Nicaragua - Day 5

The geophy group were a little short today, so I joined Sara and Lee on the GPS whilst Andy, Hazel and Charles did the gravity readings. The day followed a similar pattern to the day before, but this time we went a bit further around the crater towards the old car park on the Nindiri crater.

After the first few readings, we parked at the bat cave and then walked around the rim to get the last three readings. Gas masks were needed at one point as we were in the line of the sulfur gases, but as were only walking gently it didn't feel too claustrophobic.

The landscape up here was quite bleak but beautiful. The other members of the group terrified me by peering over the rim into the volcano. The photo below left is what is left of the gate to the old car park.

We saw several brightly coloured butterflies up on the crater that looked completely out of place. There were also more of the bees digging in the ash; I later found out from Hilary that these were actually a different species of wasp. This time I managed to get some better photos and a short video clip.

It was a bit cooler up on the volcano; when we descended back down to take a final reading at A1 you could really feel the heat, and the thermometer read 42 degrees.

   

 

We had the afternoon off and travelled half an hour or so in the minibus to Apoyo. This is an old volcano crater that is now filled with water, and a resort has sprung up around the lagoon.  The other group were already there when we arrived, having walked down the inside of the crater doing a butterfly transect. It was great to have a swim in the lake and cool off, then we had a very pleasant couple of hours drinking and eating before returning to the hotel. 

In the evening we watched a really good video called 'Life on Fire', an hour long documentary about the ecology of the Masaya volcano, which contained some excellent footage.