Not being able to find people that can speak English or French is kinda cool. It forces us to find other ways to communicate or it makes me practice my very poor and so not sophisticated Spanish, that consists in saying a few words that I know or adding an A or an O at the end of French words in the hope that it's a real word… and that it doesn't mean something else! But sometimes, I really wish I spoke Spanish!
On our second day to Granada, we woke up early with the intention of finding a bus to go to a volcano named Mombacho. Getting information in this country is not very easy. Bus schedules and bus stops are not on internet and when you finally find the bus station, there is nothing, nobody, no counter, no board, nada! We found info for the bus stop to get to Mombacho on a blog online so we walked there. We grabbed a good traditional breakfast on our way there.
And we waited… and waited… and didn't see our bus. After a while, we "asked" a kind woman if this was the right place to take the bus to Mombacho. And… well… she said a lot of words in very few seconds that sounded like blablabla… autobùs… blablabla… no… blablabla… taxi. So we assumed it would probably be easier to hire a taxi. Anyway, since we arrived there, we had had about 35 offers from taxi drivers. But it's not like back home! You have to negotiate your price. And we don't know how much it usually costs… A driver asked 200 cordobas (8$) but the woman who helped us didn't look happy and told us not to go with him. She told us to go with another driver because this was way too expensive. She hired another taxi for us and we paid 100 cordobas (4$). Not bad for 2 tourists that cannot speak Spanish!
The first 5 km of ascent of the volcano is a paved road and is not very interesting to hike so we took the shuttle. While waiting for it to leave, a guide showed us a family of howler monkeys. They are cute little monkeys but their howl truly doesn't match their cute little face. They actually sound like lions or tigers ready to attack you! So when you don't see them, it can be very scary! This picture is not fantastic but it gives an idea of how cute this monkey is.
We hired a guide for our hike because it's mandatory. He was very cool and teached us a few Spanish words and sentences… which, unfortunately, I forgot. Damn brain! But for a few hours, I felt very smart because I could have some sort of conversation with him.
Back to the volcano now… one interesting fact about this volcano is that it's also a cloud forest so it rains about 70% of the time and the vegetation is spectacular! I've rarely seen so many shades of bright green and charming flowers! I always been under the impression that a volcano was kind of tenebrous.
It was weird to be in a jungle, on a volcano. If it was not of the warm smoke and sulfur smell that went out of small holes in the ground, here and there, I would not have believed that I was on a volcano. Except for this very small portion of the mountain that had dead vegetation because of a crater that became active not long ago.
And another particularity of this place was the view. When the sun is out, you have an amazing view of the city of Granada… apparently… because this was our view! But it was still spectacular, in a different way!
After this tough hike, we hired a tuk-tuk to get back to our hostel. We paid more than the taxi we took in the morning but we didn't care. We just wanted something to put our bums on and enjoy the ride. We were wet, tired, hungry but happy!
We arrived to our hostel at about 3pm. We had a bite and a beer on the same street than the day before and left at 5pm to visit a very different volcano, the Masaya. This volcano was active and it was preferable to go at night to be able to see the lava. This was stupefying! It looked like angry waves of a devilish ocean and had an hypnotizing amazing red color! We could have stayed there for hours! Nature is awesome and so powerful! This rare splendidness was, in fact, an uncontrollable beast, ready to kill thousands of people and destroy entire cities! And we were there, amazed by it's beauty…
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