WARNING!

Since this episode was broadcasted, things have changed. Nicaragua has experienced some civil unrest. Please check with the State Department on current conditions before traveling to this beautiful country, and be sure to use a local guide.

Hiking the Active Volcanoes of Nicaragua

Think Costa Rica—but without the crowds and high prices! Forget the outdated images of the Sandinista era. Today’s Nicaragua is a welcoming destination where adventurous travelers can hike active volcanoes, explore charming colonial cities, and experience authentic Central America at a fraction of the cost of its southern neighbor.

Bordering Costa Rica, Nicaragua offers similarly spectacular rainforests, wildlife, volcanoes, and outdoor adventures. In this episode, we’ll hike some of the country’s most active volcanoes, including the unforgettable experience of standing at the rim of a smoking crater, and explore the beautiful colonial cities of Granada and León, both rich in history, colorful architecture, and local culture.

Active Travel Adventures showcases the world’s best multi-day active vacations for reasonably fit travelers who love to hike, bike, paddle, and explore. If you enjoy discovering incredible destinations while staying active, you’ve come to the right place.

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Hiking the Active Volcanoes of Nicaragua Podcast Transcript

Prefer to read instead of listen? Below is the complete transcript of
Kit Parks’ episode exploring the active volcanoes of Nicaragua. Learn
about volcano boarding on Cerro Negro, hiking Telica and San Cristóbal,
exploring Granada and León, and why Nicaragua is an outstanding
adventure destination. This transcript has been lightly cleaned for
formatting, punctuation, and readability while preserving the original
spoken content.

Prefer to Listen to the Podcast?  Listen HERE.

00:00  Yikes! I’ve made it to the top of Cerro Negro. One of Nicaragua’s
youngest the most active volcanoes and now I’m staring down 2200 feet to
my Jeep which looks so tiny it could have been a kid’s Matchbox toy.
This volcano was completely covered in skree. Those jagged little lava
pellets and looked to be a steep 45 degree angle down

 

—-and I’m supposed to sit on top of the skipping little board and slide
down this mountain. Welcome to the very first episode of the active
travel ventures podcast. I’m your host Kit Parks.

 

00:29  Today we’re hiking volcanoes Nicaragua. Know I Know You think
it’s Sandinistas. Don’t worry folks I was over two decades ago. Today
Nicaragua is a peaceful undiscovered democratic republic much like Costa
Rica was back in the 90s.

 

Tune in to learn why Nicaragua should now be added to your bucket list.

 

Nicaragua is like Costa Rica was decades ago before the tourist
discovered it.   As Costa Rica’s northern neighbor, they both share
similar flora and fauna. They have fabulous beaches and surfing
opportunities AND they have volcanoes.

 

01:08  However Nicaragua boasts more biodiversity than Costa Rica and
has many more unique ecosystems. About 20 percent of its country is
protected land.

 

Nicaragua has over 200 kinds of mammals, 700 kinds of birds, 640 kinds
of fish, and almost fifty eight hundred plant species. It is a
biodiversity Mecca!   Being close to the Pacific provides near constant
balmy temperatures of about 85 degrees Fahrenheit.

 

YOU can get all the nitty gritty details to plan this Nicaraguan
adventure at active travel adventures dotcom. Just click the Cheat Sheet
button on the Show Notes page.

 

01:34  But for now it’s time for some fun!

 

Most of my trip in Nicaragua I would be camping and hiking the active
volcanoes. However we did start the trip in the colonial city of Granada
– a beautiful city that sits on Lake Nicaragua which happens to be
Central America’s largest freshwater lake.

 

In Granada, I wandered around downtown and then BOOM!        Wardrobe
malfunction.       My favorite walking sandals decided today is a good
day to die. The glue became loose and the top started flopping away from
the sole so I wandered around flopping like a fish out of water.

 

I remembered the market was maybe half a mile away so I hobbled my way
back there in hopes of finding some sneakers. I did find a pair, but
they were a little snug. Now I needed to find some socks because I
didn’t want blisters to dampen my hiking adventure. I wandered around
the market a little bit and then I met Rosa.

02:19  Rosa’s stall had an assortment of items for sale. I couldn’t
remember the Spanish word for socks so I use pantomime to convey my
needs. Rosa spoke no English and my Spanish is butchered, so we laughed
as we worked out our way through the transaction.

 

Rosa was curious about me as tourists still aren’t overly common in
Nicaragua. So we did our best to have a conversation. I explained to her
that I was from the US and was here to see her beautiful country and to
hike some of its volcanoes. After a while she poked her head behind a
sheet curtain partition for her husband to come out. After we were
introduced I did remember the Spanish word for handsome:  I told Rozsa
that her husband was muy guapo. She giggled and then brought out her
children for me to meet. It may have only been a 20 minute exchange but
it always brings a smile when I think of Granada. Before I left Rosa I
asked her for a recommendation as to where to eat lunch. She pointed me
to an alleyway between these covered stalls.

 

03:14  I couldn’t believe that anything could be back there but Rosa was
quite insistent that this is where I should go. Sure enough she had
directed me to a small kitchen area where an older woman manned a
portable grill to serve people rice and beans with chicken, the
ubiquitous dish of Latin America. I ordered a platter and the old woman
immediately left the area, and me puzzled. I just sat there and within a
few minutes she returned carrying a china plate to serve me my lunch
instead on the paper plates everyone else had. I was touched that she
wanted to honor a visitor to her country.

 

Now sated and with Happy Feet, I headed back to the hotel a few blocks
from the historic downtown area. However, before I reached my block I
heard live music starting up behind me. I made a U-turn and followed the
sound.  A small band had set up outside an Café with covered patio
tables.

 

03:59  So I grabbed a table and ordered a drink. Next to me was a table
with four men in their late 70s – early 80’s. They smiled at me and I
smiled back. One man spoke a little English and he asked me where I was
from. After a couple of minutes of our broken Spanish/English
conversation, I was invited to their table.

 

During our conversation they kept telling me that I must say Messiah I
must see Messiah because it is so beautiful. I asked them where to find
this church and they said it wasn’t a church.        I just couldn’t get
what they’re trying to tell me. Remember that word messiah as it will
come up later in the program.

 

04:33  An hour later. I bid my goodbyes to the gentleman and headed back
to the hotel.   After a rest, I went out to the lobby met Jamie, a 39
year old Scot who turned out to be in my hiking group.

 

Jamie  was heading to town so I said I’d join him.  When we reached the
square – and all Latin American towns have a central square where the
locals meet to socialize– there was now a large band playing.  Families
had brought their lawn chairs… the kids were running around ….and
couples were dancing.

 

Jamie and I didn’t have lawn chairs but we did have feet so we joined
the party and hit the dance floor. It wasn’t long before a young local
man in his 20s cut in and asked me to dance.

 

Then a young woman did the same with Jamie. Jamie and I may not have had
their moves and we didn’t share a language but laughter is universal. We
all had a ball.

 

A few partners later Jamie and I needed a rest so we bade our goodbyes.

 

05:22  I start with these stories because the cultural interactions are
super important part of travel for me. It adds a deeper layer to your
travels. Sometimes you feel a little silly. I’m often doing silly things
but those often end up being some of my favorite memories. I might have
to draw a picture or pantomime or just mangle the language to
communicate. I think sometimes it’s more fun when you don’t speak the
language. I just love it when the light bulb finally goes off for the
person that you’re trying to communicate with.

 

It’s so much fun for me! I don’t recall any trip I’ve ever taken where a
local was anything but gracious, kind and helpful in trying to help me
figure out whatever my issue was.

 

Just smile and do the best you can and try to speak the language, even
if it’s only please and thank you. They know you can’t speak it as soon
as you open your mouth. You’re going to butcher it but most of the time
the locals do appreciate you making the effort to try.

 

06:09  Lake Nicaragua is cool not just because it’s so big but also,
just off the shoreline is called Las Isletas, the little islands. There
are 365 volcanic islands, some of which have cute homes on them. In
their trees you’ll see monkeys scampering about watching you
quizzically.  You can take a boat tour out around the islands and even
take a dip in the lake which I did with some fellow hikers.

 

I had heard about a freshwater shark a bull shark that was in the lake
but I didn’t really do any research on it. Come to find out they DO
attack humans sometimes.  I did not know that.   There’s a fort that you
stop on at the on the boat tour.  While there, you’ll see a bull shark’s
jaw bone with the teeth still in it.  It is quite a large shark.
Swimming was probably not my smartest move.  Sadly,  these sharks are on
the decline so the risk I’m sure was minimal.

 

06:57  Mystery is solved! Guess what those gentleman were trying to tell
me:  it wasn’t messiah. M E S S I A H, it was MA SA YAH, M A S A Y A,
which is the name of Nicaragua’s largest national park and a nearby
village.

 

The Parks has a fabulous exhibit which explains how volcanoes are
formed. At Masaya, you can stare down the aptly named ‘mouth of hell’
and smell it’s pungent sulfur gases.  You can see lava boiling down
inside the crater. Nearby, you can swim in a dormant crater lake and
climb Volcom Fernando.

 

07:32  Up next El Hoyo : ‘The Hole’, a perfect name for this volcano.

 

Unlike the other volcanoes that we climbed which had ragged edges from
the volcanic explosions, the volcano called The Hole looks like God just
took an ice cream scoop and decided to make himself an ice cream sundae.

 

The crater hole is a perfect circle!  Very cool to see.

 

07:51  I’m super excited about the next volcano Cerro Negro:   you
climb up and then you get to slide back down.

 

This volcano is the youngest in Nicaragua. Cerro  Negro was born in
1850, and it’s erupted 23 times in its history, the last time being in
1999. Because it erupted so recently, the vegetation hasn’t had a chance
to grown back yet.

 

So on the side that the lava flowed down, all that’s on the mountain
side is black volcanic skree:  these little lava pebbles. So that’s why
you can slide down without hitting any vegetation.  First you climb up
and look at the activity of the volcano, which was cool in and of
itself.   And then if you paid a nominal extra fee and carry the board
up, you can slide down on this little wooden sled.  It’s a skinny little
board maybe 15 inches wide.

 

You use a rope as your steering wheel and your feet as your brakes and
you slide down almost a half a mile over the scree. It is such a hoot!

 

The guides will give you a little safety instruction. Then they’ll give
you a canvas jumpsuit, goggles, and heavy duty canvas gloves because
should you fall off it, can be a little bit sharp. Nobody in our group
fell off, and as long as you don’t go crazy fast, I found it to be very
safe and super fun!

 

If you don’t want to do the sled, you can run down. And our guide Alex
who does this trip perhaps once a week or so, when he runs down he
clocks about 10 feet per step.

 

It’s just remarkable!  I do have some photos of it, but it doesn’t do it
justice.

 

09:18  This will definitely be one of your highlights of the whole
adventure! I highly recommend you go to the Active Travel Adventures.com
web site and check out the ridiculous picture of me in my safety get up
and to also watch the short video. It’s just a riot.

 

09:28  For those of you unfamiliar with Spanish the word Negro in
Spanish means black. And that’s what I look like at the end of that
sleigh ride. I was just covered in lava dust and I cleaned up as best I
could with baby wipes that night but I was really looking forward to
heading to the colonial city of Leon where I got a chance to get a
proper shower wash my clothes and explore a fabulous city.

 

09:48  One of my absolute favorite hikes of the entire trip was Volcan
Telica. This wasn’t a particularly challenging hike but it was
spectacular. It was an easy hike up to our base camp which was a covered
shelter that we could put our tents in.  There is a little village or
community nearby so we were also able to purchase dinner from the locals
who came up to our base camp and made us a delicious  – you’ll never
guess : rice and beans and chicken. Delicious though .  A really really
nice meal.   Afterwards before the sun set we climbed up Telica. It’s
not too hard of a hike to witness one of the most active volcanoes of
your trip.

 

10:24  Telica it’s always spewing something.   Unfortunately, the winds
were not in our favor to see the lava but we got to see lots of plumes
of smoke.  It was quite quite interesting plus all of the particulates
made the haze in the background quite pretty.

 

Like wildfires will make the sunset so glorious is very similar around
volcanoes. Remember how I said there’s a community nearby that was able
to feed us dinner. A very industrious guy climbed up that volcano with a
huge cooler full of soda and beer all iced down for us.

 

I didn’t want to have a beer while I was hiking on the up,  but I did
promise to buy two on the way down if he was still there when I got back
after staring down the crater for a while.

 

Our guide hollered over to us ‘Hey I want to show you somethingâ€. So
we followed him down this little ridge between the mountains and into a
cave.   And not just any cave.

 

11:10  It was the bat cave. Hundreds and hundreds of bats fluttering
about. Oh my gosh that was so exciting and such a surprise because he
didn’t tell us what we’re going to see. What a thrill!

 

 

Then we hiked up further up to a taller peak to witness the sun setting
on the Pacific Ocean. From where we sat, could see not 360 but certainly
a 280 degree panoramic view. And it was clear enough to see not only the
Pacific but also Honduras and El Salvador. Just spectacular!  Oh my gosh
it was just mesmerizing.

 

Our group of about 15 had kind of spread out to separated private rocks
so we could privately sit and drink in the magic of witnessing Mother
Nature at her finest.

 

And all of a sudden:  here comes the beer man!  He may have broken the
reverie, but we were thrilled.

 

Since we had finished climbing the uphill, we were all ready to buy a
soda or a beer.   So we toasted our drinks then went back to our private
rocks to watch the sun dip down over the ocean. It was magical folks. I
just wish you could have been there.

 

12:12  We saved the tallest volcano in Nicaragua for last : San
Cristobal,  which stands at 5725 feet.  We had to head out at five
o’clock in the morning to try to get a head start against the heat
because so much of this volcano is exposed.

 

You start off in the forest but after an hour or so you’re out and
there’s not a stitch of vegetation because the volcano wiped it all out
when it erupted.

 

So we are climbing up everything’s going great until we get to the scree
field. Remember me talking about skree earlier on?   We first
encountered skree on the Cerro Negro, the volcano that I slid down.
Climbing the skree field of San Cristobal was a two steps forward and
one step back climb as we slid down every other step.

 

12:49  San Cristobal was the most challenging hike of of the whole trip
simply because you do all this work and slide right back down so many
times. I got a little clever though.   Remember Jamie my dancing partner
in Granada? He’s a very tall man so made a very big footprint.  I got
smart and I started falling behind his footsteps because often I could
use his catch holes. It helped quite a bit.   And despite their
muttering of my fellow hikers, when we got to the top ,no more
complaints. You get to enjoy an absolutely spectacular scenery with 360
view. II posted a video on the summit out on the ATA web site.   Coming
down of course is kind of easy because you’re almost running on the
skree because it’s steep.  I slid on my bum at least a half a dozen
times, of course, I’m the clutziest of the group.And so coming now as
was quite quick.

 

I took a nap at the end when we got back.   I noticed that I was
irritating some bugs under the edge of my tent so from inside my tent,
I kept lifting up the edge in hopes that the buzzing sound would stop
interrupting my nap. I just lifted it up let the bugs out not thinking
too much about it.

 

13:45  That night we had our farewell dinner for our guides.

 

In the morning, I’m packing up my tent and said, “ What on earth are all
those holes in my tent?†And I said, “Oh my gosh!† I go out and look
and the leaf cutter ants had eaten my tent!

 

It was the bugs I was listening to during naptime the day before.  They
had eaten seven holes the size of dimes and quarters on the edge of my
tent where water could come.   Gratefully it didn’t rain that night! And
I was like you little buggers. I do have a video on the website of those
guys as well because they’re kind of cool. Leaf cutter ants go into the
trees and bite out dime size pieces of leaf that they bring back to the
nest.  The leaf shreds decompose, and the ants eat the mold from the
decomposition.   They are fascinating to watch:  they make a long line
heading back and forth from the nest to the tree they are tearing the
leaf pieces off of.

How did I miss their the assembly line?  Must’ve been too pooped from
climbing Cristobal.

 

But anyhow I either ticked them off clipping their line when I set up my
tent, or they thought my green tent was a leaf. I don’t know but it was
kind of comical how they had wrecked my almost new fancy Big Agnes
tent.   A big shout out to Big Agnes because they only charged me 20
bucks to fix it, which I thought was quite reasonable.

 

14:53  Anyhow so we finished up our volcano climbs and now it’s time for
a little true R and R.   Off to the Redwood Beach Resort.

 

This resort is in the middle of nowhere. I think the owners said it was
like 21 miles from another hotel. There is a little village if that’s
what you want to call it…  There’s a small little store for basic
necessities and a church. I’m sure there must be a school there
somewhere, or it’s in the church.  Other than that, there are a few
houses and some  farms. But mainly the people seem to subsist on
fishing.   Their fishing boats looked to be about four times the size of
a  Boston Whaler.   And they would take them out over these massive
waves to get out to sea. It was always very exciting to see them go out
and come in with their catch.

 

While you’re at the resort, they offer all sorts of day trips. You can
either relax as I did most of the time, or you could kayak through the
mangroves out onto a river, which I did one day. You

can go out deep sea fishing on one of those fishing boats, which I heard
was a thrill!  You can also go hiking and horseback riding.

 

15:53  I also was introduced to the sport of pickle ball. There was an
old tennis court so the owner taught us to play Pickle Ball which
unbeknownst to me is the fastest growing sport in the world. It was so
much fun!  Think a combination of tennis, badminton and ping pong. So
you’ve got this wiffle ball that you hit with a modified ping pong
paddle on a shortened tennis court.   It’s a riot. It’s a doubles game
and all we did was laugh.

 

One thing I like about this resort, because I’m so fair skinned, is the
trees are right on the beach so you can sit under a hammock by the ocean
but still be in the shade. Redwood also has a really nice big tiki hut
and a massive communal oudoor covered dining and community area.
Because it’s so remote, they provide all the food, which I must say is
outstanding.

 

16:40  One night we even caught our own! When the owners were starting
the resort, a homeless man living on the beach came up looking for work.
He was hired, and the owners asked him how did he feed himself. And he
said he was catching ghost crabs and making a soup.  And if you know
anything about ghost crabs they’re quite small so there’s hardly any
meat on them. But what he was doing and what he showed the owner to do
was to catch the crabs and then boil to extract the essence and the
flavor of the crab from which to make the ghost crab soup.

 

Intrigued, the owner tinkered around with it, and with her culinary
skills, she devised a delicious and fun soup. So one night we went out
with our headlamps we caught ghost crabs.

 

17:21  Ghost crabs live on the beach not in the surf. And they have
little holes that they live down in.  At night, they come out looking
for their own prey.   We are doing our best to chase them down and catch
them before they would run down their holes.   We would run run run and
then cup our hand over them to trap them. And then as fast as we could,
we’d pop them into a bucket before they could pinch us and they would
pinch us sometimes.

 

And so anyway so after catching I don’t know how many ghost crabs we
brought a bucket full back.  The next day, we had delicious ghost crab
soup for lunch.   You’ve got to check out the picture of that in the on
the web site.

 

 

17:54  I should mention that the Redwood Beach Resort is not a resort in
the way that I normally think of the word resort.   Most of the cabins
don’t have hot water or air conditioning. So make sure that you book a
cabin that does have those facilities if that’s important to you. I will
tell you that the food was outstanding, and the location Swiss Family
Robinesque.  They used only whatever is local and fresh available that
day often right off the fishing boats. This made for a very very
relaxing part of our vacation.

 

When I first saw the itinerary I almost was going to skip to this part
of the tour simply because I live by the ocean. I am so glad I went.

 

18:27  Nicaragua was a pleasant surprise.  Like most of you, I had
images of the Sandinistas and all that.

 

I found the people to be loving kind so glad that we were there to
appreciate their country appreciate the beauty to appreciate their
volcanoes. The food is very tasty although you will eat a whole lot of
chicken with rice and beans.  It superb if you like to camp and hike and
love to explore new cultures. I loved Nicaragua! It’s fun. It’s pretty.
It’s affordable and the people are fabulous.

 

Right now is a great time to visit Nicaragua because it’s not all that
touristy. Plus it’s very economical. However unlike Costa Rica It
doesn’t yet have a large tourist infrastructure in place which makes it
harder for you to plan your own adventure or to move yourself and
luggage around.

 

If you’re going camping etc I recommend hiring a small tour company to
arrange your trip even if you’re just going as a group of one or two.
It’s not all that expensive and you get the added bonus of a cultural
exchange with your guide. Currently there aren’t many tour companies
with preplan multi-day adventure trips so the tour companies currently
just custom tailor your adventure to your specifications which is kind
of cool. Nicaragua is still figuring out this whole new tourism
industry.

 

19:33  A little more than two weeks after I arrived in Managua it was
time to head home.

 

Looking back,I would say that this is a great adventure for somebody
that doesn’t mind roughing it a little bit because like I said the
infrastructure is not quite there if you’re going to do the hiking trip
without camping unless you want to spend a lot of time in a car. I
recommend you rotate between camping and then heading to a city to get
cleaned up a little bit and go back to camping and so forth.

 

19:59  You can download the free printer friendly Nicaragua cheat sheet
and see the complete show notes at the Active Travel Adventures.com
website. Enter Nicaragua in the search box, or click on the Podcast
episodes link.  This is episode 1.  Be sure to check out my pictures and
video,  especially the ridiculous one of me getting ready to slide down
the Cerro Negro volcano,

 

If you haven’t done so already, please subscribe to the Active Travel
Adventures podcast today.  If you don’t know how, there’s a video on my
website that can show you.

 

And if you have, thanks so much for your support!  Could I ask you to
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There’s a share button on whatever you’re listening on that looks like a
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Thanks for listening. Until next time, Adventure On!  Kit

 

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