The Volcano Trail (Nicaragua)

I’m not sure that I knew a country called Nicaragua existed when I started my travels, and if I did I certainly didn’t know where it was. It is the biggest country of Central America (excluding Mexico), with a very low population of 2 million, and is the second poorest country in the western hemisphere behind Haiti. We travelled up its Pacific Coast, following a trail of volcanoes.

The first volcano we came to was called Mount Conception. The volcano and its slightly shorter sister stick up out of an enormous freshwater lake in the south of Nicaragua. It is about as typical cone volcano as you can get. We stayed on the island these volcanoes have created and spent a whole day climbing up and down the volcano. I’ve done a few hikes around the world now, but this was easily the toughest I have ever done. My legs hurt for days.

We started at the base and hiked up through rainforest filled with birds and monkeys, before coming out above the canopy in a grassland phase before arriving at the rocky zone at about 1000 metres. After hours and hours of steep climbing over rocks that were both hot and unstable towards the top, we made it to the very top (1600+m) and peered down into the crater. Then there was the slow climb down, where it felt like a misbalanced step would send you tumbling down the side of the volcano. I wasn’t surprised to learn that people have died on this hike. 11 and a half hours it took to go up and down, and those of us that climbed it felt like we’d just been on a week long expedition. It was intensely hard but so worth it. To be on the side of an active volcano, fuming with sulphur, and to see the enormous views of the surrounding lake and the volcanoes further north in Nicaragua, was great.

On the island at the base of the volcano our group split up and we all got put in a house of the local village people. The homes were basic, no hot water, dusty and dirty, the walls in the bedroom didn’t reach high enough to meet the roof, lizards and insects roaming free inside. It was real, and I hope they never build a hotel on this cool island. The family we stayed with had some cute little girls who we played with; the younger one (4) like to hide our water bottles and make us find them, and me and the older one (8) stayed up playing cards the night we returned from the volcano. Their mother cooked us the food they eat on a daily basis which generally ranged from rice with beans to beans with rice. Our minimal Spanish meant we couldn’t talk to any of them, but we managed little conversations with gesturing and a dictionary they had available. It must be totally mind blowing for these kids who only know their little island to have these strangers from strange countries on the other side of the world come and take their bedroom for a couple of nights.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Between the epic volcano hike and the stay with the family, Nicaragua was already becoming a favourite for me. But we had plenty more to see, and we got the boat back to the mainland and drove north to one of the oldest Spanish colonial towns in Latin America; Granada.

Granada was alive. It’s what I wanted to see here. Whereas some of the tourist orientated towns in Costa Rica were a little dull, the action on the streets of Granada, its busy market place, its colourful but crumbling buildings, and its street food options, made me wish we had more time there. Me and the guide had a discussion and agreed that no matter how fun the white water rafting and zip lining is, the things that are going have lasting impact, the experiences that I left home for, are the simple things like wandering through a lively market and eating what the locals eat.

One morning me and our guide Clare went to the local market for some iguana soup. This is a big grey area here, and I’m still not sure if I did the right thing by eating it, but here is the deal; the iguana is a protected species, but unlike other protected species that can’t be hunted for consumption, such as monkeys, iguanas are sold openly in markets and are a socially acceptable and traditional dish. The soup part was nice, the iguana meat was bony and tasted like chicken, as much as I hate to resort to clichés, but the iguana eggs were bad. It was interesting both to go and buy the soup in the market from a lady who does the same one dish every day all her life, and also trying something exotic.

Granada sits right next to a big volcano at the edge of the lake mentioned above, and a few k’s away on the other side of it is a crater lake. Water has accumulated in this big crater and now formed a lake 3kms in diameter and 200 metres deep. We spent a few hours there swimming and kayaking in the cool water. 

It was here that my friend Fok got bitten by a bee, which he has reactions to, and had to be taken to the hospital for a hydrocortisone shot.

Granada also marked the first robbery in the group. A Norwegian girl named Vilda had her necklace ripped of her chest in the street. Also, it was here that people had food stolen off their plates at restaurants by the street kids.

We passed straight through the capital Managua. This tour doesn’t take us into the capital cities of a few of these countries because it’s too dangerous. The WikiTravel safety advice for being in Managua is to not be there at all.

We visited Leon, the former capital, where we went to a surprisingly interesting museum and learnt about the crazy past 50 years of Nicaraguan political history. Its dramatic, to say the least. Assassinations, brothers killing brothers for power, torture, corruption, suspicious deaths, revenge murders - all within the highest ranking officials of the country. Totally out of control. Things are more stable now but corruption is, and will for a long time be, assumed to be the norm.

We were taken onto the tin roof of the museum to look at the view of the volcanos that trail, one after the other, passing Leon and running along the country. It was unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Our final stop was a beach shack that we could only access by small boat and walk though some forest. A total backpacker paradise, the whole group stayed in a big dorm. By day we swam and read in hammocks, by night we drank the local beer and rum and sat around a bonfire.

Nicaragua and its volcanoes were a hit, my favourite Central American country this far.