Retro Post#1 Hiking Volcano Telica

Last year in October I arrived in Leon, Nicaragua straight from Honduras. I booked in to stay at Sonati, a hostel close to the centre of town. Sonati is a non-profit and runs many tours for us back packer types. The following day after much deliberation as too whether or not I would make I up there, I joined a group of hikers to Volcan Telica, Nicaragua. In this bunch of international strangers, it included quite a few tall fit German doctors and scientists, an Aussie, a couple of Americans and we were all led by a 1 kiwi and 1 German as our guide.

We left Sonati Hostel Leon at around 10:30am, after re-packing a tent and sleeping bag plus 6 litres of water back into my bag. My bag was fricken heavy, urghh.
We then piled into a pre-organised jeep (since there were so many of us, otherwise we would have to have taken the Chicken Bus) 5 minutes later, the driver discovered we had a flatty, luckily we were still in Leon and right by a tire shop!

10 minutes later were back on the road to the entrance of Volcano Telica. Excellent. Could not wait to start the hike with my heavy back pack and the humidity. Absolutely stoked. Not! 

At the entrance, there were thermal pools of mud splattering boiling hot mud everywhere, although, not as strong smelling as Rotorua! We set of by 11:30am and started walking, we past farmers with horses and cows, banana plantations and other food crops. I made it about 45 minutes and had to give some of my weight away to the guide, I was dying!

Big storm cloud ahead, thankfully we only had about 15 minutes worth of rain in the whole trip.

A few hours later we made it to the half way point, which consisted of a Mango Tree for shelter & shade and a bench to have some lunch and rest for a bit. Up until this bit was relatively easy-moderate, it was about to get steep!

Here a few random creatures and strange mushroom like things we saw along the way.

I have no idea what this is!

A grub of some sort, about the size of an index finger

So another 2 hours, hiking up the steep trail and into a cloud forest.

And we got to camp around 4:30pm, just before dark and set up our tents. There was a local guy with a cooler bin which was full of beers however when we arrived, he only had four left. I was one of the lucky ones. All I can say is. Best. Beer. Ever!

When it was dark and had camp set, we walked up to the volcano to see if we could see lava, as it was a clear night we had a pretty good chance and so here is the picture captured by one of the guys

And another picture captured of the spectacular lightening in the distance

after an hour of so checking out the top of the volcano, we headed back for dinner and an early night.

The following morning of what felt like no sleep, we woke up at 4am and walked back up the 15 minute track to the volcano to watch the sunrise. It was defiantly worth the pain of getting there! My pictures don't do the sunrise justice, it was breathtaking.

Smoke escaping from a vent inside the volcano

After the sunrise we visited a bat cave on the volcano, located about a 15 minute walk downhill in another direction.

After avoiding being hit by batty bats we set back to camp for tea and breakfast before heading back down to the track and to Leon.

Arriving in Leon at around 1:30pm (or whatever time it was), I was pooped. I had a great time but man was I ready to catch up on some sleep! 

Sonati Hostel Leon is a non-profit organisation. The tour I took was $35USD including transport, entrance fee to the park, water, and we were provided with a sleeping bag and tent. This price didn't include food. The volunteers who take the tours aren't paid and all the money you pay go to support enviroment education to local communites.