The howler monkeys woke us up in the morning. Contrary to the name, I do believe the howler monkey sounds like a dog barking. After a refreshing cold shower and a delicious breakfast of French Toast with pineapple and coffee, we met our guide to the top of the volcano, Freddy.
Freddy gave us the rundown: 5km, 6-8 hour hike, straight up, muddy, don’t stray from the path. Then he looked at our shoes; we were all wearing sandals. When making plans for this trip, I asked Leslie if I would be okay hiking in Chacos with treads, as I’ve done many, many times before. She said sure, as long as they had treads. Chrystina must have missed that email, because she had Chacos without treads. Freddy was obviously nervous about the fact that he was going to lead three gringas in sandals up a muddy volcano.
The lower third of the mountain was fairly dry and the going easy. We stopped to watch howler monkeys swinging through the trees, paused to admire the co-op’s coffee plants, reacquainted ourselves with the difference between coca and cacao trees, and learned the history of the Nahault indigenous people while viewing one of the many petroglyphs remaining on the island.
The remaining two thirds of the mountain was mud. Although we had come to Nicaragua in the dry season, it had rained twice already. It was the first thing any of the Nicaraguans would say to each other in greeting- “Hello. Isn’t this rain crazy?” Apparently, dry season in Nicaragua means precisely that - absolutely no rain. What this meant for us, was that the volcano had received even more moisture than the usual misty clouds provided. Chrystina fell down a few times during the four hour climb to the top.
The lagoon at the top was less than spectacular. The volcano had been dormant for some hundreds of years, so the vegetation was abundant and there was nothing really to denote that you were standing in the crater of a volcano. All of the previous groups of hikers were hanging out by the lagoon. We washed off our muddy feet, ate some bread, and stretched before heading back down.
Down was bad. The other groups had left before us, leaving us to wallow in the mud they had so nicely churned up. What had been moderately muddy before was now like walking through my grandpa’s cow corral when the cows had been standing around all winter…Chrystina fell down at least five times, and Freddy became her human walking stick. At some point, my legs turned to jelly and put themselves on an autopilot. I almost fell once, but caught myself.
We hadn’t seen them on the way up, but the leaf cutter ants were out by the thousands on the way down. I had to be careful not to step on them as they trudged across the path in organized lines. I was enthralled by these insects. Not only do they line up nicely, but they also build significantly wide (to an ant) thoroughfares from their nest to the tree on which they are currently munching. Glancing to either side of the human trail, it was not difficult to pick out what look like deer trails with floating green flags skimming along. Leslie demonstrated how you could take a leaf from one of these long-legged insects and watch as he went right back to the tree to have another go.
It took four hours to get down the volcano. Showering did not remove the mud.
Dinner was a wonderful spaghetti with chicken and tomato sauce. While eating, a film crew up and introduced themselves to the diners. They were filming a documentary on how tourists are supporting locally owned and operated establishment. The guy in charge pointed to a postcard of a young man straddling a volcanic rock, and proudly declared that was him, many years ago. I can now say that I have met the man on the front of the most popular Ometepe postcard.
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