Masaya Volcano has been acting up, and the park had been closed up until a few days before Matt Whitman got there on his recent trip to Nicaragua. The rangers were allowing only short, supervised visits to the top if conditions were good, which they were when Matt started filming. However, a few minutes into making his video the volcano belched out a bunch of heavy, yellow sulfuric gas and he had no clue. Matt was big time under the gun to get the whole video finished in less than ten minutes (that’s as long as they were allowed to stay). Finally a ranger got his attention and told him they needed to leave, and as soon as Matt saw what was going on behind him he quickly obliged. Right when he got in the car the smoke rolled out of the crater and over the parking area. Matt was there with his wife and two friends, and they couldn’t see anything – literally no visibility whatsoever. So they put the air on recirculate and drove by as quickly as they could.
This video is interesting on two levels. First, the story about the history of the volcano cult and the Roman Catholic church that he went there to tell in the first place is super fascinating and raises good questions. Second, Matt kept his camera running enough that you’ll be able to get a sense of what happened while he was filming and fleeing.