Surf the breaks with the bold…Swing the treetops with monkeys… Climb the volcano with hot hands…Walk to the waterfall with butterflies…Dive the reef with green parrot fish. You're in the new Action Central:

When I can spare a look, the view is an eyeful: the domes of the four other volcanoes and, below them, gentle undulating farmland, a patchwork of luxuriant fields greened by the rainy season, and herds of livestock wandering the shady paths. León, the former colonial capital of the country, is only a half-hour's drive away. To the west, I can make out the distant blue shimmer of the Pacific. But here on the slopes of Cerro Negro, or Black Hill, the landscape is stark, burned clean of any vegetation. A lone hawk glides over the volcano and the sky turns moody—a perfect moment for a personal revelation, if I had time. Nearer to the crater, there's the stench of sulfur, and then I am peering into the pit. It looks as though its center has been pelted with eggs, the yolks and whites cooking side by side on this huge natural skillet of black rock, wisps of pale smoke rising from the light gray ash.

The volcanoes I have seen elsewhere in the world have always been safely barricaded and surrounded by camera-happy tourists. I have never stood so close to the mouth—nor been completely alone at the edge of the crater. This would become one of my favorite things about Nicaragua: seeing so much of it in my own company, minus the crowds.

My lungs now full of volcanic fumes, I walk around the crater to the other side and discover, worn into the rock, a much easier route back down. It turns out that the guide and I have parked on the wrong side of the volcano and done it the hard way. For some reason, the local government has removed the signs to the easy route. Which reveals another thing to love about Nicaragua: that your venturings here are largely unscripted. You can take the scenic, solitary route if you want—and you might not even realize, or care, that a more well-trodden version exists.

Inevitably, my impressions of Nicaragua are colored by the Sandinista revolution that toppled the Somoza dictatorship in 1979, the devastating civil war that raged throughout the next decade, and of course the Iran-Contra scandal. But the country wasn't always so violent. The normally cantankerous Mark Twain, who visited in 1867, grew effusive in his journals when he described the volcanoes of Nicaragua's Ometepe Island: "What a home one might make among their shady forests, their sunny slopes, their breezy dells, after he had grown weary of the toil, anxiety and unrest of the bustling, driving world." Today, under a democratic president and following three peaceful elections, Nicaragua has stabilized and is gearing up for visitors. Tourism is vital to its economy—the country still ranks second to last in the Western Hemisphere in terms of per capita GDP (only Haiti is poorer). Nevertheless, there has been a thirty-three percent increase in the number of North American and European tourists over the last five years, helped by a new generation of tour operators and adventure outfitters. The reasons are clear: In a country the size of New York State, seventeen percent of the land is earmarked for nature reserves, and you'll find seven percent of the world's biodiversity. The topography is so varied that you can hike, ski, and mountain bike over active volcanoes; stroll through rain forests full of pumas, monkeys, and butterflies; kayak amid a maze of freshwater islands in the region's largest lake; dive a pristine reef that is one of the Caribbean's best-kept secrets; and surf deserted breaks. All of which is why I bought a new pair of hiking boots, filled a knapsack, and flew down.