VOLCÁN MASAYA NATIONAL PARK

An easy and unforgettable day trip from Managua, Masaya, or Granada, Volcán Masaya National Park (carretera Masaya, tel. 505/522-5415, open 9 a.m.–4:45 p.m. seven days a week, $4 admission) is one of the most visibly active volcanoes in the country, featuring several naked, gaping craters and a constant stream of sulfurous gas, visible from as far away as the airport in Managua. From one of its craters, you can often glimpse incandescent rock and magma—but at only 632 meters above sea level, Volcán Masaya looks more like a vulgar wound in the earth’s surface than a classic volcanic cone (for that, just glance north toward Momotombo). The crater and its unique environs boast a visitor center, nature museum, hiking trails, and a road all the way to the dramatic abyss, which the Spaniards declared to be the very gates of hell.

  Volcán Masaya was called Popogatepe (mountain that burns) by the Chorotegas, who feared it and explained eruptions as displays of anger to be appeased with sacrifices, often human. In the early 1500s, Father Francisco Bobadilla placed a cross at the crater lip in order to exorcise the devil within. Not long afterward, though, it occurred to the Spanish that the volcano might contain gold instead of the devil, and—hell forgotten—both Friar Blas del Castillo and Gonzalo Fernandez de Oviedo lowered themselves into the crater on ropes with the intention of mining the molten lava. They unearthed neither the devil nor gold.

  Several volcanoes and craters make up the bulk of the park, including Volcán Nindirí, which last erupted in 1670, and Volcán Masaya, which blew its top in 1772.

  The relatively new Santiago Crater was formed between the other two in 1852. It is inhabited by a curious species of parakeet that lives contentedly in the crater walls, oblivious to the toxic gases and in defiance of what science says should be inhospitable conditions. You might see these chocoyos del cráter (crater parakeets) from the parking area along the crater’s edge. In April 2000, the Santiago crater burped up a single boulder, which crushed an Italian tourist’s car in the parking lot.