Here we are presenting a trip that we would recommend to anyone who likes tough hikes and who wants to see: a tropical forest, a rain forest, a cloud forest and lots of wildlife. 

We left Los Cardones in the morning and arrived in the island of Ometepe at noon, taking the ferry at San Jorge. 

We stayed at Hotel Central in Altagracia. It is a nice hotel at very low prices. 

We visited this quiet island town, its central park, the meso-american sculpture park by the church and a surprising purisima celebration in the street. There is a museum of ancient civilization too.

meso-american sculptures The brightly lighted shrine is mounted on the back of a pick up truck and connected to a powerful sound system blasting religious songs.

We left early the next morning to Finca Magdalena, a coffee cooperative at the foothill of Volcano Maderas. We hired two guides from the cooperative to escort our group of 6. From the first steps we were glad we had hired them as they showed us a majestic parrot in a branch above us. This would be the first of many parrots we saw that day. As soon as we resumed walking we heard a soft thunder-like howl. Monos Congos, Howling Monkeys were welcoming us to their mountain, or were they just talking to another group of monkeys... As we got closer the noise of their howling was so intense that we could feel it vibrate around us, but we still couldn't see them.

We went through fields of beans, plantains and bananas, then the organic coffee plantation. This was already a half-hour hike up the volcano and this was where farmers come to harvest their crops. 

We paused to admire one of the multiple petroglyphs of the island. 

After we passed the cocoa plantation, the guide let us know that the trail was going to get a lot more difficult and this was as far as mules could climb up to rescue us if needed. The vegetation had changed from a dry tropical forest to a humid tropical forest. This was what I imagined a jungle to feel like. 

Along the way, we finally saw some monkeys. First we saw the monos cara blanca, which are supposed to be pretty shy, and then the audacious howling monkeys.

Video of a howling monkey climbing a branch. (monkey.avi: 171kB) 

Soon we were able to stop and admire the view of the valley from the Mirador. 
We became surrounded by cool fog as we entered the cloud forest and progressed (painfully) up the muddy trail. 

Ascension kept getting harder as the trail turned into a riverbed. We were lucky to have no rain (common any time of the year in the volcano) and only had to deal with the condensation of the clouds on the plants.

4 ½ hours after we started, we had reached the ridge (1345m), though vegetation did not clear up and it was hardly noticeable, unless you climbed on a tree.

To descend inside the crater we were glad that our guide had brought some ropes. The cold water felt good on our sore legs. But we had been pretty slow coming up and w needed to head back quickly so that the night wouldn't find us in the forests of the volcano.

On our way down, we saw more monkeys, enjoyed the Mirador again and hurried to the hospitable dining room of finca Magdalena. The next morning we went back to Los Cardones where we let the ocean massage our legs before surrounding to the embrace of the hammocks.

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