Nicaragua-1
I went on a tour of Mombacho during my trip to Nicaragua.
Tropical Cloud Forest Walk:
Tropical Cloud Forest Walk, means literally walking amongst clouds in a forest, where you wander among the whispering & whistling clouds and embrace them!
It was quite pleasantly humid. (In urban Maharashtra, humidity is equal to heat. Here in the hills, it was a cool kiss of moisture!)
As we walked, …
We brushed the billowing branches in the breeze, we touched the trailing tendrils, we were fascinated by the freshness of the fog!
We could touch the clouds while walking as we were AMONG the clouds! The world beyond melted away, visibility vanishing, the view veiled beyond a mere seven or eight feet, wrapping us in a cocoon of mystery.
We could sense the wetness in the air, we could feel fortunate, floating, and free; as fog embraced the forest fiercely, we felt cradled as the clouds caressed our cheeks!
And then it struck me: mist and mystic — the words so close in pronunciation, are even closer in spirit. Was this nature’s poetry?
Imagine the phrase, Cloud 9, I felt I was on cloud nine, or beyond! Divine feeling!Oh! This has become too poetic! Let me come back to Pune and write!
After some time, the Sun came out and we came out of the clouds and could see the valley below and the lake beyond!
We were encircling a volcano’s valley from the perimeter at the top. It was a walk of only 6 km, but it felt more as it was uphill/downhill & we had to bend down at times to pass through thick forest, avoiding thorns, passing under the branches sometimes while jumping over some logs at other times. All the steps in this forest were made of cut tree logs.
Met some fellow travellers on the way & helped each other with pics, though I had an exclusive guide for me, alone.
I had booked a tour yesterday and the tour company honoured it, even though I was the only tourist for the same. One can say, which means their margin was so huge! The scheduled driver must not have afforded his cut and therefore my guide, Manuel Hernandez, arrived late by an hour, after arranging a second car.
Manuel was knowledgeable and he had told me right in the beginning, “Don’t touch any plant without asking me, some plants are poisonous!” Later he showed those poisonous plants.
Remember Italy’s Football World Cup winning team of 2006? I started walking like Cannavaro, Zambrotta, Pirlo & Totti! They folded their hands behind to prevent a foul by the ball touching their arms. I folded my hands to avoid death by touching such plants, even by mistake.
He also showed me a hole which emitted volcanic sulphur and the smell was mildly pungent. The volcano was alive below us; only asleep, not dead!
Manuel was an expert in Botany & biodiversity and that fostered firmer understanding of the flora and fauna here!
We completed the walk of 6 km, in 2 hours as we paused often while he explained something & that allowed me a breather as well!
My only complaint about Manuel was that he wasn’t a good photographer. So, passing tourists (mostly Gen Z, with whom I connect better) helped!
Canopy Zipline tour
Later Manuel asked me if I wanted to take a Canopy Zipline tour!
I love exploring the unknown & did crazy things before my wedding and hurt myself many times, carrying the bruises & fractures with fearless abandon. But paused the adventure sports after the birth of my son Mihir. My concern about something happening to me, & preventing his grooming, had resisted many temptations…
Now that I have taught him the ways of the world, while travelling through half of Europe, … Mihir is 25, well groomed, independent and capable of fending for self … , So I guess I could take the risks again!
Besides, things are a lot safer outside India for adventure sports. The Americans and Canadians were the largest # of tourists in Nicaragua, which meant that the insurance companies in US/Canada would have done their surveys and then allowed to include these adventure sports in their insurance policy covers, … so assuming safer norms, I said yes.
I had to wait until the equipment was put on each one’s body.
The coffee on top of the mountain was expensive as one would expect at such a location due to their monopoly. The same company owned the restaurant as well as the adventure sports. Manuel had collaborated with them for adventure sports and earned his cut.
He shamelessly told me so, while returning-:)
I asked the adventure tour company whether my weight was OK for their line. They checked with their bosses and said yes!
Canopy Zipline
A canopy zipline tour is an adventure activity where the participants zip on a line(go down a mild slope, hanging on a pulley) through a wooded area, often platforms and sky bridges built into the trees, offering a unique perspective of the forest from above, a bird’s eye view! The chosen base trees are taller and wider than the rest!
The group assembled there for zipline had some 8 folks. The other 7 were apparently classmates. All appeared well-educated & spoke reasonably good English. One of them, Nestor, was a pharmacist and I proposed that he click my videos and I click his while doing a zipline. He initially said yes, but realized the pain of separation from one’s own phone after 2-3 lines & suggested we click with our respective phones & share.
What is the probability that a random person whom you meet on a tour like this, shares your birthday? (1/365 which is around 0.27%). Incredibly, Nestor & I share our birthdays! (I found out when I asked for his e-mail ID since the video quality is better if shared via e-mail!)
We were briefed that we would take 5 lines, each about 200 to 300 m. We had to walk in between the end of one line to the beginning of the second etc. Total walk would be 5 km (In reality, it was less, but they mentally prepared us for it!)
We had to wear a gear with hand gloves, a helmet and a harness. The harness was connected by a Carabiner to the pulley on the line. The line was thick metallic (perhaps pure steel, perhaps some alloy) and I had got the confidence that it can take my weight. A team put the gear on our bodies and in my case, their biggest boss was in the team that did so.
We walked to the commencement of the first line. We were told to wear our gloves and hold the zipline with the left hand as a break, to reduce the speed. BUT, if we held it before the pulley, our hand can get injured since the pulley carries our own weight, so weight of the hand vs rest of the weight…. So we had to hold it after the pulley.
We were holding the pulley with the right hand! They also warned that the friction of the left hand against the metal line immediately after the pulley, meant that it would be warm from heat! So, we should pull and leave, pull and leave etc.
I waited for a couple of younger and thinner folks to cross the first line and went in third. That became my number for three more rounds as our carabiners were on the line in that sequence now.
We saw beautiful jungle below us and I had posted in between the waiting period, “I am going for such an adventurous tour and in case, I were to fall down in the dense jungles of Nicaragua, then I would see you in the next life!” It was more for fun, since the equipment is well-tested in such places.
I had put an emoji as well…
But many friends believed this was too risky! Knowing my weight, they might have been right in their worrying! Knowing my theatrics and ultra enthusiastic yet cautious side, my family was cool as cucumber!
Luckily nothing happened to anyone around. I had asked the big boss, how many people fell down like this and he said, “Some Americans larger & heavier than you, have taken the same tour on the same equipment, so you are safe!”
We went from one tree top to another 5 times, three of which were consecutive. Meaning end of one line was the beginning of another line. The goosebumps & the acceleration in heartbeats were cooled after the first line and we began enjoying the view!
That view was astonishing, amazing and incredibly fantastic! Imagine that the birds have this view every day, how lucky! And today, we had the same view! We even started listening to the birds chirping, which we had ignored earlier due to our own focus on safety! Closer than even the helicopter view! I whistled & we all were shouting phrases such as, “Wow!” “Que Lindo”, “Que Precioso!”
We had to get down a staircase in some cases and walk a bit to get to the next line. The 4-5 staff members were all super strong men who must be spending a lot of time in the gym every day!
They could lift each one of us and push at the beginning, when someone got cold feet. Luckily for them, I enjoy such adventures and don’t get cold feet.
We did a Tarzan Jump at the end of 5 lines. meaning, jumped from one treetop to another using a rope. It wasn’t too deep below but no one was standing with a net! So the risk was present, but then we were tied well and settled in the tour by then!
Finally, we were given a Free Fall! We were dropped from the top of a tree to the ground, where the other strong men caught us, making sure we did not fall to the ground directly.
It was slow but some girls screamed a lot, joyfully!! Typical, when you enjoy, yet get scared!
Overall, it was an enjoyable 5-6 hours for me!
Then we walked one km or so, to our van and all of us (plus the organisers & their equipment) went in that van to the starting point again from where we took our respective cars to go back.
Manuel was waiting for me, a bit richer due to his commission on my tour-;)
The day really was enjoyable for me with cloud forest walk and the Canopy zipline tour etc
So took a quick shower at the hotel, read for an hour lying down and went in a restobar with live music in the evening to celebrate my coming back safe from an adventure!
Restaurants here have jazz music as well as disco music. I was hoping for soothing jazz music today, but it turned out to be the cacophony of disco in the bar, since it was a Saturday night! So returned to my hotel room immediately after eating and drinking.
The chirping of birds, the rustling of leaves, the murmur of breeze, the pounding of my heart as I went down the first zipline, the joyful screaming of the girls during the free fall, my whistling while looking down from zipline, the wow we all said as we looked at the amazing beauty of nature, … these sounds were far better than that deafening disco, weren’t they?
Overall, the cloud forest walk and zipline tour made it a memorable day. Before going to bed, I closed my eyes and remembered walking through the clouds, feeling that cold around my body, touching the clouds with my hands, thinking about going through the zipline once again, looking down like a bird, and fell asleep smiling!
Legendary cricketer Sunil Gavaskar once said that he would like to watch Dhoni’s sixer sealing Indian victory in Cricket World Cup 2011, when he is about to die.
At the end of my life, I will remember such days which were fantastic for me! This was another day in that list, which will bring a smile to my lips when I remember & get nostalgic …
Encantado!
-Prasad Sovani
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