spots on the volcano surfing tour. We didn’t know it but if she hadn’t been here the day before we wouldn’t have been able to go today and today is the only day available, so victory all around and we have arrived at the appointed time in the lobby of the Bigfoot Hostel.

Melissa has bowed out, she is feeling too sunburnt and tired from our surfing endeavors to tackle the mountain, so it is just Leia and I and the tension has simmered down, that day of space really helped and I am hopeful that maybe we can end this trip as friends after all. The lobby is crowded, a milling group of tourists from a variety of first world countries, we’ve got Aussies and Americans and Germans and Brits, all lined up and ready to go do something exquisitely dumb. There’s a placard on an easel with a few pictures of the mountain and a description of what we are about to do, “after an easy 40 minute walk up the mountain” as the placard describes it, we will “surf down the slope of volcanic shale at speeds up to 75 kilometers per hour.” We are advised to bring at least two liters of water each, and that we have, maybe this will be the one freakin’ time I don’t end up dehydrated and panting on the side of a Latin American mountain and out of water.

Our guides are Australians, they are the ones who pioneered this activity. We are subject to a brief orientation prior to climbing into the truck, Cerro Negro is the youngest volcano in the world, appearing in the middle of a cornfield about a hundred years ago, erupting out of fertile farmland and growing quickly to a height of about a kilometer before settling in to smolder menacingly. Australians being the second-craziest group of travelers in the world (the first being the Kiwis), they naturally saw the mountain and thought, “I must surf that pile of geologically unstable rock and ash! How fast can we go??” It is actually more like sledding than surfing, but surfing sounds cooler so we are going with that.

Into the back of the truck, ten or twelve of us crammed onto hard benches and we rumble out of town, a pickup with a payload of multinational gringos. We will drive for about an hour, we were told, and the weather is perfect despite being in the tail end of the rainy season, the air is warm and soft and we are traversing through increasingly rural roads, turning off the highway onto dirt track branching off of dirt track through lush, verdant countryside and crop fields. Little kids run out of things that I can’t really call houses, more shacks or hovels, waving and shouting as they chase the truck and we are all smiling back, big grins you kind of can’t help it. We all laugh, what must the locals think of this truckload of tourists going up to the mountain to do their damnedest to kill themselves in new and creative ways? Life isn’t challenging enough for us, waking and working and caring for land and children and relatives day after day, we are jaded and spoiled and we seek the thrills of life in ever more outlandish fashion.

We stop at the entrance to the park, or conservation station, it is a little unclear whether we are paying an official fee or an unofficial bribe, the line is always blurry down here, one thing is certain though we are going to pay somebody for the privilege of our suicidal adventure. We are waiting for a while there, the reasons again not exactly clear, this also something to be expected in this part of the world, and we can see the mountain now looming sternly above us, a cone of black rock harsh and devoid of any gentling vegetation, it looks like something out of the Lord of the Rings, we are entering Mordor. We can see the storm clouds coming across as well, not impeding the blazing sun yet but we are worried because we need to beat the rain, we can’t do this in the rain.

Back in the truck with still no explanation of our pause there, explanations are things you learn to let go of. We approach the mountain, curving around it’s flanks, and our guide points out the steep slope that we will be going down, good god that’s intimidating, I know the angle looks much more intense than it actually probably is, magnified and distorted by my disbelief that I am actually going to throw myself down it towards the rocks below.

Final disembarkation. Out of the truck and our guide, the absurdly athletic blonde woman, distributes a bundled plastic grocery bag to each of us, this contains our protective jumpsuit and goggles. She starts pulling sleds off the top of the truck and we each get one of these as well, it’s about four feet long by two feet wide, with metal sheeting on the bottom. It’s not terribly heavy, probably just a few kilos, but its awkward as hell to manage, there’s no good way to carry this thing, and the fact that we are carrying our gear up the mountain is news to me although there’s no reason that it should be, perhaps in the back of my mind I temporarily forgot that I was doing Something Unsafe in Nicaragua rather than visiting a sanitized ski resort type of place, somewhere with a lodge at the bottom of the mountain and little gondolas to take me to the top, I had vaguely thought that maybe they kept the sleds stashed on the mountain but as it’s volcanically active and could erupt at any moment that wouldn’t make much sense now would it?

We start off towards the trail, picking our way through boulders of pumice. No tree cover and the sun is hot on our skin, the heat absorbing too into the black rock surrounding us and radiating back from all sides. We are moving fairly quickly and the slope isn’t steep yet, we are winding our way around the base first to access the trailhead, this is the easy part of the hike but it’s a lot less easy in the glaring heat, awkwardly toting my sled and bag of gear while concentrating on placing my feet on a relatively solid surface, this is less of a path and more of a goat trail really, the faintest of indications that this route may actually get you up to the top without confronting a sheer cliff face. Leia and I fall behind quickly, we are panting and sweating and taking water breaks after ten minutes. There’s a German girl back at our pace too, we are letting the testosterone-filled guys rush ahead with the crazy Australian guide and we all agree that we will not be pressured to meet an unreasonable pace, we will not feel judged we will get up this mountain all in good time and never mind the clouds coming in, I actually kind of want the clouds to come because some shade would be nice. We continue up and I can’t help but think of that Biblical quote that I am paraphrasing in my head, something about not finding shelter under the tree nor the rock, wherever that sinner was it probably looked something like this.

We catch up to the rest of the group, they’re waiting for us. Our guide explains that we have completed the easy part and the next portion of our ascent is the steepest, probably on ten or fifteen minutes but to be careful, they haven’t done as much maintenance on the path as they should have since the last time the volcano rumbled its rocks into redistributed patterns. She sets off again, disturbingly muscled thighs pumping in quick rhythm up and around the shoulder of the mountain and we trail after, coming around the corner to see a steep drop off to the right and how did we get so high already, Leia and I are leapfrogging each other as we take frequent breaks and the even the German girl has pulled ahead of us, I am going very slowly I will not be rushed and I am incredibly grateful that I packed my heavy boots after all, the leather strapped and laced around my ankles all the way up my calves is probably the only thing that has prevented two sprained ankles so far because these rocks are unstable, and there isn’t even anything pretending to be a path anymore just a pile of rubble to climb over with a menacing slope of horse sized boulders to the right and this stupid sled under my arm or the best way to carry it really to balance the weight is to sling it on my back and use both arms up over my head and down again to hold it center but then I can’t use my hands to balance or catch myself if I trip and I’m not sure I can do this, I’m not sure I can make it up this mountain the group is far ahead now so much higher so quickly and my foot comes down on a rock and it shifts and I stagger sideways a step and there is just barely even a steps worth of stagger room before I’d go off the edge here, tumbling down and over and there are no bushes or trees to soften the slope I don’t go over but I cry out, I am shaking now trembling and I can’t go on I can’t go up but I can’t go back down either I sink down to the ground I want to lay down and press my body to the most stable surface I can find and grip every point of contact possible, the grit is digging into my knees and I am all the way down now and still clutching my sled for some reason and I can’t do this, I can’t do this.

Leia is several feet above me, she turns and sees me crouched down on the path, I’m crying now and I hate crying and I especially hate anyone else seeing me cry, especially Leia who I haven’t been getting along with and especially that group of strangers further up the mountain who are just starting to realize that something has gone very wrong back here but we are down a lot closer to the bone that any pretense of toughness or competence because I’M SCARED and I’M CLUMSY ANYWAY and WHAT THE HELL I AM DOING SCRAMBLING UP A MOUNTAIN WITH A SLED and I am not moving from here I am not, I’m safe here right now with my hands clenched into the gravel holding onto this mountain as if there is some centripetal force trying to fling me off the globe spinning faster and faster but I am holding on here.

Leia puts her sled down and begins carefully picking her way down the path, this path was never meant for descent because everyone goes up this way and goes down on the other side on the sled, there is a part of my brain that is still coherent, a small place very small indeed that is separate from the wordless scream of panic that has taken over my mind and body and that part is amazed that she is coming back, it’s not like Leia’s much more physically competent than I am in fact she’s actually in much worse shape and has even less experience with this kind of thing, isn’t she afraid that she’ll teeter and topple over the edge? Her arms are out for careful balance, that helps this sled is a huge part of the problem but that’s all academic anyway because I am never moving again, sled or no.

She stumbles a little as she reaches me, rights herself and crouches down and only now that there are ears to hear it close by do I realize that strange sound I’ve been ignoring is me, nononononononononoicanticantiwontnonononononocantcantcantcantcantwontNO, that is all buzzing out of my mouth without punctuation or breath through the hitching sobs spasming through my core. She pulls my face up to meet her eyes, tells me to breathe and I do, I take my first breath that I can remember since this began but I guess I must have been breathing thank god for instincts. “Another one,” she commands, she’s holding my gaze and won’t let me hide, won’t let me bury my face back into the ground, and I take another breath, deeper this time, and now I’m breathing so I can’t make that sound anymore, I am still shaking but it’s subsiding a little bit. The first thing I say on purpose, “I’m not going up,” and she asks me if I want her to come back down with me, “I ca-ca-can’t go down,” the sobs stuttering through my words and “Keep breathing,” she’s not going to let me slide back down into panic. Each breath is a like a solid brick of air that I am forcing down past my teeth and tongue, scraping raw and solid against my throat, choking me but I know I need it. Our guide appears behind Leia, she has left the group up at the top and come back down here to see if she can help. She’s going to take the sleds, both of them in all of her freakish fitness but to be a little bit fair to us she built this path, some path but she climbs this mountain twice a day. She checks with Leia, will she be able to get me up the path, it’s only a little further up the rough patch and then we’re at the top. Leia says yes, I want to say no way, uh uh, but my input has not been requested.

“We’ll do it together,” she grips my hand firmly and I’m not entirely sure how she got me to let go of the ground but I am holding her hand now just as hard as I was holding the mountain. “We’ll go as slow as we need to, they can wait for us.” She pulls me up to a crouch, I put my hands out and slowly rise on trembling legs. We take the first step and my foot wobbles, I immediately sink back down on my heels. “It’s okay, that was our first step. Now we’ll take the next one.” And we do.

Time has warped and stretched with the elasticity that panic gives it, so I don’t know how long it takes us to get to the top. When we do, I’m surprised to see it only took us about 45 minutes to climb from the base to the caldera, “easy walk” my ass and I am angry now, so angry why weren’t they honest who could call this easy? I’ve stopped crying and everyone is looking at me with nervous smiles, I nod with embarrassment that I am fine, really. The group is going down into the caldera to check out the smoking vents of sulphur, a steep path down and then back up and you know what I’m gonna pass on that one, Leia stays with me while I keep breathing, sitting on a rock and looking out finally, looking beyond the next step and the landscape beneath us is absolutely stunning, a breathtaking expanse of rolling fields with occasional trees dotting it, it looks exactly like I imagine the African veldt looks like from the top of Mount Kilimanjaro, we are here on the highest ground for miles and miles and far off in the distance we can see other volcanic peaks rising in the clouds. I halfway expect to see a great herd of gnus crossing the plains but we are not in Africa we are in Nicaragua, and looking at something else has made me forget for a few minutes how scared I am. The group comes back, apparently we missed out the caldera was “so cool” but I am entirely comfortable with missing the “so cool” caldera if it means I have avoided another panic attack.

We set off now around the rim, the path is about two meters wide maybe with a drop off the mountain on the left and a drop into the cone on the right. I’ve been dragging my sled but I can’t do that here because if it slips off to one side it will start to drop and pull me with it. The guide is worried about me, will I make it and I think so, I’m carrying the sled under one arm and then the wind comes up, making a sail out of the plywood and metal that I’m holding and without even a moments pause I sink to the ground. She thinks I’m panicking again but I’m not, or at least not yet, I have a little more control now and simply tell her that she needs to take the sled, maybe this makes me a total wuss but I don’t care anymore, there is really no coming back from that screaming crying bit so I am just going to do whatever it takes to get all the way through this experience and be damned proud of myself for doing it at all. I crawl a few feet further on the path before I have the courage to stand up, it’s just so frightening with my center of gravity that high and the wind and the narrow path but I make it around the edge.

There’s a wide flat space here, yards and yards of level ground and I unclench for real for the first time since we set out. We suit up, coveralls and heavy gloves and goggles to protect us from the abrasive flying gravel. The guide shows us the ‘surfing’ technique, it’s rather counterintuitive with one hand on the rope, body crouched on the board, and the other hand held up in front of your face, they’re experimented with different postures and determined that this odd configuration allows for the most speed and the fewest crashes. Technically our hands shouldn’t touch the ground at all, we are to use our feet for braking but they have also learned through experience that there’s no overcoming the instinct that kicks in when you start flying down the mountain to fling your free hand behind you to stop, thus the gloves. She says, “New rule today, the girls are going first,” she’s afraid that if we see the guys flying down the mountain we’ll never get on the boards, she is particularly convinced that I am going to be the problem and who can blame her, but I am strangely sanguine about this part of the experience. It’s like skiing, really, and I ski sometimes, not well but I do it, and even easier because I will be sitting down it is all about getting my center of gravity as low as possible and there are no cliff edges to fly off or trees to run into so I’m pretty comfortable with this.

Leia, on the other hand, while fine going up the mountain is terrified of going down. We do some practice runs, baby steps, and we decide that instead of one of us going first we will go down together, I wish we could ride together or I could hold her hand on the way down but that’s not possible on these sleds, I have some strength to give back here but no method to share it, she’s going to have to do it alone.

We push off and head down the slope simultaneously, and it’s actually both easy and underwhelming, I start slow and then try to build up some speed but as soon as I start moving with any kind of quickness I shift my weight, or something, the whole caboodle goes awry and I get dumped on the gravel, pick myself up and start down again trying to build momentum for that final sharp drop but damn butt in gravel again, I get down the mountain just fine but it wasn’t terribly thrilling, just sort of thrilling. Leia is still slowly winding her way down the slope, going slow slow slow on purpose and I can hear the occasional yelp of frightened delight, she eventually slides to a halt at the bottom and we regroup to watch the boys bullet down, crash landing with whoops of adrenaline. Last of all our guide comes down, she’s not on a sled but runs down the slope, just barely keeping her heels before her head. We have surfed the volcano and successfully outrun the clouds, the sun is setting now and we are all laughing together now and anticipating the mojitos that await us back at the hostel, clamber out of our jumpsuits and back into the truck and back through the bucolic landscape that we just saw from the top of the mountain, and a full moon is rising between the trees overhanging the road and the air is warm and soft and it is a perfect, perfect, beautiful night.