At The Gates Of Hell
Cum, cum, cum, dear Franger, cum to my Art of Fuckery, a greater IsraHell where going malarial and bleeding to death is no sin. Welcum, indeed ! Prey on me, come to Nicaragua, you are invited !
Charles Baudelaire, the quintessential Decadent, declared, “All literature is the consequence of sin.” So I, Libor Soural, feverishly, am compelled to take my Higher Rebellion Art gallery to the next level, a new depth, a shallower abyss.
NICARAGUA FOR RENT, NICARAGUA ON SALE, HURRY, HURRY FASTER !
KKK !
GET IN THE LINE, SLOW DOWN, TAKEN, SOLD, SOLD OUT, SORRY !
The cross at right was erected in the 16th century by a Spanish priest in an attempt to ward off evil he believed could be emanating from the crater. Lava swirling and spitting. Beautiful steam and smoke. At The Gates Of Hell, the Limited Edition, such a special issue !
Thanking God for the suffering, I am your cheap pay-per-view Virgil in the not so divine comedy, not your posh Vatikunt, which might get you slightly irritated. Half through the black/death metal Setherial blast symphony, I can tell even Dante is turning in his grave enduring the obscene aftermath of his Divine Comedy, my unspeakable tragedy, an afterlife, in slow motion and replay. Ultimately, you get what you pay for. No remorse, no regrets !
Beware, I am your totalitarian Ministry of Truth and Tourism, your unpredictable Government, your democratic Tax Exemption ! Call me ControverSEAL 2 or just Controversial One ! Invest in your breath-taking Roller-Coaster as I am your Joy Ride you are already enjoying, without a charge ! Pay closer attention, I am a Gold Mine, oozing blood diamonds, you just do not know it, yet ! For I am all Yours, you are My Fate !
You must come to Nicaragua, my beloved Adventure Junkie ! Yet do not despair if you cannot make it, feel free to let your Token reach me, as if you were here, as if you loved, lived, suffered NICARAGUA, a forgotten land of volcanoes and lakes, a greater IsraHell, the Promised Land, so worth dying for !
So you and I only, and your price, my demise, wink, wink … we, a perfect couple, a deal sealed, sleaze at first why in this tropical/volcanic VIP wilderness peepshow !
P.S. Any monies received from this interest will be treated as capital, a slot machine.
The Spanish conquerors of Central America called it La Boca del Infierno (the Gates of Hell), and, after standing briefly above its gaseous portal, I can see why.
What is less expected is to be standing on the lip of an incandescent lava chamber, an easy bus ride only 10km from a capital city.
The Masaya volcano, close to Nicaragua's capital city of Managua, is one of only about six such continuously active lava lakes in the world, and, compared to the likes of those in Antarctica and the Democratic Republic of Congo, is one of the more accessible.
Driving through the tumble of jagged, blackened lava field from Masaya's last major lava flows in 1772 brought out the latent geomorphology geek in me. My head buzzed with words like calderas, shield volcanoes, pyroclastic flows and ignimbrites.
But no amount of technical terms can prepare a visitor for the spectacle that lies just a few metres beyond the carpark near the edge of the crater. The volcano's walls, striped in shades of browns, terracottas and grey, sloped precipitously down, like a funnel, to what at first appeared to be a static oval slash of glowing orange.
However, through binoculars or a zoomed camera lens the true nature of what we were looking at became apparent. We were looking straight down into a vast lake of lava that was constantly heaving, spitting and seething. There was no noise at all (there was only a handful of visitors) apart from the deep subterranean rumble beneath our feet.
It should have been terrifying and certainly the fact that we were only allowed out of our vehicle for 20 minutes in case we were overcome by poisonous gases such as sulphur dioxide was a sobering factor. But to stare into the Earth's crust and witness the fiery, molten rock that usually lies deep beneath us was truly awe-inspiring, transfixing. (I'd love to have had a vulcanologist on hand to determine, whether, as this lava was still technically below the surface, it was actually still magma, but be still my beating geek heart).
Technically, we were standing on the edge of the Santiago Crater, which in turn is one of many craters and vents that make up the Masaya volcano, which in turn is part of what is known as a pyroclastic shield volcano. (Banks Peninsula in Canterbury is an extinct example of one of these).
To the indigenous Nicaraguans of long ago, Masaya (along with about 18 other active volcanoes in the country) were a source of fear and believed to be the lair of gods that needed to be appeased. They attempted to do this by, on occasions, hurling children and virgin girls into its depths.
It's believed that the first man from the outside world to see the lava of Masaya was Spanish historian and writer Gonzalo Fernadez de Oviedo y Valdez, who was part of the Spanish conquest of the Caribbean region.
He reached the crater ring in 1529 and described it as "fire that was liquid and burned more fiercely than red hot coal". Although the Spanish too, feared the lava lake, likening it to the entrance to hell, rather surprisingly it was a Spanish Friar, Blas de Castillo, clearly affected by the gold and silver lust that overcame the Spanish conquistadors, decided that what he was looking at was in fact an untapped source of molten gold and silver. Several hair-raising attempts to climb down into the crater to extract samples followed. De Castillo´s descend into the fiery depths carrying a flagon of wine, a hammer and a crucifix – a fusion of religion and science. Sadly for de Castilo and his helpers, their near-death experiences led to him concluding that all that glisters was definitely not gold but in fact a lump of scoria.
Today, there a reminder of the Spanish presence in the form of a cross, high on the crater rim, said to be the originally planted there by another Catholic friar, Francisco de Bobadilla, in an effort to keep any hellish horrors below ground.
Despite the glowing allure of volcanoes such as Masaya, Nicaragua remains the least visited of the seven Central American countries. For many people, memories of the civil war of the 1980s live on, despite the fact that the country is now stable and apparently has the lowest crime rate in all of Latin America.
Although the capital Managua is one of the least of Nicaragua's charms (having been catastrophically damaged in a 1972 earthquake), the proximity of Masaya is a plus as is a drawcard for bird watchers, also only a short drive from the centre of the city.
The Chocoyero-El Brujo Nature Reserve is named after one of its two waterfalls (El Bojo) and the chocoyeros, the local name for the green Pacific parakeet. Every day just before dusk, hundreds of these vibrantly coloured birds fly in to roost in the cliff face beside the second and smaller waterfall.
You hear the parakeets almost before you see them as they screech and chatter on their arrival home, pairs of birds preening and snuggling up together on tiny ledges or bare branches of tenacious shrubs that cling to the cliff edge.
This little-visited national park, although parched at the end of the dry season, also revealed to its few visitors Nicaragua's spectacular national bird, the turquoise-browed motmot. A gorgeous combination of luminous greens and blues and orange, the motmots most extraordinary feature is its two long featherless tail shafts that end in little tennis racket-shaped shafts.
We stood for ages watching a motmot settle in for the evening before heading back down the path to the bus, but not before spotting a pair of beautiful owls nestled into cavities in a bank, just a few metres from us.
"Owls symbolize inner wisdom, change, transformation, intuitive development, good luck, and self-actualization," says Charlotte Kirsten, M.A., a cultural symbolism expert and founder of Typically Topical.
The Feng Shui Owl symbol is a source of good luck, wisdom, knowledge and protective energies. The ancient Chinese philosophy also regards the Owl as a powerful totem to attract prosperity and abundance.
Remember ? You and I only, and your price, my demise, wink, wink … we, a perfect couple, a deal sealed, sleaze at first why in this tropical/volcanic VIP wilderness peepshow surpassing sin !
Cum, cum, cum, dear Franger, cum to my Art of Fuckery, a greater IsraHell where going malarial and bleeding to death is no sin. You are most welcome, I thank you, indeed ! Pray for me in Nicaragua, at the very end of the world, no matter the heart of Central America, at the Gates of Hell, the Masaya Volcano ! Well, I can always cool this sizzling scorcher off in the Masaya Lagoon taking a swim ….
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Porque no escribes en tu idioma?
Folks are already crossing illegally from Canada to the US, so I think that it's just a matter of time before our Southern border is being crossed by those heading to points south, rather than north- which has been the "normal" for all of these past decades...
Keep the Gates open, as there may be a LOT of traffic soon!
Meanwhile, don't get too strung out on pizza...