We took a road trip on a Wednesday to visit Laguna de Apoyo.
About the Lake
Laguna de Apoyo is a crater lake. It was formed over 20,000 years ago when a volcano imploded and filled over time with water. A chain of Volcanos runs through Nicaragua from North to South. It is located between the Mombacho Volcano and the Masaya Volcano (which we have visited). It is a beautiful, clean lake.
It was declared a natural reserve in 1991, so it has been kept clean and the surrounding areas sparsely developed. One great thing about Nicaragua is that it is not overdeveloped. You won’t find mega-hotels and housing developments crowding the natural wonders throughout the country.
The walls of the crater are steep and covered with lush vegetation. The lake is deep. It is up to 200 meters deep in places. It is thermally vented, so the temperature remains nice year-round.
Getting There
It is an easy two-hour drive from San Juan Del Sur. The roads around the lake are bumpy and narrow. As it gets further along into the rainy season, it seems like those rodes will be more difficult to navigate.
We always seem to get pulled over at least once each time we venture out of San Juan Del Sur. There are always several checkpoints with officers conducting random stops to check license and registration. This time, an officer tried to tell us we illegally crossed a dotted white line. We held firm and after a discussion with his partner, the officer gave us our papers and Michael’s driver’s license back.
Most of the time the officer checks our documents and we are on our way. A couple of times the officers saw we were tourists and tried to get a few hundred Cordoba out of us by telling us we committed infractions that we did not commit. So far we have discovered that if we do not give in right away and we take their picture or a video of the incident they let us go.
We spent about 20 minutes driving around the area figuring out where to park to go to the lake. Access to the waterfront of the Laguna is tricky to find. We could have researched it beforehand, but sometimes we enjoy the adventure of figuring things out. There are restaurants and hostels situated along the lake that allow access to the lake with day passes. There is public access to the beach, but we did not find it.
Michael talked to the owner of one of the restaurants on the lake. The restaurant is not open during the week right now because there are so few visitors. The owner is an older gentleman from Switzerland. He is about to declare bankruptcy because his business was first hit hard by the political unrest in 2018 and now COVID.
The impact to the business owners and many of the people in Nicaragua from COVID and lack of tourism is devastating. We try to do our part by shopping in the local stores and getting takeaway from the restaurants in our area. We also try to get out and visit places like Laguna de Apoyo and spend money with the businesses there.
Paradise at Paradiso
We found a great place called Paradiso. It is a hostel with a great restaurant and a nice small beach. We got access to the facilities there for the day for $5/person. That included bathrooms, showers, ping pong, pool, beach chairs, kayaks, and life jackets. The staff wore masks and there were only a few other people there, so social distancing was easy.
We swam for a bit in the lake and then had lunch at the restaurant. The food was delicious. The menu was large. Michael had sea bass with garlic mashed potatoes. Lucas and Judy had fajitas and Henry had a cheeseburger.
After lunch, we kayaked. We only got to be on the water for about 30 minutes because we could see a storm rolling in from the other side of the lake. The water started getting choppy. We were able to pack up and get out to the main road right when the rain started.
We plan to go back to Laguna de Apoyo again before we leave.
