We left San Juan del Sur too sleepy to really think about the fact that we were saying goodbye, and drove to the Mombacho Preserve, a coffee finca and hiking/walking trail with amazing views.
We did a light hike (with many stairs) of about an hour around the smaller volcanic crater. The volcano is currently inactive and is covered in beautiful flora and fauna. Part of the trail led us throw this "tunnel," the walls of which were covered in beautiful, crystalline lichens and mosses (or maybe just one or the other, your author is not an expert), dripping with dew formed in the cool, humid environment.
From several look-out points we could see views of Lake Nicaragua, Lake Managua, and Granada City.
We saw many species of gorgeous orchids.
We stopped at several places where smoke coming up from the center of the volcano could be seen and felt. So when we say Mombacho is inactive... that just means it's not exploding today. The heat was palpable and the air was full of a sulfur smell.
After the volcano tour, we had lunch and then went to a little town full of beautiful pottery and did some last minute gift shopping. We met the potters and saw a dozen lovely shops and a hundred lovely things, and then it was about to get dark, and was too late to go to Los Quinchos, and so for perhaps the first time in these 10 days, the weary travelers opted to skip one of the activities they'd been been looking forward to, and we drove straight to our hotel in Managua. We snacked and used our free drink coupons for dinner by the pool, and wrapped up all our warm and cool feelings about the trip, giving Dr. Weeks our input for how the course might be improved next year. We said goodnight to Jane and went off to bed....
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