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An angry, loud rumble wakes me up from my semi-sleep, having me sitting straight up in our tent, eyes wide open. A weird mix of excitement and fear takes hold of my body as I tentatively open the zipper of the tent and crawl out. The ground is full of yellow frogs and pointing my torch downwards I carefully dodge them to get to the open field, where I look up and immediately stand in awe. “We are going to climb a volcano; do you want to join us?” The afternoon of the day before, taking shelter from a 104 degree Fahrenheit Nicaraguan afternoon, we were sitting in front of a fan in the coolest corner of our Leon hostel when the lovely French couple we had met just before, proposed an adventure. A tent was borrowed, food and drink were gathered and after a night’s rest we were standing in the back of a cramped bus, zooming off into the countryside. Fellow passengers provided us with directions, and we jumped off the bus. The start of the path had us tiptoeing between mud pits, reeking of sulfur, and we continued through green, open fields. The advice of the travel guide who lent us the tent, not to stay overnight was momentarily forgotten as we gradually started climbing up. An old herder was up for a quick chat, as we tried to stay out of the way of his big horned cows on a narrow path between low, brown bushes. Clouds of butterflies added color. The Telica volcano is one of the most active ones in Nicaragua, the last eruption dating back only one year before our visit. Several cows and horses were killed by huge rocks hurdled out of the depths of the crater. We were reminded of the risks again as we stumbled upon a sign in the forest informing us that we had reached the last safe place to stand in case of an outburst. Onwards we went and as we came out of the woods a sublime panorama was laid out before our eyes. We were on a rim, looking out over a green plateau dotted with rocks and holes, leading up to a huge, wide cone, a steady stream of steam rising up from its core. The sun was setting behind it, coloring the skies red and orange above the hills and treetops. After we pitched our tents in a serene, but not too far away spot from the smoking cavity, we went up to face our potential nemesis. The hissing sound of the gas being pumped towards the heavens was as impressive as the cloud itself, now only a few feet away. We lied on our stomachs and stuck our heads over the edge to look into the belly of the beast. Lava tossed around below our bodies, creating threatening noises, suggesting the power that lied below. It had gotten dark and despite being excited, full of admiration for all we had seen and some little lingering worries about our unpredictable host, we tried to get some sleep. I am standing alone in the middle of the plateau. In front of me the crater is frantically blowing out even greater amounts of white fume than before, erecting a gigantic altar before me, demanding to be worshipped. The noise that lured me out of the tent turns out to be thunder, as all along the horizon, in every direction, the sky is filled with dark clouds and continuous lightning. A strong wind has picked up and has the white monster looming over our heads. The others have joined me in quietly trying to grasp what we are witnessing as we stare up and see a full moon mentoring all that is going on below, adding to the grandeur of the display. How long we stood there, I don’t remember. Our faces were still beaming with the memory of the mesmerizing show we were presented with just a few hours earlier, as we were sitting around the remains of our campfire the next morning. The wood was smoldering, as was the volcano, a tranquil scene compared to the events of the night before.