Day 4 - On the Road and Volcán Mombacho

On the Road

Driving back to Masaya from San Juan del Sur was a bit of an adventure. I did mention how driving here is, right? Basically, driving “straight” on a road really means driving in zig-zags to avoid pot holes, animals, bikes, cars, buses, you name it. Add rain on top of that…you’ve got a pretty crazy real life video game going on. I don’t know how Chris and Oliver do it. It would stress me out. (Oh yes, stick shift too.)

Another thing about driving is that it’s common to pick up hitch hikers if you have a truck. They help each other out here. Although Oliver has a rule: He’ll only pull over to pick up children, women, and cops. It sounds insane to do that in the States, but not every household has a car (unlike the States, where it’s what, one per person (of driving age) at least?!).

Anyways, the highlight of that drive from San Juan del Sur to Mombacho was driving by this school, and a bunch of grade school kids were out by the side of the road, looking for a ride down the road to go home for lunch, so they don’t have to walk in the rain. So Chris pulled over, and all these kids come running to the truck screaming and clamoring onto the truck…it was completely precious! They were so excited, and a lot of them stood up on the truck bed, bracing against the wind and the rain. You can see a couple of faces in the above picture. I find it a little weird to see Joy and I smiling and wearing our big glasses, but really, it seemed everyone was excited as we were to be in the truck.

We eventually made it to Volcán Mombacho, an inactive volcano that yielded lush, tropical greenery, and even coffee beans. We drove up to the top of the crater for a short nature walk, but since the clouds hung so low, right above the top of the volcano, we did not really get a view of the surrounding areas (which I heard would have looked pretty awesome). You could smell the sulfur once you walked onto the sight, and there were geothermal vents in one section of the crater. The hike was really surprising because you see so many types of plants growing around, and then you realize, ‘I’m walking on a volcano!”


Volcán Mombacho - The Tunnel


Volcán Mombacho

Oliver the Brave, leading the pack. The clouds were sitting right on top of the Mombacho, so we didn’t have a view at all of Granada, Las Isletas, Lake Nicaragua, etc., but we did get to walk through clouds. Reminded me of hiking in the Bay Area.


Volcán Mombacho

Taking a sip of the coffee grown on Mombacho. I don’t even drink coffee, but I had a cup and it was damn good! Granted I poured a crap load of sugar in it, it had a great rich taste.