Day 3 - Mombacho

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Breakfast again was delicious and this is definitely becoming one of the best meals of the day. I just cannot get enough of the queso frito as it is so delicious and the gallo pinto for breakfast hits the spot. Not sure how I am going to cope heading back to the real world after this trip and not having this breakfast everyday.

Today was an early day as we were on the bus at 9:00 am to head for Volcan Mombacho. The family had arranged a fantastic caballo vallo for us in a house up in the middle of Volcan Mombacho.

After the ride over, we got up to the spot where the busses drop us off in a little guard house and from here we transfer into army bus transports to go up to the house. It was raining and luckily we had our windbreakers with us and didn't get soaked, but this made the road wet and slippery. When you're heading up in the back of a truck through narrow winding steep roads the last thing you want is slippery and muddy roads, but that is what we had. It did make the trip up a lot more fun as we kept sliding around on some corners.

Once up in the house we walked around and began taking pictures everywhere. The views are amazing as you are above the clouds in some places and you have the huge top of the mountain behind us. It had stopped raining by now and we were all walking around looking at the jungle scenery off to the sides. There were monkeys in the trees and we began to try to call out to them to get their attention. Some responded and others seemed to just ignore us. Then the food was ready.

This was the best meal we had all week. It was simply amazing. We had steak, chicken, chorizo, refried beans, guacamole, and tortillas. It was buffet style and everyone had there fill from this delicious food. They also had some nice coconut pieces and dulce de leche for dessert.

Once we had our fill we split up into two groups. The first group was going to hike and do ziplinning and the other group was just going to zipline. We went on the first group and the ride to the top made the ride up to the house seem like a short little day drive. It was lots of fun seeing the side of the cliff as the truck would slip and slide around on the way up. The road is steep, narrow, and winding which made for a very interesting trip.

On the top of Volcan Mombacho they have an observation area and a little house showing the details of the volcano and the surrounding areas. They also have some history and information on the area. They gave us a quick explanation and history on the volcano and then we went to go walk around. We were suppose to walk around for 5-10 minutes, which basically meant you walked down to the lookout point to take pictures and then went back.

However, while we were waiting for everyone to take their pictures a small group decided to venture off and see where the trail went. We began hiking down and ended up in a tunnel area that was open on top and we began to run through it not knowing what was on the other side. We threw some rocks on the ground to form a little bridge over the water filled area near the end and the result was a fantastic view of the crater. After taking pictures and taking in the views we had to run back because we could hear the call for us to get back on the bus. We began to run back up the trail to the look out point on the top of the mountain so we wouldn't get left behind. The sky had cleared up by this point and we had great views of the crater and Las Isletas.

The ride down was a lot more fun than up because it was all downhill so the trucks had to be riding the brakes and when it sped up it would fly down. We stopped at the middle of the mountain area where the canopy adventure tour takes place.

The canopy tour was lots of fun. It consists of 9 different ziplinning stations, a jungle swing, and a deaddrop. The canopies are all new and well taken care of. It was a lot of fun and definitely worth doing. Especially for the price compared to other places. One of the highlights was Vivi freezing on the jungle swing. She wasn't scared, but the swing over a 40-50 foot drop was just too much for her legs, which refused to move. So the guide pushed her off and she made it across. It was a great time.

The ride back to the hotel was nice and relaxing because we took the "quiet" bus back. We took showers and relaxed a bit before heading out to dinner.

Dinner tonight was "interesting" to say the least. We didn't actually get to eat dinner (more on that later), but at least we got a fun story out of it.

They took us to this place that is rustic looking and they have live traditional music. The night started out allright with us sitting down and ordering drinks and food. Then the band began to play. They were good and played traditional songs and we were having a good time. Except we didn't receive any food or drinks. We had to go to the bars to get our drinks and while the rest of the restaurant had food we didn't even get our appetizers. After 2 hours of being there we had no food and no drinks and were starving. It was at this point that the head band guy decided to honor "Che." You could imagine how this went over with a group of Cuban exiles. Half the group got up and went outside to avoid getting into arguments with the locals and not making it out. After they finally finished we discussed with the manager the fact we didn't get any food and they brought out the bills. The manager told us to just pay for whatever we did get. For the vast majority of us we didn't get anything since we even had to go get our own drinks at the bar. We boarded the busses and headed back to the hotel.

So basically we went out to dinner for over 2 hours and never got to eat dinner. It did make for an interesting night and a good story afterwards, but not enjoyable while we were there.

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