A Corny ending to a great adventure

---

Having successfully extricated ourselves from El Salvador we found ourselves in the last country of our mammoth trip…Nicaragua; the land of coffee and volcanoes.

We had pretty high expectations of this place from people who had gone before us and were immediately delighted as a large conical volcano came into view shortly after crossing the border from Honduras. A spectacular entry into the country and the views continued all the way down into the capital, Managua. Having not heard too many positives about the capital we moved straight on to the lovely colonial town of Granada.

Each of the Central American countries seems to have one shining example of a colonial town amidst all the crap and rubbish of its other urban areas. Nicaragua has Granada, which arguably was the most beautiful of them all. In typical style, not unlike Antigua in Guatemala, it was a story of cobbled streets with brightly coloured buildings, cathedral spires and volcanoes looming overhead. The downside of such a beautiful place is that it is very touristy; clean, tidy and not really an authentic Nicaraguan experience. That being said, disappear down a side street and you soon found donkeys with carts, and plenty of rubbish in the gutters, away from the view of the fat American tourists.

Having enjoyed a stop in Granada we hopped on the 4 hour ferry ride down to Isla de Ometepe. This island is located in the middle of the huge Lago de Nicaragua, and is formed by two amazing volcanoes. It was a gorgeous afternoon for cruising across the lake, and the views of the volcanoes as we drew nearer were spectacular.

In normal spirit, the following day we decided to climb the larger of the two, Volcan Conception. The volcano is a perfect cone; it could have come straight out of a geography textbook (and you know Matt just loves those!). We started out at 5.30am with our guide who luckily spoke Spanish nice and slowly so even we could understand almost everything he was describing; well almost.

The walk started up through thick forest that was absolutely packed with birdlife squawking away and it wasn’t long before we heard, and then saw, our first troop of howler monkeys. It had been a gentle start, but soon enough we started to climb rapidly, emerging from the forest into lower scrub and scrambling up a narrow lava flow. The day had started cloudy which assisted the walking, although naturally we really hoped that it would clear to give us some views. A little over half way up that our guide announced, to all of our surprise, that we were not allowed to go above 1000m (the top is 1600m). This was infuriating to say the least, for we been led to believe we would be able to go to the top (stopping at 1000m would feel completely like failure) and had we known otherwise we could always have climbed the other volcano (even though that was slightly lower). We tried to pursuade him, and he seemed more inclined to break the rules and take us up if the clouds would clear, so we delayed as long as we could watching as the clouds did gradually break up, hoping he would change his mind. As luck would have it, and with a quick look up and a “vamos” (‘lets go’) we were on our way. It was very exciting, and awfully naughty of us…but how dangerous can an active volcano be?

The climb after our break just got steeper and steeper, so that lots of scrambling was needed. It was not actually as gravely and scree-like as we had expected but nonetheless very tough, and bizarrely the vegetation remained almost right to the top and what's more it looked like rhubarb. Most odd!

We made the summit after about 5 hours of walking, and was it worth it? Hell yes! It was an amazing sight looking right down into the crater which was unbelievably deep - the mountain seemed hollow - and it was also surprisingly active. In fact it was so steep and dangerous we all lay down on the warm rocks and peeped over the edge of the crater. Steam and other noxious gases were pouring out of almost every crack in the rocks, so it was best not to breathe too much! A truly amazing experience, it was no wonder you weren't allowed up there! Given how active it was there was no time for lingering. The descent took almost as long as going up, and was far more dangerous, particularly for the less balanced among us (we know who we are!), but we made it down in good order, a total of about 9 ½ hours of walking in all.

When Matt mentioned a well-earned beer our guide jumped at the opportunity, and took us to a local bar; well in actual fact it looked suspiciously like his mate’s front room. All good by us, and the beer was cheaper than a regular bar, and his mate was in. Slumped in a rocking chair in front of the TV watching a DVD of 70’s disco music videos. His ‘rocking chair dancing’ to D-I-S-C-O was a sight to behold - it was D -delightful, I - incredible, S - super funny…ok you get the message!

The following day we had decided to do a bit of a relaxing cycle to explore more of the island to rest our aching legs. Relaxing it was not! The island is far hillier than it looks from the top of the volcano and cycling through ridiculous heat was far tougher than the climb of the previous day. It was still a thoroughly enjoyable day, well once the big hills were tucked under our belts. First of all we visited a lovely nature reserve on the western side of the island; it was absolutely stifling for the walk, but having an amazingly close view of a troop of howler monkeys was a real treat even though they were just lazing around in the shade. By noon the volcano we had climbed yesterday was almost completely clear of cloud (the normal pattern at this time of year it seemed) and afforded stunning views as we struggled back across the island to the eastern side and the best beaches going at playa Santa Domingo. A relaxing lunch and swim was all we had time for before returning to our hostel; tired legs, sore bottoms but really felt like we had done the island justice.

Back on the mainland, an exploration of the area around Granada followed. We started by visiting the market town of Masaya. The arts and crafts market itself was a clean attractive place geared entirely for tourists, the local market that resembled a rabbit warren couldn’t have been more different. It was dirty, smelly (with cockroaches, one of which charged poor Lynda who handled it with decorum of course!) , sold a whole variety of crap and not just the usual tourist stuff, and was a very enjoyable place to get geographically disoriented and watch two female hairdressers have a full on brawl. Always entertaining.

Volcan Mombacho loomed large over Granada, so we just had to explore it. For this particular volcano you don’t have to climb (thankfully) as there is a road that runs to the top through a biological reserve. We therefore spent our energy hiking around the top and not actually up to it. This area is a very rich cloud forest, a protected reserve, and we had some great views of the volcano and also were able to enjoy yet more stupidly gorgeous howler monkeys and various orchids clinging to trees. Half way up the mountain is a couple of small organic coffee plantations and we did a small private tour of La Flores. It was somewhat of a surprise to us that the guys doing the tour seemed to be really disappointed to have to take us, we were charged a ridiculous amount (in local terms anyway) but still they seemed very reluctant. In truth it was a very slow time of year to do a tour but it gave us a flavour of the process and just how manual it still remains, and as it was all in Spanish was yet another cheap lesson for us.

Flitting confidently along in the chicken buses we made our way out to the Catarina lookout for some excellent views over the huge crater lake of Apopoya to Granada and Mombacho in the distance. It was one of those incredible views that demonstrated just how volcanic the region was, and made us realise it was time to get the hell out in case it all went up. We flew out the next day to the Caribbean paradise of the Corn Islands.

About 70km offshore from Nicaragua the Corn Islands were pure Caribbean again, probably something like Barbados about 50 years ago. There are two islands imaginatively called Big Corn and Little Corn, can you guess which is the bigger of the two?

We stayed on the impossibly laid back Big Corn Island, that’s the bigger of the two!! There was remarkably little tourist impact and it was great just to watch real life pass by, the usual observations of this part of the world really - guys downing beers at 10am on a Monday morning, guys dumping plastic bags in the sea, guys lazing in hammocks, guys drinking beer. The island produced postcard views at every turn, with palm trees fringing white sandy beaches with amazing blue waters, real cliché stuff. There was snorkelling just offshore and although not quite reaching the heights of some places that we visited, was still great fun we never tired of it.

There was time for a fleeting visit to Little Corn Island, that’s the small one (you getting the idea now?). This had a very different feel as it was almost completely centred on tourism, less edgy and much more ‘nice’. It offered the same palm-sand-water view combo, on a slightly smaller scale, and perhaps even better snorkelling just offshore.

Our little beach break was to be the real end of the trip, and it felt like a holiday within a holiday for us, but three days was more than sufficient for us hyperactive travellers, and we winged it back to the mainland. Our final destination was a whistle-stop whiz around Managua. Typical of almost all Central American capitals it was gritty, dirty, apparently downright dangerous and not a place to visit at all. We found it very interesting and worth an overnighter and a few morning hours. Perhaps the unique thing about the city was that the previous heart of the city was destroyed by an earthquake in 1972, and owing to the risks of it happening again it has not been rebuilt. The ruined old cathedral stands as a stark reminder to that event and the whole area around it has been totally cleared and is utterly lifeless, the total opposite to every other city in this part of the world. Construction did happen further towards the suburbs though, and the best, well most ridiculous, example of this was the modern cathedral. Everyone knows that great pieces of architecture are often initially derided by the masses and take great vision to be allowed to be built, but what were they thinking with this one? A giant alien egg holder has seemingly landed in a concrete car park, and it would have been no surprise to us if it had taken off in front of our eyes. That or the city had just used up a bunch of gas cylinders. Either way an architectural treat, more why than wow, but you gotta see these things.

And that as they say was that! 18 months, or there about, and 21 countries. From luxury cruising in the Galapagos to chicken buses in El Salvador, too many memories to summarise but certainly a Corny ending (just like this!!!!!!!!).

---