April 6 – April 8, 2018

We headed towards the capital city of Managua, hoping to avoid the city as much as possible on our way to Volcan Masaya, and active volcano that you can drive to the rim of.  We arrived at the gates and they explained that we would only be able to stay at the rim for 5 minutes and that we would not be allowed to do any of the hikes in the park, as the volcano was particularly active right now.

We drove through old lava flows to the rim, and, with a few smaller buses of tourists, walked across the parking lot to the viewing point….and this is what we saw.

Basically a big hole in the ground (the inner hole being a few hundred metres across, maybe more) with a lot of gases and steam coming out of it.  Impressive, I guess, but honestly I was a bit disappointed.  Reviews had said that you would be able to hear the volcano chuffing and puffing, which we didn’t, and I had hoped to see some red lava, which you may actually be able to see if you came at night.  We had read that it was crazy busy with tourists at night and so had opted to come during the day. Just the same, we saw the potential for this to be an impressive sight.

We visited the on-site museum, then headed to our next destination, a hostel that allows overlanders to camp in their parking lot, called Paradiso Hostel.  I was a bit apprehensive about staying there as one review had talked about how very loud the music was and how late the parties went into the early morning hours, but it seemed like the best option on the lake.

Well, it was heavenly.  We drove up and over an old volcano rim and into the caldera which is now filled with water.  The grounds of the hostel slope towards a sandy beach along the shores of Lago de Apoyo and are covered with tropical flowers and bushes.  They had a pool table, two restaurants, a ping pong table, beach chairs, kayaks, inner tubes and stand-up paddle boards.  And a cob pizza oven!  The lake was warm, the water was clean, and it was super quiet and relaxing while we were there.

 

And it was here, that Piper finally decided that swimming was a good thing.  We threw a stick into the water, and normally she only goes up to her “knees”, then turns back, but this time she went up to her shoulders.  We threw the stick again, and this time she actually went in over her head and swam.  We threw the stick over and over again, and she just couldn’t get enough. I think the temperatures well into the 30s were the convincer.

Here’s a little video of the shoreline…ignore my wimpy stick throw, it’s really hard to throw a light stick!

 

And one last video of Piper enjoying the water.  We are so happy that she has decided she likes water.  The highest temperature we have seen on the truck’s thermometer is 37 degrees Celsius, but it may get warmer and nice to know that she can now cool off with a swim.