San Cristobal Volcano Erupts

A photographer on a photography forum, mentioned to us on Thursday night (Dec 27'th, 2012), that he "saw on the news that a volcano is erupting at present in Nicaragua, hope its not close to your location."

Well it turns out that it is pretty close at around 20 miles as the crow flies. It is easily viewable from Leon. We weren't aware there were new explosions since the big eruption middle of September. In the afternoon while having a snooze, we noticed a lot of uncharacteristic noise on the tin roof of our house.

At one point we felt the thick concrete wall of our bedroom sound like it was hit with a sledge hammer. We wondered if it was an earthquake - - - and it appears that once we checked news reports online, that there had been several explosions and tremors during the day.

Today we headed up to our secret and spectacular view in an empty field in north Leon. There was much more activity than when we had taken photos there a few weeks ago. It did appear that the ash columns had subsided a bit from 2 or 3 days ago. Here are some shots from today (3 days after the eruptions and earth tremors) showing a longer view with the ash trailing off to the west - as well as closer views including close up on the lip of the crater.

One photo when enlarged displayed visible pieces of material flying into the air amongst the ash clouds. From our experience at Volcan Arenal in Costa Rica, we know that these seemingly small bits, can be anywhere from the size of a refrigerator to a small car.