Hola amigos,
Will be heading back to work tomorrow; for this portion I will be working with the local epidemiology surveillence/ public health analysis body. I will be basically studying what they do, how they are organized, and how they collect data. Hopefully I will be able to contribute to their work as well- I will be looking at some recent data that has been collected and would love to help analyze it, hopefully culminating with a journal article. But we’ll see. I’m very excited to get started given my career goals in international public health- mega nerd fun!!!
At the time of my last post I had not yet been to the Masaya Volcano, what a cool place! I went on a night tour out of the city of Granada. The crater was really easy to see, as there was not too much smoke that day:
That is actually the largest and most active of a bunch of craters in this complex consisting of two volcanoes. The crater has been used for a variety of things over the years, from sacrifices of children and virgens to the volcano gods in indigenous culture to the disposal of (live) political prisoners by Samoza’s notorious Guardia Nacional. The Spanish priests thought it was the entrance to Hell, and I can see why. Although the pictures of this didn’t turn out, at night there is a red glow with smoke eminating from that inner crater.
We climbed to the top of the rim of another crater. As always, the strictest of safety standards were observed:
The sunset from the volcano (the cross is a replica of the one erected by the Spanish there to ward off the devil):
There are also lava tunnels that we were able to tour (don’t worry there is no hot lava in them anymore), created by cooling lava solidifying on the surface and producing insulation, allowing the hot lava to continue to flow beneath. These were once used for indigenous ceremonies, meetings to select sacrificial victims, and as hiding places for the Sandinistas during the Revolution. One of them is now home to a bunch of bats. In the creepiest (but also very cool) part of the night tour, you can sit by the entrance to the cave, turn off your flashlight, and wait until you hear the flutter and buzz of wings, then snap a picture. The following picture was taken without zoom believe it or not:
I am settling back into Leon but still officially have one more day of vacation, so I’m going to go enjoy it- hasta luego! – Dra MV
