LEON

This weekend, SchuMustTravel finds herself in LEON (how does one *do* accents when blogging in America? there’s supposed to be one over the “O”), Nicaragua. From Wiki:

León is the second largest city in Nicaragua, after Managua. It was founded by the Spaniards as Santiago de los Caballeros de León and rivals Granada, Nicaragua [where Schu heads tomorrow], in the number of historic spanish colonial homes and churches…

León is located along the Río Chiquito (Chiquito River), some 50 miles northwest of Managua, and some 11 miles east of the Pacific Ocean coast. The drive from Managua takes less than 90 minutes. Although less populous than Managua, León has long been the intellectual center of the nation, with its university founded in 1813. León is also an important industrial, agricultural (sugar cane, cattle, peanut, plantane, sorghum) and commercial center for Nicaragua.

The first city named León in Nicaragua was established in 1524 by Francisco Hernández de Córdoba about 20 miles east of the present site. The city was abandoned in 1610, after an eruption of the Momotombo volcano, located only a couple miles away, which left extensive damage in the form of flooding from Lake Managua. The inhabitants decided to move to its current location next to the Indigenous town of Subtiava. The ruins of the abandoned city are known as "León Viejo" and were excavated in 1960. In the year 2000, León Viejo was declared an UNESCO World Heritage Site.

León has fine examples of Spanish Colonial architecture, including the grand Cathedral of the Assumption, built from 1706 to 1740, with two towers added in 1746 and 1779.

When Nicaragua withdrew from the United Provinces of Central America in 1839, León became the capital of the new nation of Nicaragua. For some years the capital shifted back and forth between León and Granada, Nicaragua, with Liberal regimes preferring León and Conservative ones Granada, until as a compromise Managua was agreed upon to be the permanent capital in 1858.

In 1950 the city of León had a population of 31,000 people. Nicaraguan President Anastasio Somoza García was shot and mortally wounded in the city on September 21, 1956.

The building of El museo de tradiciones y leyendas was once the infamous XXI jail before the 1979 revolution. There are also several political murals around the city.

ROATAN

Schu is currently on the island of Roatan. Some quick historical facts, provided by Roatan Gazette. And supposedly those ghosts, who have been assigned to watch gold, will tell you exactly where to find it if they’re bored of their post!

Roatan, the island located in the Caribbean Sea falls under the territory of Honduras. It is at a distance of fifty miles from the Honduran Island. It has a vibrant history that is woven with the legends of pirates, invaders, buried gold, Indians and a mixture of languages and races. Christopher Columbus had discovered Guiana, a neighboring island in the year 1502. The islands were already inhabited and the artifacts left in the caves by the inhabitants can be found today. Columbus was followed by Spanish explorers. They began mining gold in Honduras. The Spaniards enslaved the Indians and the Africans and they set up cattle ranches for providing food and living to the miners.

The English settlers also landed up on this island. William Claiborne was authorized to set up a colony on the Roatan Island in the year 1638. He was from Virginia.

A Dutchman raided the Spanish settlements in the year 1639. The French and the English also terrorized them. The English raiders came in 1642 and occupied Port Royal which was further off from the present day Port Royal. The Spanish however wanted to get hold of all the gold in Port Royal and led attacks against the pirates. The pirates were conquered and the Spaniards along with the Indians later moved on to Guatemala.

1742 saw the settling of the Englishmen in Roatan but Roatan was lost in March 1782 and finally the English had to leave the island in the year 1788. The Black Caribs who are a blend of the African Carib descent and the Arawak Indian descent came to live on this island.

Spanish is the national language in Roatan but English is also spoken on this island. The Roatan Island is a wonderful mixture of cultures, language and people. Tourism is the industry and the primary sports are scuba diving. The legend runs that ghosts or “duppees” inhabit the island.

Roatan has a rich history of the early days of the Indians, the pirates, the attacks to the modern day independence.

PACAYA

Today, Schu travels to a volcano. THIS volcano, to be exact:

Excerpts from Wikipedia:

“Pacaya is an active complex volcano in Guatemala, which first erupted approximately 23,000 years ago and has erupted at least 23 times since the Spanish conquest of Guatemala. After being dormant for a century, it erupted violently in 1965 and has been erupting continuously since then. Much of its activity is Strombolian, but occasional Plinian eruptions also occur, sometimes showering the nearby city of Antigua with ash…

It lies on the southern edge of a sizable caldera formed in the Pleistocene age which contains Lago de Amatitlán. The caldera has been the source of at least nine very large explosions over the last 300,000 years, erupting a total of about 70 km³ of magma…

About 1,100 years ago, the volcano's edifice collapsed, causing a huge landslide. Deposits from the landslide travelled about 25 km from the volcano down to the Pacific coastal plain. The landslide left a large crater, within which the current active cone has grown. The presence of a magma chamber at shallow depths beneath Pacaya means that distortion of the cone leading to instability and future landslides remains a hazard to the surrounding areas…

Following the end of the Guatemalan Civil War in 1996, endemic poverty and the large numbers of guns held by the general populace led to an upsurge in crime rates, and Pacaya was one of a number of popular tourist sites where armed robbery became a serious risk. Tour groups began visiting the volcano with armed guards, and incidents of robbery on the mountain have become very rare…

During 2006 a slight increase in Pacaya's volcanic activity allowed for the creation of several lava rivers that slowly flow down its slope. Word about this phenomenon spread, and local tourism increased significantly.”

Damn. I hope Schu remembered to hire an armed guard… Remember, Schu, if it erupts and there’s a rockfall, roll into a tight ball!