The Last of the West

There was no hold up, I had a plan for an epic hike the next day! It was fantastic to wake up on the lake with the view of Momatombo and a peaceful morning at the edge off the village. We made some adjustments to the battery connections because after just one day, the new part had already cracked. But we replaced it, wedged the battery in better and gave the connectors a little more play, so far this has been a perfect fix. Away up the road and looping through hill passes and round volcanoes we headed a little further north before turning off the road and on to a dirt track that was actually a sandy dry river bed. 8kms up the river but it was a pretty smooth drive, high river walls either side, overhanging trees and more local life than we'd expected. We pulled into a small village on the foot of the volcano to be waved down and greeted by our host, Ulicess.

A humble man with a lovely family living a very good, quite life in the village and they were happy to accommodate campers in their back yard, if you were willing to share the toilet with the pet pig! They made us cold drinks, picked fruit from the tree and kept offering little eats as we tried our best to chit-chat. After the heat of the day had passed he offered me a lift to the trail head a few kilometres away, Jelly jumped in for the ride but was not feeling too sharp so happily settled for a quite night while I was off being silly. It was a 10km hike up a 1000m active volcano! I chose a good stick to keep off snakes, dogs and gringos and set a good afternoon pace. Was joined for a while by a young 19yo cowboy on horseback but otherwise just me until the top. Not a bad slog until the end, half hour straight up the side of this red rocked lava slope just in time to watch an amazing sunset over the surrounding countryside, this peak being number five in the perfect line of volcanoes and Nica's tallest just next door. With the light fading I skirted back round the rim of the active crater, smoke bellowing out and down into the the old lava field on the plateau that was used as a grazing meadow for cattle and horses.

There was a tour group filling the campsite so I picked a big tree on the ridge to make camp and slung a hammock. By now it was dark and the night creatures were out, if it lives on top on an active volcano its easy to assume its deadly! Alien bugs, scorpions and tarantulas underneath me, safe to say I stayed in my hammock of safety for dinner and hung my belongings in the tree. It was a rough night's sleep with 40mph winds until the small hours and with no moon, the distant city lights and a sky of stars were my only

company. A sliver of orange moon rose with Venus around 3am and the days first light began to show at 5am. Needless to say, it was a beautiful morning, certainly one to remember. The sun slowly rose up out the earth, setting the sky alight, I wondered to the edge of the ridge for a full view then took breakfast back in the hammock before packing up and retracing my steps. A night on top of a active volcano complete!

The hike back was long and tiring but I arrived to see Jelly sipping a coffee outside Franky in the shade of a tree. She popped the kettle on for me and whipped me up a hot breakfast before I took a well needed nap. We cruised back down the riverbed at midday and headed to the coast for the weekend for our last days on a Nicaraguan beach, the costal village of Las Penitas. We pulled onto the beach next to some French overlanders, had a little surf and crashed out for the day.

Rightly so, our sunday was relaxed! A big breakfast, lunch time beers with the French couple sharing stories of our journeys, a little surf and a walk around the beach front town. We ate well, rebooted

energy and set off to town first thing the next day. In the morning we walked the city and churches of León and got a breakfast and a fancy coffee with some appreciated AC to plan our next moves. Before it was too hot we left the west and began our 3hr ride North East into the hills and towards Honduras.

The drive was good and roads were for once roads, we rejoined the Panamerican Highway but only briefly, as we turned off, went straight up 10km of hill to a peaceful village on the edge of the range, to pull up under pine trees in the cool mountain air. We took a short walk to discover the view out over the entire Northwest, taking in all the volcanoes we'd just been hanging around and the lowlands to the Pacific. It was a relaxing evening watching the sunset from the amazing viewpoint in the mountain breeze and only a few days left in Nicaragua.