Masaya Volcano, pottery, and handicraft market

We started today with some "leisurely" volcano hiking. We visited the Masaya volcano (active volcano) and hiked around the San Fernando crater (extinct crater). Unlike Cerro Negro, this volcano was covered in verdant vegetation, some of which was responsible for the scratches on Devin and my legs. From the top of the crater we had a beautiful view of the surrounding valleys including the Masaya lagoon that we visited before. A couple of parts had some difficult climbing, mostly because the lava rock is very sharp.

After hiking we got to visit the Handicraft

Market in Masaya City. We didn't really get much since most of the vendors had the same exact items and they were more expensive that what we could get from the stands set up in central park. By the time we were done shopping we were both starving and we had lunch at Mirador de Catarina, a nice restaurant overlooking Granada, a lake, and the islands of Mombacho. I had to order something special because there was a beef, pork, chicken, or fish option and what I got was the worst spaghetti I have ever had. It was mushy noodles drenched in butter with chunks of garlic. I recommend staying away from Italian food if you ever visit Nicaragua. Devin said his meal (pork option) was good.

After lunch we visited the "white towns"(thus named because all of the buildings used to be white - Eduardo thinks that the government should by cheap white paint in mass quantities and

supply it to the villagers for free so that they would still be all white), typical villages that produce all kinds of handicrafts. One of the locals showed us the process for making pottery. First, they have to haul the mud from a certain location and then they have to stomp on it to soften it up. They now use a manual pottery wheel, although back in the day it was made without a wheel. They do the initial shaping, then refine the shape. Then they polish it by scraping a rock over it, then by scrapping a certain seed over it, next they carve in a design such as turtles, butterflies, or geometric patterns. After that they apply color alternating with polishing, more color, more polishing, etc. Eventually they finally get to the step where they put in in the kiln and add a final polish of wax to make it shine. This whole process takes months and months. All this work and it cost me $9 for two pots. After the pottery demonstration we visited a couple of different pottery stops to see the different styles and levels of quality. Devin and I were shopped out and we went to bed early.