athleticgals.com

Even us driven types have to go on vacation every once in a while, right? So off to Nicaragua I went, only to (predictably enough) fall madly in love with a country full of volcanoes and lakes, sandwiched engagingly between two oceans. I can now assure you that salsa dancing more than qualifies as an aerobic activity! What a workout! I don’t know how many calories I burned, but I’m telling you, what a terrific way to get moving. Honestly. Sweating does not have to be a miserable activity. Note to self: dance more. A lot more. It’s funny how we get these ideas wedged in our heads about what constitutes exercise and what doesn’t. And how easy it is to fall into a rut over how we want to do it. I’m not yet poetry in motion, but it sure is fun to learn. And from what I can see, there are a lot of places locally to indulge this new desire of mine, because clearly, I have time for that….but I digress.

My other athletic adventure on this delightful international jaunt was the one I was most looking forward to. I told everyone that I didn’t care what else we did as long as I got to walk up and look into a volcano. This is a country the size of New York State with 23 active volcanoes and countless others currently dormant. The kind of place where people buy wind chimes not so that they’ll know when the wind blows but so that they won’t miss it when the ground shakes. Flying into Managua at night I could see lava glowing up through the darkness from the crater below. Awe inspiring. And sure enough, on a 99 degree day, we walked right up to the edge of the crater of the Volcano Masaya and peered into what the Spanish had dubbed, “The Gateway To Hell”. A couple of us raced up the stone steps. I’m not embarrassed to tell you that I wasn’t the first to the top. I ran. Up steps. On a 99 degree day in the full glare of the noonday sun in a place that smelled strongly of sulfur. And then we walked down the mountain. We took a tour of the caves that had been lava tubes not that long ago in geological terms and then we all walked right back up that hot and rocky hill. No more Tough Chick stuff for me; I’d left my water behind in the van and regretted it. Next time I feel a little adventure prone, I’m lugging it with me no matter what.

What a trip! It’s a lovely thing to sleep like a rock. Like a happy, exhausted little rock because you’ve been wearing yourself out having new adventures in a beautiful landscape with fabulous new friends. My challenge will be to keep this momentum going now that I’ve stumbled back into my real life here at home. I need to not forget the joy of discovering new ways to use those same old muscles. I also need to do more hills, ’cause I wasn’t the first to the top of that one at the volcano…  -DG