Totally batty!

It's late and we're just back from the Volcan Masaya National Park night tour.

As has become customary, the description of the tour only told half the story and it turned out to be a little more 'interesting' than we had anticipated.

Approaching the car park at the first crater we were visiting, I was amused to see signs requiring drivers to park facing downhill, away from the volcano's rim, to facilitate a speedy evacuation should things get out of hand!

And on getting out of the minibus, I was rather alarmed to be handed a gas mask. But it didn't take me long to put it on - I soon started coughing from the noxious combination of sulphuric acid and carbon monoxide in the air.

This crater continuously spews out its poison and it was intriguing to be able to stare directly into it's cavernous mouth. Briefly anyway!

We then climbed to the highest point in the fading light to see the last of the sunset and get a spectacular 360 degree view of the park and all its craters and lakes, plus the lights of Masaya town and Managua... both of which seemed perilously close to me!

Now that night had fallen, we were off to visit two lava tunnels which have sheltered indigenous peoples and Sandinista revolutionaries alike but are now home to lots of rather terrifying wildlife.

Having already gleefully pointed out a rather large spider and oversized cockroach, our guide cheerfully announced that the probability of a bat touching you in flight is 1 in 1,000.

"How many bats are in that cave?"

"35,000"

"Right..."

Cue me desperately trying to remember what Marie (a zookeeper and my future sister-in-law) told me about Central American bat species at our going away party... it was something important...

But for the third time this trip, I made a mental note to thank the travel nurse for convincing me to have that rabies jab :)

It was actually pretty cool. We turned off our torches and listened to the flutter and swooshing of bats flying around us and felt the breeze whipped up by their wings.

I'm fairly sure, my Mum's just fainted, so I better leave it there...!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone


- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Location:Granada, Nicaragua