When you’re traveling for a long time occasionally you find a place where you get stuck, Granada is one of those places for us. We had originally planned 2 days here, but it’s ended up being closer to a week. We were lulled by the beauty of the city, the hectic chaos of the market, volcanoes to climb, crater lakes to swim in, and a hostel with a pool. Some days we chilled out, exploring the city for a couple of hours before returning for a swim during the heat of the day. Other days were much more active (climbing a volcano comes to mind), but all of them were good.
The volcano in question was Mombacho volcano. All the guidebooks list it as a good easy volcano to climb, but this is based on taking a tuk tuk from where the bus stops to the entrance and then a truck to the top of the volcano. This approach lets you enjoy the walks around the rim of the craters, without expending a lot of effort. This is not the approach we took. We probably could have spent the dollar for the tuk tuk, but it was only a 1.5km fairly flat walk, so we didn’t. The truck up the volcano on the other hand costs $20 per person, which in real terms for us meant catching it would equal 2 nights accommodation. There was no way we were going to pay that when we could walk it. We were pretty sure we could walk it anyway. We had heard various rumours about how long the walk takes, 2 hours, 4 hours, just don’t do it. Any and all of the above.
It starts off not too bad, although the slope is relentless and we were reminded how bad we are at going uphill. We had been walking over an hour before we reached the cloud forest, and although the scenery was more beautiful, the slope was steeper still. Once we got to the top the information centre had a model of the volcano and a guide cheerfully pointed out the near vertical part of the volcano we had ascended in the last 2km of the walk. I believe it.
Once in the forest we began to hear howler monkeys, some close, some further away. Turning yet another corner we suddenly saw movement, monkeys jumping in the trees above the path. They were everywhere above us and on both sides, and they were calling in full voice. It was amazing to be so close as they roared, such a loud sound to come from such a small animal. I was entranced. We took (yet another) break and pretended it was just to watch and listen to the monkeys, rather than because we were unable to go any further.
I tried to take photos of the steepness, but it never quite comes out. For my daily invert I laid down on the road and it was one of the scariest inverts I’ve done as even on the pavers I felt like I was going to slide headfirst down the hill.
At the top of the volcano we went on one of the hikes around the crater rim. The views were spectacular with Granada, the 365 islands created from one of the eruptions of Mombacho and Laguna de Apoyo spread out before us. Stunning, and we felt we had earned it.
The next day we took it easy heading to Laguna de Apoyo, which is a crater lake reportedly over 200m deep. We could believe it easily, having walked around a crater the day before which was a massive hole with near vertical sides dropping out of sight. We kayaked, lazed in inner tubes, and jumped off the pontoon into the lake. Jason attempted to teach me how to do backflips off the pontoon. He failed. Although that was probably the fault of the student rather than the teacher. Then we returned to our hostel, where we quickly got into the pool to cool off from the drive back to town.
We’re moving on tomorrow, and it’s sad to know that we won’t have a pool to cool us down anytime the heat gets too much. Although we are going to be staying on an island, so we can probably use the lake.
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