Zipline down Mambacho Volcano

Today was one of the best days of this trip so far. I have been on a zipline before…but nothing like this. It took us about 45 minutes to drive up the mountain. We drove up a “road” that scared this one student so bad it made her cry. It felt like our wheels were squares, and the driver thought we were in the Indy 500 or something. Bumpy road, it was pretty crazy. But anyways, once we got to the top we talked with some of the children that lived in a little village up there… I will try to post some pictures up here once my friends put them on facebook and I can steal them.

The best part about this volcano is the “Canopy Tour”, which is this enormous zipline down the mountainside. Its not all one zipline, its made up of like 14 different ziplines or something like that. We climbed a ladder up a huge tree, and then zipped down a ways, then climbed up another, and zipped some more. Everyone kept saying that it felt like we were in Jurassic Park. It looked exactly like it, with the deep forest and all the sounds. The trees we were on had Tiger Ants (close to an inch long each) crawling all over them, and all over us too. We were wearing thick gloves (to use as brakes on the line) so it was kind of difficult to take pictures… which reminds me…We were at one of the highest points of the Tour when I whip my camera out to take a picture, and the battery flies out of it and falls about 65 feet down into the woods. Son of a bitch. I dont know if Ill find another battery or not my camera is hard to find stuff for, but I will just post other peoples pictures on here from now on I guess. At the end of the Tour, we repelled down the side of a tree. I think i heard the drop was 65 feet. The tree we were in was probably 100 feet tall though, it was a Sabor Tree or something. There were only four of us students at Casa Xalteva that went but we partied up with like 10 others. Most of them there were Christians, I noticed this one dudes shirt said Young Life Mauai on it and we struck up a convo. He started a business down here in Nicaragua to fund a school that they run on the east coast. Its a school for some tribes that he said are third world and “fourth world”. I can only imagine… but what he is doing is sort of similar to part of what I might be doing with my life, so it was cool. He said that he knows the guy in Hawaii that makes Conoa Coffee or something, I forgot the name but something like that. Anyways he says that they blind folded themselves once and tasted three types of coffee, his from nicaragua, the other dudes Conoa Coffee, and another, and they all three picked his as the best tasting. And he said that when he talked with the producer, they were currently selling it for .80 cents a pound, as compared to close to 26 bucks a pound for starbucks and Canoa coffee or something ridiculous. He uses all the profits to run schools and outreach to the Mosquito tribe in east nicaragua (I think thats their name). Jesus… what a conversation starter. Its even better than when I meet another aggie, but thats up there too hahaha. Got some free coffee grown on the side of Volano Mambacho, ask me for some when I get home and well have some.

to all my fans- te amo