CANOPY TOURS MOMBACHO

Put yourself on belay at the Mombacho Canopy Tour (tel. 505/888-2566 or 505/852-9483, gloriamaria@cablenet.com.ni, $25 pp, less for Nicas), located up the road from the parking lot, just before the road passes through the El Progreso coffee mill. They’ve got a 1,500-meter course involving 15 platforms and a 25-meter-long hanging bridge. Many tour operators offer a full-day Mombacho package that involves a visit to the reserve followed by a canopy tour on the way down, or you can set this up yourself by calling Fundación Cocibolca (tel. 505/248-8234).

  On the opposite (east) face of Volcán Mombacho, cloud-forest coffee farm meets canopy tour at the Cutirre Farm. Mombotour (on the west side of the Iglesia La Mercéd in Granada, tel. 505/552-4548 or 860-2890, mombotur@tmx.com.ni, $15–30 pp) offers a range of half-day trips, involving some combination of high-ropes canopy tour, horseback ride, bird-watching hike, and coffee-farm tour. Trips include transportation to and from Granada, plus an optional lunch buffet for $7.50. The 15-kilometer ride to the Cutirre Farm takes longer than you’d expect. The road turns into a river during the wet season, but the trip is worth it; once you arrive, the views from the lodge are spectacular, looking straight out at Isla de Zapatera, and behind it, the cone of Volcán Concepción. There is also a small but attractive insect museum, with a full butterfly farm in the works. Bird-watchers can take a walk through the plantation with guides experienced in spotting any of the 43 species observed here.

  The canopy tour, suspended from 14 of the giant shade trees on the coffee farm, is a professional, safe system of 17 platforms, a hanging bridge, and 13 horizontal zip lines, ending with a 23-meter rappel from a massive ceiba tree. Show up at Mombotour’s Granada office to arrange your trip, which leaves at either 10 a.m. or 2 p.m. (arrive one hour prior), returning you to Granada about three hours later.