Granada: Hot Streets and Cold Peaks!

Our next stop in Nicaragua was the pretty, colonial city of Granada on the shores of Lake Nicaragua and in the shadow of Mount Mombacho, another active volcano. We had booked 4 nights here as there seemed to be a lot to do in the region.

We looked at public transport and all the buses from Leon to Granada change in Managua the Capital, which is advisable to avoid as a tourist due to petty crime, so we got a shuttle to take us door to door for just $20 each.

The shuttle did drive through Managua, which looked way more developed with big retail parks and roundabouts, we probably could have gone through here without issues…

We arrived in Granada in the early afternoon and after dropping our bags went out to explore. Granada is way more polished than Leon, as we’d been told, the streets were clean and bordered with well trimmed trees and bushes, and horse and carriages lined up next to the main square ready to take tourists along the cobbled streets.

We headed to the cathedral, which was partially closed-up and looked like the ceilings were currently being painted. Some had been finished but there was plenty of white space still left, which I’m sure will be filled with amazing murals soon.

We had a smoothie bowl lunch then wandered some more streets, down towards a supermarket to get a few bits to cook ourselves. Food in El Salvador and Nicaragua so far has not been anything to write home about, (apart from Coco Calalah of course!) and it’s usually just rice and beans with some fried veg. So we haven’t minded cooking a little recently.

The next morning we did our own DIY walking tour, just based on Google maps and which church towers we could see in the distance, and we ended up following such a similar route to the actual walking tour, but most of the time they arrived just as we were leaving somewhere, so we still had mostly peace on our “tour”…

Apart from at the church of Señora La Merced, when a guy asked Dave if he could take just “one picture and one video” of him at the top of the tower, but then it turned into Dave being his personal videographer whilst he made a full on travel documentary, talking towards the camera about the church and Granada (all in Spanish, so we could only half understand what he was saying) and I’m not joking/exaggerating, he made Dave work for about 10 minutes!! 😂

We walked back the long way, via another big supermarket to stock up on snacks, and by the time we got back to the hostel, our clothes were soaked in sweat and so we camped in the AC for a bit and had a lazy day enjoying being in the same place for longer than usual!

The next day we booked to do a hike up Mombacho volcano. There are 3 trails you can do here, an easy crater loop, where you don’t even need a guide, just turn up and walk, and 2 guided walks, one moderate (Tigrillo) and one difficult (Puma). Since it’s quite tricky to get there and we’d have needed a taxi there anyway, then you have to pay to get a jeep to the trail head as well as entrance to the park (it’s an INSANE walk to the start point otherwise) it made sense to join a group tour (even though we’re not usually a fan). Our hostel seemed to advertise the cheapest tour at only $50 each (it would have been $40 to do ourselves), so it felt like great value for door to door service.  We opted for the Tigrillo one, as we heard the difficult trail was really bad…

But when we arrived at the park lodge, we were given a wristband for the Puma trail, the difficult one, there had been a bit of a mix up somewhere obviously, and we were on the tour for the difficult hike… We felt a little under-prepared and I wasn’t sure if my fitness or my knees would be ok, but it ended up being completely fine, and actually Dave and I ended up being the most prepared in our group of 6 😂 We had brought jumpers and rain jackets, (which we ended up needing) and buffs for the gases, and bag covers for the rain, snacks, enough water – and we ended up being the most fit/able haha!!

So perhaps the info I’d read online about the trek being difficult was exaggerated, or I’ve got a little better at hiking over the last few months! 😉 Lol

But yeah, we really enjoyed this hike and we are glad we ended up on the puma trail in the end, as we were definitely capable and it was the most interesting and longest, meaning we got more time on Mombacho and in the cloud forest.

The day started with a pick up from the hostel and drive to the base of Mombacho, here we changed into an official national park 4×4 – which other than walking (which we definitely wouldn’t recommend) is the only way up to the park office and start of the trail. This road is STEEP, like mega steep, and quite long, it seemed to take ages to get to the top.

Then you start the hiking, which walks the circumference of the volcano rim, around 4 different craters, active fumaroles, all the while walking through lush cloud forest. It’s such a nice walk. But although as I said, we were capable, it didn’t make it easy, it was a tough walk, with the change in altitude constant, up and down the whole way. Plus inside the clouds, the humidity is so high, so you’re constantly sweating, but also quite chilly, the rain jacket and/or long sleeve top was definitely needed!

We started the walk fully in the clouds, and so the first few viewpoints were very underwhelming. Apparently on clear days you can see all the way to Momotombo – the volcano near Leon, and clearly see Laguna Apoyo, Lake Nicaragua and the Islets of Granada, and even all the way to Ometepe island and Conception Volcano… But all we saw was this…

Still the forest was beautiful enough to keep us entertained, listening to the birds, we heard so many, and were able to identify a lot, but the dense forest meant we didn’t actually see many! The different plants and trees were amazing too, and so green, like every tree was full of other plants growing in the bark, bromeliads, orchids, air plants, leonas, mosses, ferns etc. and our guide was very good, he knew everything about this forest and kept us full of facts and details at every turn.

We also walked through a really cool canyon area which was a bit different.

Then we finally got to a view point where the clouds had moved enough to see!! We saw Lake Nicaragua and Granada, and the Islets of Granada, the over to Laguna Apoyo as well.

We started ascending towards the highest point on the trek and then our guide stopped us, I looked up and there was a beautiful owl perched in the tree over the path. It has bright orange eyes and little tufts on its head, it was really pretty. The guide didn’t know what it was, he said he’s never seen an owl like it before.  I got my Merlin bird app out and it wasn’t on there, I only found it when I selected for “all” Nicaraguan birds. And it wouldn’t let me click to say I’d seen it, as based on my location, this bird isn’t supposed to be seen here!! So either it’s way out of its range, or they are here but super super rare, not even the bird app knows they are here… our guide said it was one of the best wildlife encounters he had in 20 years on this Volcano. We were so chuffed!!

We stayed and watched the owl for a while before continuing our climb to the top of the volcano. At the chilly summit of Mombacho, we passed through the “dead forest” – an eerie patch of trees killed off by acid rain after past volcanic activity, a stark contrast to the lush greenery lower down…. but unfortunately for us, we got to witness this phenomenon first hand, and almost as soon as we reached the top, the clouds came back in, the wind picked up and the heavens opened into a big downpour. The rain stung as it was slightly acidic from the gases, and it stung our eyes and made us cough, we were glad of our buffs which gave us some protection.

It was so cold up here we were glad for our jackets. One of the other couples we’re literally in shorts and vests and really struggled, so we picked the pace up and practically ran through the forest!

Then we finally made it back to the park rangers office, it was about a 4 hour hike in total, so not too bad. The jeep was waiting to take us back down from the cool and rainy cloud forest to the hot and sweltering streets of Granada!

On our last day, we walked around the city again, this time down towards the lake and the East side. Then on the way back, we stumbled on a political street party,  with people waving FSLN flags and live music with songs about the Sandinistas and dancing on a stage.

We also got to enjoy a beautiful sunset and walked along the streets to enjoy the orange colour, painting the buildings.

We really enjoyed our time in Granada, but 4 nights was probably a bit too long, we had planned to do a day trip to Masaya volcano, as I’d read you can see lava flows there, but the information was old and as of Jan this year, the volcano experienced a landslide and you can’t see the lava from any trails now 😞 so yes 2 days would have been enough with what we did in hindsight. But staying longer in one place is really nice sometimes, to give you time to properly unpack and unwind, and just, go slow for a few days. As much as we both love travelling, it can be very tiring, not just the travelling itself, which on long travel days can be mentally draining as well as physically, but also we’re usually out everyday doing something new, so it can be exhausting eventually. So every now and then it’s nice to stay somewhere, and at least out hostel had a private bathroom (with an actual hot shower, omg it was amazing!) and AC. Which is quite rare in Nicaragua!

Next stop, Laguna Apoyo for some of Nicaragua’s best wildlife!