While I'm up...

...I guess I'll post a few more photos.
I'll balance out the rainbow-vibes with some volcanic views...

And since one of the reasons for this blog is to process Before- and After-Nicaragua thoughts, I should include some landscapes of our Nica-life and our post-Nica-life...

So, here's a view of San Cristóbal, the tallest active volcano in Nicaragua, about 30 miles to the NW of León:

I happened to have my camera with me while running errands downtown one day. (6 mar 2006) It was a clear day, so I thought I'd take a few minutes and go up the steps of the cathedral bell tower to enjoy the view, and while I was up there, ash began belching out of the mountain. It only lasted for about 15 minutes, and then it calmed down...

A couple of weeks later, I saw it erupt again, but this time, just steam:

León is a safe distance away from San Cristóbal...but nearby is Cerro Negro:
It's appropriately named, no? "Black Hill"...in 1850, this was flat land--dry tropical forest and savannah...but in that year, black sand and ash began to burp out of the ground...and today it's a 1500'-tall pile of hot blackness. Weird to think of the town being older than the volcano, eh? (One of the craters is below, taken Jan 2006) Several times since 1850, Cerro Negro has blanketed León with tons of ash and sand...
...which is ironic, since the whole point of locating León in its current location was to get away from such threats. Around 1520, the Spanish founded the original city of León about 30 miles to the SE, on the shores of Lake Managua, in the shadow of the Momotombo volcano. (below, along with its 'baby,' the volcanic island of Momotombito) About a hundred years later, the city was destroyed by earthquakes and then covered by volcanic debris. (The ruins were unearthed only a couple of decades ago.) And so León was relocated to its current site.
As recently as the mid-1990's, Cerro Negro has erupted, and Momotombo still has enough geothermal energy underneath it to produce 10 percent of Nicaragua's electricity...yep, Nicaragua--it's hot...

And now, in our post-Nica life, my wife and I can look out at a visually more placid evening scene:
But the towns near the base of Mt. Rainier regularly have evacuation drills. Rainier is not likely to erupt à la Nicaraguan volcanoes, but if it were to heat up suddenly, its glaciated slopes would melt, potentially causing miiles of catastrophic rivers of mud to flow--"lahars", they're called...

Good-ol' terra firma...