My hike morning started at 4:30 AM. The hike wasn't going to start until 7, but there was just one problem - the hike started at finca magdalena (magdalena farm), and I was in a different hostel, a 45 minute walk away. Additionally, I had decided that I no longer wanted to stay at this hostel, and wanted to stay at Finca Magdalena. So, after using a flashlight to pack up, I started my hike an hour and a half early, with the added bonus of carrying all my stuff for the first 2 miles.
Once we got to finca magdalena, I checked in, grabbed breakfast, and then we headed off. NB: "we" is me, Amit (someone I met on my way to Ometepe - we then stayed at the same hostel), Steve and Bridget (two people who were staying at finca magdalena who also signed up for the hike), and our guide Freddie.
Unfortunately, the weather gods were not feeling particularly benevolent, and we quickly entered the cloud line. Besides the fact that this obscured the views from the mountain, it also meant we were getting some rain, and the trail got muddy. We paid very close addition to our footing, because besides the obvious desire not to end up with a muddy rear end, it had been declared that the first one to fall had to buy the first round of beers that evening. This proved to be enough of an incentive that we made the whole trip without a spill!
The summit itself was pretty uneventful due to the cloud cover, but another 15 minutes of hiking into the crater brought us to Maderas' crater lake, where we stopped for lunch. The clouds also lifted enough for us to view almost the whole lake for about 10 minutes - pretty cool. I wanted to go for a swim, but the lake was super-shallow, and I changed my mind when someone else walked near the lake and immediately sank 4 inches into the mud.
We then headed off and made it back to finca magdalena - round trip was 7 hours. Despite the general non-cooperation of the weather, I had a blast! I think it might have been due to my lunch which consisted of bread spread with a generous amount of home-made nuttella, which was basically pure chocolate. And as if that wasn't enough, I'd top it off with some homemade jam, so I was basically on a massive sugar high - awesome.
Besides a fantastic view of clouds (and a decent lookout on the way back down), we saw lots of cool wildlife:
- some very vocal howler monkeys (they got that name for a reason!)
- a very poisonous coral snake (!!!) - luckily it behaved like all poisonous snakes should, and quickly slithered away from us
- a whole bunch of very busy leaf-cutter ants
- a crab which slowly crossed our path, keeping its claws up threateningly the entire time - it didn't seem to matter to it that we were approximately 30 times bigger - it was ready to rumble!
Pics below. Enjoy!
group photo at the lookout point. What amazing clouds those are!!
the same lookout on the way back down the mountain - thankfully the clouds had let up a bit by then
we made it to the crater - time for lunch!
me at the crater lake
right: hiking this volcano is definitely not for clean-freaks!
bottom: movie of howler monkeys living up to their name
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