When: Anytime

Languages: English, Spanish, French, German, Dutch

Length: 9 days, 8 nights

Fee charged: US $1095 per person. Price includes two meals per day, all accommodations, transportation, guide fees, etc. Does not include international airfare.

Day 2: El Cruz Negro (Carazo). 4-hour interpretive hike through transitional tropical forest alongside beautiful stream. Introduction to tropical ecology; pre-columbian petroglyphs; picnic lunch at waterfall and pool. Wildlife expected: oropendula, leafcutter ants, anole lizards (such as the one shown at the left), butterflies. 9:00 am departure. Approx. transit time 45min. RON Granada

Day 3: Masaya wildlife market (old market) - witness the unregulated variety of animal life at this traditional market. Masaya Volcano National Park; primary tropical succession on dated lava flows. See three distinct stages of plant and animal re-introduction in an area that has been successively destroyed by the eruption of Masaya Volcano. Visit to museum and main crater. Visit fumeroles. Lunch at Vista Hermosa, cool off in their pool with a spectacular view of the volcano. PM: Chocoyero Nature Preserve. Late afternoon visit to moist transitional forest fragment culminating in beautiful waterfall and hundreds of wild green parakeets. 8:00 am departure. Transit times: Granada-Masaya (15 min); Masaya-Park (15 min); Park-Restaurant (10 min); Restaurant-Chocoyero (30 min); Chocoyero-Granada (40 min). RON Granada Day 4-5: Matagalpa (transit time approx. 2.5-3 hours)

Day 4: Transfer to Selva Negra Mountain Lodge. AM: El Arenal Nature Preserve. 3 hour hike through primary mountain rainforest (cloud forest) ecosystem. Witness both primary types of deforestation; rare butterflies, orchids, bromiliads; chance of quetzales. One of the last remnantes of easily accessible primary cloud forest in Nicaragua. PM: Short hike through well-preserved secondary rainforest at Selva Negra itself. Chance of poison arrow frogs, howler monkeys. RON Selva Negra.

Day 5: El Courbe: 4-hour easy horseback ride through pre-montane tropical forest, where you might see Scarlet Macaws such as the ones at the right. Lots of howler monkeys, sloth (our unabashadly "look there's a monkey" tour). Lunch. Return Managua.

Day 6: AM: Mombacho Volcano National Park; visit Nicaragua's newest park, a dwarf mountain rainforest (elfin cloud forest). Rare orchids, butterflies. On a clear day provides incredible view of the entire Managua-Granada plain. (opportunity for souvenirs, possible stop at Catarina or San Juan de Oriente artisans). PM: Las Isletas de Granada: 1.5 hour leisurely boat ride through the islands to private, undeveloped islet. Rare first-hand opportunity to experience the microecosystems that originally developed on the remnants of a 10,000-year-old cataclysmic eruption of Mombacho Volcano. Myriad waterfowl. Picnic lunch at the Aguas Calientes Ranger Station. Canoe trip through reed-choked channel to crystal clear volcanic hotsprings.Opportunity to swim in this marvelous spring. Transit time approx. 1 hour to Granada. RON Managua.

Days 7-8: La Flor Wildlife Refuge, a glimpse of which is shown at the right. One of Nicaragua’s most beautiful nature preserves, La Flor is the protected nesting site of the Olive Ridley sea turtle. During the peak nesting season (July-December), thousands of sea turtles can be seen coming ashore on this gorgeous half-moon bay to lay their eggs. Even during the off-season, there is a good possibility of seeing at least one on any given night. La Flor also contains a very nice mangrove estuary, a flourescent land crab colony, and abundant inter-tidal zone life. Overnight at Playa Coco (a small ecolodge). Return Managua PM 30 June after a lunch break in San Juan del Sur, a picturesque coastal village. Transit time: 2.5 hours.

Day 9: Outbriefing and departure.

APPENDIX

Nicaraguan Ecotourism
The Casita Volcano Mudslide