[This a part of the True Legends series I’m doing on my blog–about interesting things I’ve encountered in the real world that serve as inspiration for my writing.]
About an hour drive from where I live, there stands Volcan Masaya, a large caldera with steep walls over 300 meters high. At the bottom of one of its craters is a lake of lava that spews toxic gas.
Sounds inviting, right? Despite the hostility of this place, it has captured the attention of people for centuries. And this has created a fascinating (if not disturbing) history.
Long ago, the indigenous people threw virgins and children into the volcano. They believed a hag goddess dwelled within and that they needed to make sacrifices in order to appease her. Kind of like Joe Versus the Volcano…but a lot less comical.
When Spaniard missionaries and colonizers found this volcano, they called it “the mouth of hell.” In the 16th century, they erected a large cross at the top, hoping to exorcise the devil from that place.
But that didn’t stop people from throwing their prisoners into the volcano’s fiery gullet. Dictators and military leaders continued to do so up until the 1980’s.
Terrible Beauty
This volcano, with its dark history, is a national park that continues to draw in visitors and global attention.
“Good Morning America” and National Geographic featured Volcan Masaya as 1 of the 20 amazing places in their “Extraordinary Earth” series in 2020. That same year, Nik Wallenda did a tightrope walk across the wide mouth of its smoking crater.
My family and I keep coming back to this volcano with its elevated vistas that look out over vast parts of Nicaragua. I can’t help but find inspiration when I visit. (Kind of like how a visit to the sand dunes of Oregon inspired Frank Herbert to write Dune.)
There’s a story to be found in that craggy landscape of igneous rock, and the plot and characters are developing in my head. But’s it’s a story that’s going to have to wait in line behind a few others before it gets to the page. Until then, I’ll just keep on visiting the volcano and taking in its terrible beauty.
And certainly do my best not to fall in.
What strange and fascinating places are found near you?
Please share them with us in the comments below.
One of those beautifully dangerous places in the world, huh? I would venture a guess a view like that might have also influenced someone like Tolkien when he envisioned “Mount Doom”. In my own life, I’ve only seen 1 “active” volcano and it wasn’t that active at the time. A few years back, we were visiting a friend on the big island of Hawaii and saw the volcano there in a very “quiet” state (the only lava to be seen was a small little fissure which could only be seen well from the park station through their binocular stand. However, though not what we would consider a regular eruption, it has since “erupted” at various points on the island, decimating or eliminating whole neighborhoods, right up from the ground rather than a central cone. In fact, the park station we visited no longer exists because of one of these lava breaks. Here at home, we are in driving distance to Joshua Tree National Park (the largest of the few places Joshua Trees are found) as well as Sequoia National Park and the Muir Woods National Monument (which are 2 of the few parks that hold many Sequoias and redwoods, respectively). 3 distinct landscapes but have fascinated me. Like you stated about Volcan Masaya, these wooded areas have influenced my thoughts on some landscapes that are in my fantasies which, once I feel confident enough, I will try to bring to the printed word. Thanks for sharing
There’s an outhouse out here on our peninsula that is rumored to have been dug so deep that the guys who dug it were too old to make the climb back out when they finished digging. So, if you find yourself in need of the convenience of an outhouse out here on the peninsula, don’t. It could be your great great grandpa down there.
When I was growing up we had some woods out in the back of our house, and there was a rock we called echo rock for the echo we got when we sat on it and yelled. It’s not there any more, they built a development where echo rock used to be.
Nicaragua is on my list of places to go, now I have one more thing to do there.
Love your writing Jason. I miss you brother. Brings back good memories for me. I hope to visit you there someday down the road.