Hiking Ometempe

At the top of Ometempe is the fabled fountain of youth it is a very difficult hike but the view is worth it. When you have a sunburn and have to hike a volcano it is best to do it in a rainstorm. As you can probably imagine this made the trail very wet and muddy. It was also quite steep. All of the tree tops blotted out the sky to was only at the halfway point that we could look out over the island. Some of the trees that we grew there were banana trees, there were a ton of fern trees and my favorite, cocoa trees. Because we got a late start not everyone was able to reach the top. A couple of us turned back at the halfway point and then about 2hours later more of us turned back. After seeing the pictures from the very top of the volcano we tried not to hate the ones who where able to make it there. Going back down was slick and that is where the most people slipped. Sometime after the half way point the rain stopped and the animals started coming out. That is when we got our first look at the howler monkeys. After everyone met up we went back to the Hacienda to change into clean clothes then went back into town and had dinner with the guys that guided us up the volcano (Matthew, Ben and Alexi). These guides are awesome they hike the volcano all the time and we enjoyed learning from them.