Feliz Años Nueva on Volcan Telica

When we stepped out of the shuttle in Leon the sweat began flowing nearly immediately. We had heard that Leon was much warmer than Granada, but all the warnings now seemed understated. Compounding this inconvenience we realized that we had been lead astray by other travellers on Trip Advisor in their recommendation of the hostel we had booked. Regardless of these minor obstacles we were able to get out and enjoy Leon's incredible Cathedral and other lovely buildings. It felt like we were in Europe somewhere except for the lack of tourists, which we were very thankful for. Walking around inside and out of the largest cathedral in Central America we marvelled at the craftsmanship, paintings and sculptures. The streets were busy with people selling goods and picking up supplies for New Year's Eve which we learned is a time spent with family, not friends. You can really tell the value of family down here, children of different ages always helping and caring for one another and the elderly never walking alone. 

For our New Years Eve celebration we decided to book a volcano tour, as for the past month I had been picturing sitting on a volcano enjoying the sunset on 2014. However, even the best laid plans do not always work out as we have come to realize on more than one occasion during this trip. Our tour group was extremely unorganized and as a result we made it to the top of the volcano 20 minutes after the sun had set. Accepting our disappointment we still sat and watched the changing colors in the sky with thankful hearts that we could share this journey together. For Travis and I, 2014 had been a very challenging year for us as we dealt with a myriad of hardships that included grief, depression and lots of change. Discussing all of this in the growing darkness of 2014 gave us the freedom to leave it all behind and look forward to a new year. With our group of 11 we then proceeded to set up camp where Travis and I were informed we would be sharing a tent with a mother from Russia and her 3 year old son. We laughed to ourselves at the way our romantic volcano top evening was continuing to unfold. As a group we then hiked up to the crater of the active volcano and looked down at the glowing red lava in amazement. The smell of sulfur was suffocating at times and the sound of the volcano was like jets flying closely overhead. For the first time I felt like I was beginning to humbly grasp the power of a volcano. I smiled to myself as I often used volcanos to teach anger management to children and thought how anger is nothing compared to this monster. The stars shown brightly on our walk down to camp reminding us of home on the farm and then the coyotes howled in the distance and I closed my eyes and pictured myself there for a moment. In the early morning our guide woke us up to watch the sunrise on 2015. The wind was strong and the air crisp as we stumbled up a hill for the best view. As the sun rose over the peaks of distant volcanos our excitement for the new year truly began.