Howdy all! Today I am still going with my blogs on Nicaragua, there should be one more FYI, and today I’m writing about a must-do day trip from Granada, Nicaragua to the nearby Volcano Mombacho. It’s only about 20-30 minutes from Granada and our hotel had a driver who took us there and then picked us up at the end of the day. We would firstly do a short and easy hike and then try our hand at some zip lining which was a first for me (and Graham, my trusty travel companion in Central America).

I can’t remember just how much we paid for the transport. In Nicaragua they do have their own currency, the ‘Cordoba’ which is roughly 23 Cordoba to the AUD or 37 Cordoba to the USD. USD though is widely accepted and from memory we paid the hotels in USD. I think we paid around $30USD for the transportation, but I can’t be sure.

We were taken part way up the Volcano to the park office, which is 100 metres from the zip lining office, and there paid 800 Cordoba or around $27USD for park entrance. This includes transport to the crater, which was done in two separate pickup trucks (utes to us Aussies) with a stop for change over half way again from the office, there were toilets and a couple of buildings there too.

Mombacho is around 1345 metres high and there are a variety of hikes available. We chose the simplest hike which takes around 1 hour to an hour and a half. There’s an information centre there with a big topographical layout of the volcano and the routes, some of which can only be done with guides and I think some go across different peaks and may even take a day or two. The centre is attached to a house and there’s a lady there who keeps pigs which is kind of cool.

The short walk (I think what you pay to enter may actually depend on the walk you do too, if you’re doing the longer walks then you pay more? Not sure on that it’s seven/eight months later here) starts to the left as you enter the car park. Literally 50 metres in and you are at the crater at what is, frankly, the best lookout. You don’t really get a great look at it for pictures because there is a lot of vegetation. The walk is actually around the crater and it’s jungle for most of it and it’s beautiful.

It was the second easiest walk we took – because we added a little loop to the crater walk. You walk around the crater, there’s an occasional lookout here and there and sort of tunnel – not really a tunnel but you walk through a rock in the middle. Some of the trees are amazing too and it’s all so green!

There is a fissure on the side of the mountain, the far side that faces Lake Cocibolca aka Lake Nicaragua and the vegetation is basically just low lying bushes for the most part. This extra loop from the crater path is well worth doing for all the views of the lake, Granada the town as well is really visible and we even saw Laguna de Apoyo – a lake in a crater which we would visit the next day – and steam rising from another volcano too. The fissure itself frankly is a letdown but you walk out to it and you can smell it, but smoke was barely visible and it’s really small. On the video you can kinda see it but not in the photo. But yes, there is plenty of sub-thermal activity there and in the region. Mombacho IS considered an active volcano, but hasn’t had an eruption as such since 1570.

After completing the hike we took the transport back to the park office. Be aware of the times that the transport operates otherwise you could be waiting hours. I remember this one down the mountain was at one pm. But it could be different today and depending on the season. April is not high season, in fact we only saw a handful of people on Mombacho on this day.

The zip lining is called or run by ‘Canopy Tour Miraville’. It’s important to remember that if you don’t want a preorganised tour from Granada via so many companies, and you really don’t need to take that kind of tour if you can organise transport, because usually that’s all you get for your ‘tour’, plus the entrance fees I guess are included in the price.

The foreigner price as of November 2025 is $28.75USD. That’s for the full canopy experience. They call it a ‘tour’, but that might not be how you use the word. We paid our entrance at their office and then went back UP Mombacho a few kilometres to the start of the zip line. This is, I think – and I’ve only done one zipline in my life – quite a decent zip lining experience. They have over 2 kilomtres of zip line, 11 separate lines plus two bridges and 17 platforms. They say it takes 90 minutes but I don’t think it took that long.

We seemed to be the only ones on the lines too at the time. We paid and were literally whisked into a jeep to go up to the lines, put into the gear quicker than you can say ‘Jack Robinson’, walking up to the first platform, the briefest of safety briefings – basically break with your strong hand on the cable behind the wheel, not in front as it will get mangled, and whoosh off you go!

I freaked out quite a bit on the first line. In fairness it was the highest and one of the longest. I probably braked too much and was definitely concerned that I couldn’t do it. It was really high, and beautiful. I had one of those see through waterproof phone cases that I put my DJI action camera in, and I got some okay footage at times but couldn’t really hold and point it. The second line was short and braking wasn’t necessary. And I just lent into it. And the more I did, the more I enjoyed and relaxed, and by the last one I knew I had had a great experience. And probably starting quickly aided me because the longer I had to think about it without doing, the more I would have worried!

Thanks to Graham for the photos. He was operating his phone whilst I operated my action camera. We both agreed, it was a great experience – possibly the best thing we did in Central America! Above is my diary-style video of the day and the following one. Expect a detailed vlog on Mombacho next year once I’ve got through the rest of the diary vlogs and … well I haven’t exactly worked out how I’m going to release videos next year just yet.

As quick as it started, it was over and they drove us back to their office, and we waited for our driver who thankfully was early and there was naught to do there really once the zip lining was finished. This was our second-last proper day in Central America, and we had planned a simpler final day to the Laguna de Apoyo. That will be in another blog, of course.