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The Mombacho Volcano is located just outside Granada in Nicaragua and hiking its forest-filled slopes is a popular day trip from the city.
Mombacho is a very different volcano experience from others you might have visited in Nicaragua. There is no lava, no Mars-like barren landscape, instead, it’s covered in dense, green cloud forest full of life.
It’s a very unique ecosystem and simultaneously being on an active volcano, but hiking through a cool, moist forest is a strange contrast.
However, organising a Mombacho Volcano hike is, to put it mildly, a nightmare.
There are varying trails that have different prices and different regulations, a complicated and expensive transport system to get from the park entrance to the trailheads, and a lack of official information anywhere online.
Honestly, the entire system is a basket case. We spent ages trying to work out the costs for different trails, deciding if we should walk or take the 4×4 transport to the summit and whether it was more cost-effective to join a tour from Granada.
That’s why I wrote this post.
To lay out all the options and costs as clearly as possible, to help you decide the best way to visit Mombacho Volcano and hopefully avoid our costly errors!
About Mombacho Volcano
Mombacho Volcano stands at 1,345 meters above sea level (4,412 ft), looming over the colonial city of Granada in Nicaragua.
It is a stratovolcano with four craters, that last erupted over 4,000 years ago. This eruption sent hundreds of ginormous rocks flying into the air, creating Las Isletas de Granada, a set of 365 islets in Lake Nicaragua, at the foothills of the volcano.
Today, it’s part of the Reserva Natural de Volcán Mombacho, managed privately by the Fundación Cocibolca.
Although the volcano is still active, Mombacho is not a volcano experience like what might have become accustomed to in other parts of the country. Forget the huge crater of Telica, the lava of Masaya or sliding down the Mars-like landscape of Cerro Negro.
Mombacho Volcano is covered in a tropical cloud forest, a rare habitat, especially on an active volcano!
The moist, green forest is teeming with life with over 750 plant species including orchids, bromeliads, and mosses, alongside animal species such as howler monkeys, sloths, snakes, frogs, and hundreds of species of colourful birds and butterflies.
There are three trails around the volcano’s craters, Crater, Tigrillo and Puma, where you can see fumaroles, a reminder of the geothermal activity, epic views over Granada, Las Isletas, Laguna de Apoyo and even Volcan Masaya, plus the beautiful flora and fauna of the cloud forest.
In stark contrast, an area of the volcano is filled with dead forest, bosque muerto. It's like a tree graveyard, created by the constant sulphuric gases from the crater, slowly killing the trees.
The slopes of the volcano aren’t part of the nature reserve, and are home to rural communities with working coffee farms, a handful of accommodations and a canopy zipline tour, offering plenty of activities outside of hiking.
🥾 Book a hiking + zipline combo tour from Granada and choose your desired trail
How to get to Mombacho Volcano from Granada
Mombacho Volcano is just under half an hour's drive from Granada, and there are a few different ways you can get yourself to the park.
Getting from Granada to the park entrance
Note that the first point of arrival is the official entrance to the park, Entrada a la Reserva Natural Volcan Mombacho, which is NOT where the trails start.
To get here, you can take a:
- 🚌 Bus: any bus heading south from Granada along Highway 4 will pass by the entrance to the park. A Rivas or Nandaime route is the most common and they depart from the Rivas bus terminal in Granada (located here). Check with the driver ‘Volcan Mombacho’ before you board, and keep an eye on your phone map as you approach the park. You will be let off on the side of the highway, and the park entrance booth is 1.5 km (0.9 mi) away. It’s a flat and easy walk, otherwise, you’ll be hounded with taxis and tuk-tuks offering to take you the 5-minute drive.
- 🚕 Taxi: you can get a taxi the entire way from Granada to the entrance of the park. The journey will take about half an hour, and you can expect to pay around $15 – $20.
- 🚐 Tour: there is the option to join an inclusive Mombacho Volcano tour from Granda that packages return transport, transport up the volcano and your entrance to the park and a guided hike on one of the trails (I think Tigrillo, but you’d want to confirm). Personally, I don’t think it’s worth it unless you want to combine your hike with the ziplines found on the slopes of the volcano, in which case this hiking + canopy combo tour is great value.
- 🚙 Car: if you’ve got a vehicle, you can drive yourself to the entrance of the park. If you don’t have a 4×4 you will have to park and leave your car at the bottom of the volcano.
Getting from the park entrance to the summit
Once you’re at the entrance, you still need to get to the summit of the volcano, where you find the ranger station, Estación Biológica Volcán Mombacho, and the trailheads for the three trails.
It is 4.6 km (2.85 mi) up a VERY steep hill, like 40% grade or higher. It is gruelling. The road is mainly paved and while it’s shaded by nice greenery and vegetation, it’s hardly scenic. It’s first and foremost an access road, not a nature trail.
- 🚛 4×4 transport: the park offers a 4×4 shuttle transport from the entrance to the summit multiple times per day. It takes about 20 minutes. It previously cost $20 for the return transport, but since their pricing models have changed a little recently which I'll explain below, it’s more like $10 (the prices are now packaged).
You need to make sure you arrive at the park to align with their shuttle times, which are now consistent every day (formerly they were different weekends vs weekdays):
8:30 am | 10:30 am | 1:00 pm* | 2:30 pm*
*If you want to hike the lengthier Puma Trail, you must take one of the morning shuttles to have enough time to complete the trail and get an afternoon shuttle back.
The return shuttles from the Biological Station seem a little less organised, and the times are not enforced as strictly. Be sure to ask when you arrive what time they return, but I believe it is at:
11:30 am | 1:00 pm | 4:00 pm
- 🥾 Walking: this is where the complications and complaints come in! I understand that $20 is A LOT for a 20-minute car ride, but 1) the prices are cheaper now and 2) the walk is STEEP! You are walking on a road, not a trail, for 4.5 km, dodging 4x4s. It was not that pretty and it looked absolutely gruelling.
If you want to walk to the summit, you must start walking from the park entry before 10:00 am or you will not be allowed to enter. You must start the descent back down by 3:00 pm to be out of the park before it closes.
The guides at the trailheads will factor this return time into any of the trails you want to do. If you arrive at the summit too late, you might not be permitted to do the longer trail (Tigrillo or Puma), if they think you will not finish in time to start hiking down before 3:00 pm.
If you’re planning to walk up and do the Tigrillo or Puma trails, you need to arrive as soon as the park opens at 8:00 am and get cracking.
- 🚐 Tour: if you’ve taken a tour from Granada, you might head up the volcano in your tour company’s transport, or they might put you on the park’s truck. I couldn’t work this one out. We (mistakenly and expensively) took a tour from Granada and it was just Brayden and I in the truck, which makes me think we were in a private vehicle, not the park’s vehicle, but this was not the car that picked us up from Granada. Regardless, your tour will coordinate transport to the summit of the volcano if you’ve booked one.
- 🚙 Car: if you have a 4×4, you can drive yourself to the summit for a $25 vehicle fee. There is still an entrance/trail fee on top of that per person, but I can’t confirm the amount, apologies!
Mombacho Volcano entrance fees
The entire setup is SO confusing with no published prices online, a lot of misinformation by other visitors, external tour operator prices thrown into the mix and the staff are often confused about their own strange pricing systems!
I specifically contacted the park via WhatsApp before writing this post, as it had been a while since we visited and the prices mentioned in the latest reviews on Google Maps, TripAdvisor and AllTrails didn’t match up to what we paid.
If what I was told was true (I can’t guarantee that!), they’ve changed their pricing model quite a lot.
Previously all the prices were separate (park entrance + transport if required + trail fee + guide) but they now seem to combine these into one single price, excluding the guides.
These new prices mean it now essentially only costs $10 extra to take the return transport. Taking the transport is now the obvious choice, avoiding the gruelling uphill hike for only $10 more vs the $20 it used to be.
I don’t know if this is actually being enforced in practice, so I’m also going to include the old pricing model that was in place at the time of our visit, just in case what I’ve been told is incorrect.
I don’t want to make this deliberately complicated and confusing, but I don’t want to misinform you either.
I would love to hear your experience to make sure what I have been told is correct. Please let me know in the comments what you are charged!
CURRENT ENTRANCE FEES
OLD ENTRANCE FEES
GUIDE FEES
Mombacho Volcano hiking trails
*Note that the Puma Trail don’t include the entire Crater Trail, so you will miss the famous ‘El Tunel’. I was advised by the staff at Mombacho Volcano you can request your guide to hike that section of the Crater Trail to see the tunnel, before continuing onto the Puma Trail. I don’t think this would have an extra fee but you’d need to confirm.
SENDERO CRATER (CRATER TRAIL)
- 📏 Distance: 1.5 km (0.9 mi)
- 🔋 Difficulty: easy
- ⏰ Duration: < 1 hour
- 🚶🏻♂️ Guide required: no
The most popular trail that doesn’t require a guide. The Crater Trail is a relatively short and mostly flat trail that follows the outer rim of one of Mombacho’s four craters. You get a taste of the cloud forest as well as some views and volcanic activity.
It passes through El Tunel, a narrow fissure in the rocks created during the collapse of the crater. You’ve probably seen photos of this, and it looks very interesting. Unfortunately, we missed it on the Puma Trail and didn't realise we could have requested to hike an alternate route.
The trail opens up to a big lookout area, with views over Las Isletas de Granada, Laguna de Apoyo and Volcan Masaya. It’s in this open plateau that you can see steaming fumaroles. They’re quite hidden, so if you can’t see any, just look around for any guided groups and follow the guides!
SENDERO TIGRILLO (TIGRILLO TRAIL)
- 📏 Distance: 2.5 km (1.5 mi)
- 🔋 Difficulty: medium
- ⏰ Duration: < 2 hour
- 🚶🏻♂️ Guide required: yes
This trail combines most of the Crater Trail and a part of the Puma Trail.
You’ll get to see El Tunel, the smoking fumaroles and the views over Las Isletas de Granada, Laguna de Apoyo and Volcan Masaya on the Crater Trail.
You then start a section of the Puma Trail where things get steep, climbing up to some of the highest points of the park to two additional viewpoints.
We didn’t do this so I’m not 100% sure, but I think the final part of the Tigrillo trail passes through a small section of the bosque muerto (a very fascinating dead forest that died as a result of all the fumes from the crater). I’d love it if you could confirm that either way.
SENDERO PUMA (PUMA TRAIL)
- 📏 Distance: 4 km (2.5 mi)
- 🔋 Difficulty: hard
- ⏰ Duration: < 3 hour
- 🚶🏻♂️ Guide required: yes
The Puma Trail is the pinnacle of hiking at Mombacho Volcano. This is the trail we did, but not for any reason other than it was only a few bucks extra so we thought why not?
Although it’s only 4 km, it’s gruelling in parts, with some very steep inclines. I was huffing and puffing, but the cool, moist environment was a lot easier to handle and as quickly as the trail inclined, it would flatten out and start going down again!
The Puma Trail starts on the Crater Trail. As a standard, it doesn’t include the section of the Crater Trail that passes by El Tunel (the very cool crevice), but I was told you can request your guide to hike that section of the Crater Trail instead. I wish we knew this when we visited as we missed this sight.
Either way, you’ll pass by the fumaroles and views over Las Isletas de Granada, Laguna de Apoyo and Volcan Masaya before entering the official Puma Trail.
We only saw a handful of other groups on this trail, mostly in the first sections where it overlaps with Tigrillo Trail. By the time we had passed the intersection, I think we were the only ones in that part of the park.
We walked through incredibly dense and moist cloud forest, climbing to some of the highest points in the park, with epic views.
The best part of the Puma Trail was the bosque muerto aka the dead forest. This trail spends the most time in this unique, barren area of the park. One minute you’re in a forest as green as can be, and then you cross some invisible barrier and everything is dead, and there’s a smoking crater in front of you.
The best way I can describe it is like the elephant graveyard from the Lion King. The sulphuric gases that constantly spew from one of Mombacho’s active craters have slowly killed the forest, leaving behind gnarled trees and a sea of dead branches in its wake.
It was our favourite part of the hike, and we were both fascinated with the stark contrast.
What to bring to Mombacho Volcano
- 🥾 Runners or hiking boots: whatever sturdy, comfy shoes you have. I don’t think boots are necessary, we did the Puma Trail in runners, but if you’ve got them they would be helpful as it's quite moist and slippery in parts.
- 💦 Water: and lots of it! Especially if you’re doing the Tigrillo or Puma. You’ll want a few litres per person.
- 🍪 Snacks: there are not a lot of food options on Mombacho and nothing once you’re hiking. There is a cafe part way up, Cafe Las Flores that you can stop at if you’re walking, but opening hours are inconsistent. I think the transport may stop there briefly, but it’s not enough time to sit down for a meal. The Biological Station has a small cafeteria area, but we didn’t see anything beyond some chips and soft drinks when we visited. If you’re doing the Tigrillo or Puma trails you’ll want to pack some hearty snacks or a picnic lunch.
- 😎 Sun protection: sunglasses, hat, sunscreen.
- 🧣 Warm clothes: it’s very hard to comprehend that it will be cold on the volcano when Granada is so hot, but the temperature drops dramatically once you’re at the summit! It can be windy and so cloudy it’s like it's raining, so I’d suggest a raincoat as an outer layer.
- 💰 Cash: I believe you can pay by card for the park entry, but it’s always safest to have cash just in case and to tip your guide.
Other things to do at Mombacho Volcano
The slopes of Mombacho are not all part of the nature reserve. There are thriving rural communities here, with coffee farms, accommodations and zipline tours.
The problem is coordinating the transport to visit different sites if you don’t have a car or join a tour. Easier said than done, and we weren’t able to conveniently and affordably work out how to do more than just a hike.
If you can coordinate the logistics, you might also like to:
- ☕️ Visit Cafe Las Flores: a coffee shop on the way up the summit, they sell locally-grown and harvested beans, and a small menu of food and coffee-based drinks. A great place for a post-hike refuel. Do be aware their hours are kind of inconsistent, and even though they say they’re open Monday – Sunday, the weekend is more guaranteed.
- 🌾 Take a coffee farm tour: Cafe Las Flores (and many other intermediary tour companies in Granada) offer more extensive tours of their coffee farm, Hacienda El Progreso, learning about how coffee is grown, harvested and prepared. I couldn’t find any tours that combined a hike with a coffee tour, unfortunately.
- 🕊️ Go ziplining: there is a canopy tour set up around the slopes of the volcano. It’s one of the biggest and best in Nicaragua and the cloud forest is a beautiful environment to fly over. It is run by Canopy Miravalle and the course is 2 km long, with 11 lines and a few suspension bridges. If you want to hike and do the ziplines, this combo tour from Granada is your best bet. It lets you choose at the time of booking which trail you'd like to do and adjusts the price accordingly, so it's super transparent.
- 🌛 Spend a night or two on the volcano: if you want to get out of the city, the beautiful forest around Mombacho Volcano is a great nature escape. There are a handful of great lodges where you can stay for a night or more, and soak up the cloud forest. All accommodations can facilitate hikes and tours around the park:
- The Treehouse: famous for its legendary Friday ‘Treehouse Rave’, you can stay at this jungle hostel any night of the week.
- Mombacho Lodge: natural but comfortable wooden cabins in the heart of the forest, this looks like a true eco-lodge experience.
- El Respiro Ecolodge: not quite as foresty as the other options, El Respiro makes up for it in luxurious installations.
How should you visit Mombacho Volcano?
Now you have all the details, you can decide what is the most suitable way for you to visit Mombacho Volcano.
In case you’re still not sure, here are some of my thoughts on the choices you have to make…
Should I take the truck or walk up? 🚛
An age-old question that really divides how people feel about Volcan Mombacho.
If the new packaged pricing models are correct, you should take the transport.
For just $10 more, you can avoid a gruelling hike and save your energy and time for the scenic trails at the summit, whether you choose to do the unguided Crater Trail or pay for one of the guided trails.
If the new packaged pricing models aren’t correct, and/or you’re on a very tight budget and don’t want to pay for a guide on the lengthier trails, I personally don’t think you should visit at all.
To spend 1.5 + hours hiking up a steep, sweaty, not-so-pretty road for a short hike around the Crater Trail that will take you less than an hour, I think you could find a better activity to do around Granada.
If the new prices are correct, you’re still going to spend at least $15 getting there and back, and I think that money could be better spent elsewhere (all-inclusive tours to Volcan Masaya start at $25).
Which trail should I do? 🥾
For me, visiting Mombacho Volcano is a case of if you’re going to pay, you may as well pay a bit more for a much better experience.
The cost-value ratio of only hiking the Crater Trail if you are taking the transport isn’t really worth it in my opinion, $22 for less than an hour of hiking.
If you’re going to pay for the truck, you may as well pay a bit extra to do the longer trails and see more of the park.
Assuming there are two of you, it will be $31.5 (Spanish-speaking) or $34 (English-speaking) per person to do the Tigrillo Trail, which almost doubles your hike and time in the park, for only $10 – $12 extra.
If you want to go the whole hog and do the full Puma Trail, which triples your hike length and time spent in the park, it will only cost $14 – $16.5 extra for a much more comprehensive experience.
Should I take a tour? 🚐
If you don’t want to do the ziplines, probably not.
When we visited, we got very confused about the prices and thought that taking an organised tour from Granada was the most cost-effective way for us to visit.
Looking back at my calculations, I mucked up big time and we ended up paying $110 for the two of us to hike the Puma Trail.
In actual fact, it should have only cost around $80, if we took the bus independently, used the park’s transport to the top and did a guided hike of the Puma Trail.
If you can’t be bothered navigating transport from Granada, a tour is the most straightforward way of visiting, but I’d make sure you are clear about exactly which trail you will do, and if there are any extra fees you’ll have to pay (guide fees, trail fees etc.).
If you do want to do the ziplines, I think a tour is definitely worth it as it eliminates some of the logistical complications of moving between the trails and canopy tour areas. (Although we didn’t do the ziplines, so I can’t be 100% sure of how it works).
This tour looks like the best option: Mombacho Volcano Trails & Zip Line and I love that it's really clear on which trail you'd like to do, you select it at the time of booking.
Planning a trip to Granada
Planning a trip to Granada? Don’t forget to read our Granada travel guide too. It covers all the important info you need to know about the city, like getting there, getting around, where to stay, the best places to eat and other handy tips to get your bearings.
🌻 Everything you need to know about Granada, Nicaragua
Is the Mombacho Volcano hike worth it?
No matter what trail you choose, the Mombacho Volcano hike is expensive!
I know it’s a volcano and the dead forest section was fascinating, but really what we’re talking about here for comparison purposes is a hike through a cloud forest, rather than a volcano experience.
I hate seeing people constantly compare Nicaragua and Costa Rica, usually shitcanning Costa Rica for being so expensive, but in this instance, I have to say, Costa Rica takes the cake for a cloud forest experience.
The cloud forest we saw in Monteverde in Costa Rica just a few weeks later was a MUCH better experience and much more affordable for the value included. For $18 entrance you get access to 12 km of trails with no requirement for a guide.
My point is, that if you’re continuing your travels through the region and you have the opportunity to see cloud forests in Costa Rica, I’d skip this.
If you’re only in Nicaragua and you really want to see the cloud forest ecosystem and spending $30+ is not going to starve you for a week, sure, do it. It is beautiful, no doubt.
But if hiking Mombacho Volcano is going to be at the expense of other experiences around Granada, like seeing lava at Masaya Volcano or kayaking Las Isletas de Granada, I’d skip it.
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