Blatts in Nicaragua: We're Batty about Masaya

After an unsuccessful, two-hour foray to find Benji a suit for his Bar Mitzvah, we gave it up and headed to Masaya National Park to see the gaping, steaming, venting crater up close. We hired a guide for a couple of bucks a head, and drove up to get a view of the yawning maw. Poisonous, sulfuric fumes rolled out of the huge crater, making it impossible to see the boiling lava, but it was still pretty cool!

Alberto, our enthusiastic and knowledgeable guide, took us into the mouth of a lava tube tunnel at the base of the cone, one of several in the area. We donned our silly hard hats (to keep the bats out of our hair, I think) and our flashlights, and entered the bowels of the volcano.

Inside the tunnel's cave, we observed stalactites and stalagmites, and giant tree roots coming down from above.  When we reached the center of the cave tunnels,  Alberto suggested that we turn off our flashlights and just listen, assured that the bats would not attack us.  When we were plunged into darkness, the squeaks and flutter of the bats seemed amplified.  It was strangely spiritual and otherworldly.  When we turned the flashlights back on, the air was filled with bats in flight.  Totally awesome!

After the cave, Alberto led us to the ridge between the craters, where the wind roared and swirled around us, threatening to whisk us off the ledge,

I highly recommend Masaya to volcano hunters and cave-dwellers alike.