So Sunday we went on our first ´out of town´ adventure. We (four other volunteers and myself) went to Mombacho to hike around the volcano there. We left Jinotepe early in the morning, and took various forms of public transit (which is an adventure in and of itself!!) to the base of the volcano. We then took a large covered truck, like this one behind Stephanie . . .

up the volcano. Once at the top there was a hostel/information building where we were given some history of the volcano and then we hiked around two of the three craters of the volcano. Since we were up so high and it´s the rainy season in Nicaragua the ´cloud forest´ that now covers most of the volcano was very real and so we didn´t get to see much of the view. None the less the forest is gorgeous and unlike anything I´d seen before.

Here is the view . . .

Some of the forest . . .

We had to go through a tunnel to reach one of the craters

Looking down the side of the volcano

A look out point . . .

So once we´d finished hiking we took the truck about half way back down the volcano and stopped at a ´canopy tour´ spot.  The canopy tour involves going on zip-lines above the canopy, so for someone such as myself who is scared of heights it was not the activity that I was most looking forward to that day, but definitely an awesome time once I took the first leap (quite literally). There were about fifteen platforms in all that you could go between and our four ´guides´were great and took lots of pictures (and even videos) for us. So here are some pictures from that adventure.

Us getting ready to go, me=terrified!

 

Me hanging on for dear life on the first zip line

All of us and one of our guides on a platform in the canopy

 

Don´t worry Dad I wasn´t brave enough to try any of the crazy positions but some of the others did

Our guides and Kaitlyn

I have two videos too from this adventure but for some reason can´t get them to post right now, I will try again tomorrow.

Buenos Noches, Lauren