Nicaragua – Panoramas
Here’s a view from the observation platform at Masaya Volcano about 20 km south of Nicaragua’s capital of Managua. Masaya is active and regularly outgasses. This photo sphere was generated by stitching multiple images taken when the gas had cleared sufficiently to provide a view into the basin.
Here’s the location:
The panorama below provides a view from the summit of Concepción Volcano in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. We crawled on our hands and knees through warm ash on a steep slope to arrive at a narrow area that made this photo possible. Because of the level of outgassing, we could not stay at the summit for more than a few minutes, so there was little opportunity to wait for clearer views. The summit was seriously buggy, and we were continuously fending off stings, bites, and inhalations. And because this was taken in 2010, the technology (and experience) I had at my disposal was far less than today. This is easily one the grittiest and hardest-earned panoramas I’ll ever do.
Getting to this location was extremely difficult. It required an 11-mile round trip hike with a vertical mile of elevation gain through jungle and up the volcano. The upper half of the volcano is littered with loose rocks, so there was a lot of two-steps-up, one-step-back sliding taking place.