Only 23 kilometers from the capital, the Masaya Volcano National Park is the first, and largest national park in the country, consisting of a volcanic caldera with two volcanoes and five craters. Its crater “Santiago” has an altitude of 635 meters above sea level, and continuously emits large amounts of sulfur dioxide. The crater also maintains an incandescence inside due to a persistent lava lake, reason why it was object of veneration by the inhabitants of the area before the arrival of the Spanish colonizers, who baptized the active volcano with the name of “The Mouth of Hell”.