This weekend we visited Volcán Mombacho, which is the volcano we can see everyday from town in Granada. It is the volcano that exploded long ago to form the hundreds of rocky isletas in Lake Nicaragua. We hiked a circle around the top, which meant a journey through a Cloud Forest. It was a kind of surreal experience to be in such a unique environment. I don’t have a lot to say in this post, it is mostly just pictures.

A view of Lake Nicaragua from the top.

Mombacho is considered to be a dormant volcano but there are active pockets in the mountain where hot sulfurous air escapes.

Handsome Group.

Passage tunnel.

Might as well take another group pic…

Pretty seed.

Tree thing related to pineapples.

Then we got to zip-line down… Makes me want a tree house!

Took this pic of Kevin on the way 🙂

And the next day I went back with a few friends to make some chocolate. It was awesome to see the process because chocolate is easily my favorite food.

Bees for sugar.

Baby Cacao (aka Cocoa) Plant

Baby Cacao seed pods.

Ripe Cacao Seed Pod.

Alyssa weighing the dried beans.

Danni stirring as they are cooked.

Yum… need to peel. They taste like insanely bitter dark chocolate at this point.

Grinding

Mix with milk and sugar and heat and we have a chocolate paste that was really good! We also drank it straight and put some in the freezer to make chocolate bars.