¡Viva Nicaragua!
From secret surf stashes on the Pacific to
untouched Caribbean isles—plus all the volcanoes and colonial plazas in between—Nicaragua
has the makings of a sporting paradise. Come discover Central America's red-hot
center.
By Kent Black
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Flippers away: Reef-bound off Little Corn Island, in the Caribbean east of mainland Nicaragua (Douglas Friedman) |
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There's only one real
rule to remember when skiing down the face of an active volcano in Nicaragua:
Don't fall.
With a couple of feet of snow, it'd be four turns down the 40-degree slope near
the summit of Volcán Cerro Negro, a 2,215-foot smoldering mound that last
erupted in 1999. On lava rocks, well, that's another story. Outfitter Pierre
Gedeon, who lured me here, has would-be schussers sign a release in case the
volcano blows them into space, but I was more leery of sharp little black rocks
standing in for powder.
I launched from the top, soon picking up speed, and that's when I violated the
rule. Because rock resists in a way snow doesn't, the proper turning technique
involves planting and jumping. Instead, I tried to slide, caught my edges, and
skidded down the volcano on my arms and chest. When I stopped, my forearms
resembled carpaccio. I didn't need to look at my chest; the dozen red matchstick
points on my shirt told that story.
Once I started turning correctly, though, the run was a blast. Gedeon, 37, a
Frenchman who grew up skiing at Chamonix and carved his first turns on Cerro
Negro in August 2001, did the last stretch in a straight line, lying back on his
tails. Halfway down, I paused to look around. I could see four active volcanoes
of the Cordillera Los Maribios stretching to the north, whitecaps on the ocean
20 miles west, and intensely green countryside rolling south to the horizon.
Central America's largest country—49,579 square miles—has heaping helpings of
what its
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neighbors offer: Caribbean islands to rival those in
Honduras, cloud forests and fauna to equal Costa Rica's, impressively preserved
Spanish colonial cities to match the ones in Guatemala, and enough secret surf
spots along its 230-mile Pacific coast to put Panama to shame. It has 19 active
volcanoes and dozens more that sit dormant. All this in a nation that hasn't
felt the commercial scythe of Cancún-style development.
Twenty years ago, during the contra war, U.S.-backed forces were fighting the
leftist Sandinistas for control of the country. Even today, many Americans think
of Nicaragua as a war-torn nation. But political and criminal violence is rare
now, after more than a decade of peace and with a stable government in place.
With tourism now the #1 industry, it just means that visitors spend more time
getting to know real Nicaraguans—and the experts who have gravitated to a
country where their dollar goes further than anyplace between Mexico and
Colombia.
During my two-week ramble last November—from the Cordillera Los Maribios to
adventure base camps in colonial Granada and León, from San Juan del Sur on the
Pacific to Little Corn Island in the Caribbean—I found the best things to do in
Nicaragua. And not all of them are crazy.