Disir
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- Sep 30, 2011
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A week before I reach Nicaragua's second-largest city, León, the pioneer of this burgeoning extreme sport that is volcano boarding, Zoltan Istvan, warns me in an email that the active Cerro Negro (Black Hill) is considered a "touristy bunny slope" by dedicated boarders.
"The danger and thrill of the sport comes from what comes out of the volcano: lava bombs and poisonous gasses, specifically. Molten lava shooting randomly with your back turned to the volcano when you're riding down it," he says, naming the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea as hardcore volcano boarding hotspots.
However, boarding the Cerro Negro is no small feat. The world's most-active cinder cone volcano and the youngest in Central America, it stands at 2,380 ft and, since it was born in 1850, it has erupted 20 times with the last blast coming in 1999, and has been ranked fourth as one of the most death-defying travel destinations in the world. Our Australian guide helpfully lets us know that it is due for another eruption in the near future.
Volcano Boarding Down Nicaragua's 'Black Hill'
Count me out. What the hell is wrong with people?
"The danger and thrill of the sport comes from what comes out of the volcano: lava bombs and poisonous gasses, specifically. Molten lava shooting randomly with your back turned to the volcano when you're riding down it," he says, naming the South Pacific islands of Vanuatu and Papua New Guinea as hardcore volcano boarding hotspots.
However, boarding the Cerro Negro is no small feat. The world's most-active cinder cone volcano and the youngest in Central America, it stands at 2,380 ft and, since it was born in 1850, it has erupted 20 times with the last blast coming in 1999, and has been ranked fourth as one of the most death-defying travel destinations in the world. Our Australian guide helpfully lets us know that it is due for another eruption in the near future.
Volcano Boarding Down Nicaragua's 'Black Hill'
Count me out. What the hell is wrong with people?
