One of the most exciting and sought-after Central American adventure tours is said to be found in León, Nicaragua. Volcano boarding. Hike up the active Cerro Negro Volcano and board down its dramatic steep slope, toboggan-style, while wearing ridiculous protective orange jumpsuits and goggles. This tour is rated #2 on CNN’s “Thrill Seeker’s Bucket List” and yet I found it to be a major disappointment.

Ok, maybe “major” disappointment is too harsh. I did still have a good time on this tour despite the fact that I clocked next to zero miles per hour going down a practically 90° slope. So was expectation greater than reality? Yes. Was I bummed with my overall experience? Also yes. Would I ever give it a second chance? Maybe — perhaps with certain changes made.

Know all of your options

My boyfriend and I were staying in the Via Via Hostel in León, right across the street from Bigfoot Hostel. Bigfoot Hostel is the most popular choice for volcano boarding tours, and with such easy access from our own hostel, we didn’t bother “shopping around” for other organizations offering this tour. It later came to my attention that another organization, Quetzaltrekkers, offers volcano boarding tours and all of the tour money we travelers give them goes directly back to helping the community!

Inspect your board and gear

Having a defective board is not something you want to be stuck dealing with after you’ve made the hour-long hike to the top of the volcano. Upon arrival, your guide will hand out wooden boards and sacks of protective gear. Do a quick inspection to make sure everything looks fine before your ascent. The boards should have pieces of metal firmly attached to the bottom, and a rope for holding onto for stability as you go down. Make sure the metal is securely gripped to the wood and that your rope isn’t frayed. Check your gloves, goggles, and one-piece suit for any large holes or tears. Most of the jumpsuits on our tour had holes in the bums and my gloves had big holes in the fingers. I understand that high-speed racing (well for most people) down volcanic ash on a thin piece of wood gives the equipment a lot of wear and tear. But when it comes to your safety, it’s not unreasonable to ask for any questionable gear to be swapped or replaced.

Go in the right season

Now, I’m not 100% sure whether this is complete bull caca or not. But, when asking our tour guide why our fellow boarders weren’t getting a whole lot of speed, he said that this (October) was a bad season for the ash. In the same breath, he said people on tour the day before us had clocked 60 kph (37 mph), so who knows if the season thing is fact or not — seriously, tell me if you know! Because what I do know is that I stopped…STOPPED…while going down. Our tour group was sent two at a time to “race” down the volcano, but nearly everyone had to continuously scooch their bums to get any kind of movement from their toboggans — except this one big hefty guy who went flying! We all asked if we could ride down again, but in that guys lap. And don’t be fooled by the pictures which make it look like we’re tearing it up. The dust flying out from behind us is actually due to shifting and jerking our bodies and boards around in high winds. If “ash season” is really a thing, I wouldn’t choose to board in the Fall.

There were a few other disappointments at the time, such as not having a photographer along on the tour — though Bigfoot Hostel does now have a guide that takes photos and uploads them to their Facebook page for free access. We were also given a 10% off coupon to a cafe that we couldn’t use because it wasn’t even open on the day we took the tour. These things aside, if I had a do-over, I would book with Quetzaltrekkers and opt for a different season in hopes of catching more speed!

Have you been volcano boarding? What was YOUR experience? And seriously — who knows if there’s a better season for speed or not?!

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