Nicaragua – TRAVELLING ON THE EDGE
These days holidays can be beset by health and safety concerns. Not so in Nicaragua, as David Rennie discovered to his delight when he took his family surfing down an active volcano.
My current home, America, has quite an odd attitude to risk – and never more so than when residents or visitors set out to have fun. Its national parks, though billed as vast tracts of wilderness, are policed by rangers of startling bossiness. The simplest children’s birthday outing involves signing sheaves of legal waivers. In happy contrast, Nicaragua is a country that treats visitors like grown-ups able to take decisions for themselves. This is just as well, for the Central American nation is built around nine active volcanoes, and in living memory has been battered by earthquakes, revolution and civil war. It is one of many reasons to like Nicaragua – and to hasten there for a holiday before the world discovers its lush jungles, near empty beaches and mansion-filled colonial towns.
