A nice day-trip from Granada is a visit to the Masaya volano. Most people visit the Nindiri cone, Santiago crater being the impressive one constantly spewing sulfur clouds into the air. The Masaya cone is just next door and, good on us, we visited both.

Click here for a recap of our trip to Masaya

First stop, a museum explaining everything about volcanoes. There was this very helpful topographical map of the park, so I’ll explain: the whole area is the Masaya caldera, an area that was once a huge volcano that collapsed. Thousands and thousands of years resulted in reformation of the Masaya volcano, its biggest opening being the San Fernando crater (the crater we would later hike around), the yellowed crater off to the right. The crater in the middle is the Santiago crater, one of three located on the Nindiri volcano. Santiago is the showstopper that everybody visits as it is constantly spewing impressively large clouds of sulfur into the air. And they allow tourists to walk right to the edge and take a peek in.

A certain subset of parakeets live inside the Santiago crater, having evolved to resist the heat and the high levels of sulfur that serve as their protection from natural predators. They are most commonly seen in the morning, and, as we arrived around noon, we saw nary a parakeet.

The Santiago crater; I’m that green figure to the right.

Santiago pit

A recap with the GoPro

As we headed on a 90-minute hike around the San Fernando crater we were able to get a more comprehensive shot of how the sulfuric gasses rose and disperse. There were signs everywhere saying to only stay in the area 5 minutes and if you started having respiratory or eye issues, to leave immediately.

Look at these two explorers hiking at noon.

On the opposite end of the San Fernando crater looking back at Santiago

The Masaya caldera; this used to be a huge volcano

San Fernando crater

A well-deserved salad; Julien managed to get a nicely defined sunburn