Hiking Volcan Mombacho was one of the highlights of our trip to Nicaragua, and one of the highlights of our very, very young lives.
Mombacho is only two-thirds the mountain it used to be -- it lost its top third in its last major eruption about 450 years ago -- but it's still a huge monolithic mountain that hovers over the city of Granada to the north (more about Granada later) and Lake Nicaragua to the west. And if there's one thing this blog has made perfectly clear, it's that we are uncontrollably drawn to mountains and the possibility of hiking. So naturally we headed to Mombacho on our first day in Nicaragua. Unfortunately, having been in the country for 12 hours, we had already learned that we were incapable of communicating with anyone, which was going to make it hard to hire the required guide to hike the best trail on the mountain ("El Puma"). So we had resigned ourselves to trying our hardest to find the Nature Reserve and then poking around the main touristy areas for the afternoon.
And that's when the heavens opened and sent Los Tres Amigos to rescue our adventure. "Flaco," Pedro, and Marcella (pictured below, left to right) were friends from Managua who had traveled down to Mombacho to hike "El Puma." And right before they were going to head up the road to the trailhead, they noticed us in the parking lot struggling to ask the guard for directions. Pedro, who is fluent in English (and one of only a couple people we met the whole week who spoke any English), gave us directions, and then invited us to share a guide and join them on the Puma trail. It was a post-Christmas miracle! And we were so excited that we forgot to bring along our water, snacks, good camera, and even Suzy's shoes.
The road to the trailhead is so steep and serpentine that only special vehicles driven by designated drivers are allowed to make the trip. We squeezed into the back of the truck and hung on for dear life as the truck wove its way through the mountainside rainforest to the trailhead.
The top of Mombacho is completely covered by rain forests, dwarf forests, and cloud forests -- forests with their own weather systems. Even on sunny afternoons, after it hasn't rained for weeks, water drips down from the canopy through several more layers of forest to the soggy ground, and gorgeous tropical plants grow on other plants that are growing on other plants.
In the midst of all this overwhelming beauty, there is one tree in particular that stands out: it must have been at least 150 feet tall, had huge limbs that actually had other trees growing on them, and was host to hundreds if not thousands of other plants and flowers that covered the entire tree like bark. We really wish we had our nice camera for that one.
The Puma trail was simply amazing. It wasn't very long, but it was super steep and twisted around the top of the volcano for several miles to several spectacular view points. We were so glad we had a guide (pictured below). For one, he was very good at letting us know which plants not to touch unless we wanted to die, get high, or be made sterile.
The trail went down...
The trail went up...
The trail went down again...
The trail crossed countless wooden and rope bridges...
The trail switched back and forth up the steep slopes...
And at times, the only way to continue along the trail was to swing from the vines...
OK, that part isn't true, but we did try swinging from the vines just for fun...
It was shortly after trying to swing from the vines that Suzy earned the award for the best line of the day: "I can't believe I blow-dried my hair this morning." But Suzy's the cutest even when the humidity and tangled vines have ruffled her hair!
We also saw lots of wildlife on the trail. No pumas, but we saw lots of reptiles, lots of tropical birds, and even a three-toed sloth (again, wish we had the nice camera). Another cool part of the hike were the many holes/vents in the ground that were blowing out hot air and sulphuric gases from the active volcano. And did we mention the views? The below picture is fun because if you look down the slopes of Volcan Mombacho you can see, in the valley below, the caldera of another active volcano that filled with a big lake (Laguna de Apoyo) since its last eruption. This is a small taste of why the Nicaraguans refer to their country as the "Land of Lakes and Volcanoes" -- a fitting description that deserves a lot more adjectives.
And of all the gorgeous views along this amazing trail, our favorite was near the end of the loop, when we had almost returned to the trailhead, and the forest opened up to show us where we had been.
And we will never forget having been here. If we ever have another child (not anticipated), we have decided to name him/her Mombacho - probably.
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