Volcan Mombacho and Las Isletas, Lake Nicaragua, Nicaragua
Our last day in Nicaragua was, as they say, “last but not least.” This day turned out to be full of surprises. First we started with a brief ride in Zodiacs to the port of San Juan Del Sur, one of the major ports in the southern Pacific region of Nicaragua with a good domestic fishing industry. Once on the land we loaded our bus for a 45 minute ride on our way to the Mombacho Volcano home to a protected cloud forest. But in order to access this heavily forest volcano top we faced a climb that in some parts is close to a gradient of 45 degrees! So after the 45 minutes on our bus we transferred to four wheel drive army trucks that have been modified for the transport of people to the reserve like the one on the picture.
Once there we sorted ourselves into different groups to take hikes exploring the tropical cloud forest, one of the richest ecosystems in the world. In just our short morning we managed to see great communities of epiphytes that live on top of the trees like bromeliads, orchids, ferns and above the forest a huge migration of swallows out of which we could identify both barn swallows and cliffs swallows.
After the visit to the cloud forest we headed to a private home on one of the islands in Lake Nicaragua for what was a delicious lunch and after lunch some of us went for a little exploration among the islands of the lake, looking for water birds and we saw northern jacanas, great egrets, green-backed herons, ringed kingfisher and some others.
And to our surprise just when we were ready to start going back to the ship our Expedition Leader told us that the Minister Of Tourism Lucia Salazar wanted to meet us in the colonial city of Granada for a brief question and answer session about the tourism industry in the country. We couldn’t ask for more for our last day in Nicaragua.
Our last day in Nicaragua was, as they say, “last but not least.” This day turned out to be full of surprises. First we started with a brief ride in Zodiacs to the port of San Juan Del Sur, one of the major ports in the southern Pacific region of Nicaragua with a good domestic fishing industry. Once on the land we loaded our bus for a 45 minute ride on our way to the Mombacho Volcano home to a protected cloud forest. But in order to access this heavily forest volcano top we faced a climb that in some parts is close to a gradient of 45 degrees! So after the 45 minutes on our bus we transferred to four wheel drive army trucks that have been modified for the transport of people to the reserve like the one on the picture.
Once there we sorted ourselves into different groups to take hikes exploring the tropical cloud forest, one of the richest ecosystems in the world. In just our short morning we managed to see great communities of epiphytes that live on top of the trees like bromeliads, orchids, ferns and above the forest a huge migration of swallows out of which we could identify both barn swallows and cliffs swallows.
After the visit to the cloud forest we headed to a private home on one of the islands in Lake Nicaragua for what was a delicious lunch and after lunch some of us went for a little exploration among the islands of the lake, looking for water birds and we saw northern jacanas, great egrets, green-backed herons, ringed kingfisher and some others.
And to our surprise just when we were ready to start going back to the ship our Expedition Leader told us that the Minister Of Tourism Lucia Salazar wanted to meet us in the colonial city of Granada for a brief question and answer session about the tourism industry in the country. We couldn’t ask for more for our last day in Nicaragua.
