Zip lining and boat ride on Lake Nicaragua

Devin and I both felt well in the morning and excited to go zip lining through the canopy. We drove up to the canopy of the Mombacho volcano where the zip lines were set up. Devin and I were in our own group and we had three guides helping us through a total of eight zip lines and three suspension bridges. The highest of the platforms was 40 meters high and the longest ride was 300 meters. These zip lines were shorter and faster than the ones I did in Peru; they were also more of a ride and less of sight seeing. I got to do one superman style (or super-chicka style as they called it) and another one upside down. On one of the middle ones I actually got to fly past a butterfly. The last zip line they bounced us up and down as we descended to the ground. Both Devin and I had a lot of fun; I wish I could go zip lining every day. After our canopy adventure, we stopped at a local cafe for some shade grown coffee samples. I thought it was pretty good but Devin didn't try it since he doesn't like coffee. They had the three stages of beans shown there; from the whole bean and shell to the bean without the shell and finally to the roasted and ground stages.

We spent some time touring Granada and stopped at a chocolate museum where we got to sample tea made from the leaves of the cocoa plant as well as some dark chocolate. They may grow the cocoa plant but I think I'll stick to Belgium for consumable chocolate. We also stopped at a potter

y museum where we saw the different pottery styles of each time period. My favorites were the ones that had animal depictions included in the designs. After the museum we stopped for lunch at a cute local restaurant.

After lunch we headed to Lake Nicaragua for a boat ride. We got to see a

some of the 356 islands that were formed by an eruption of the Mombacho volcano, some which had locals with simple with houses

and others that had huge mansions on them (including the house of the richest person in Nicaragua). There was also an island that had non-native spider monkeys. We saw lots of tropical birds including king fishers, fly catchers, cormorants, green herons, a tiger heron, and other birds. My favorite was the tiger her

on which I spotted. The rain held out just long enough for us to finish our boat ride.

We waited out the rain in our hotel and then wandered around central market when the weather cleared. It was mostly clothes, lots and lots of shoes, and thrift type stores. Devin got a watch for $6 since I lost mine and we thought it would be nice to be able to tell the time without turning the TV on. There were also a number of food vendors selling bread, cheese, fresh fruit, and other edibles. I got some mango which in retrospect was probably a bad idea since it gave me a tummy ache but I wanted to see how good the mango tasted. The vendors started packing up their shops so we grabbed a burger for Devin in central park and headed into the hotel for the night.