Woke up in Granada for the second day. We got a late start like the day before. This morning we started with breakfast at cafe de arte. This time I ordered a cappuccino and got a latte… perfect ?

After breakfast we packed our bags and checked out. We only had a few hours to see Granada before heading to Ometepe. In my opinion it was more than enough. The only real attraction we checked out was the bell tower at the cathedral. The view was magnificent!

We wandered a little more then head back to the hotel to pick up our bags and catch a shuttle. The shuttle ride was about an hour and a half and mostly uneventful. When we arrived at the ferry terminal, we were surprised to find that all the ferries had been sold out until 2 hours later. Thank goodness we were not the only confused foreigners ?‍♀️

After waiting around, the Santa Martha finally arrived. (This was not the end of waiting around though). This was a pretty crappy looking boat. If you had asked me how many people fit on this boat, I would have given you an answer an order of magnitude smaller than the number that crammed on.

An hour into the boat ride, we finally had the most amazing view of Concepción as the sun was setting! Truly magnificent!

We had another hour and a half taxi ride before we got to the Airbnb. It was dark when we arrived so I still haven’t really seen it! We walked a bit and got dinner at a local restaurant that was pretty good. Gonna hit the sack now to be ready to explore Ometepe tomorrow?

After arriving late in Granada last night (and then having a little mishap when checking into the hotel…) we let ourselves sleep in this morning. We left the hotel at ~10 AM for Garden Cafe. I had heard this was THE place in town for latte art, but apparently the Nicaraguan word for latte is Cappuccino and I got a large warm milk with a little bit of coffee flavor. ?

Breakfast was delicious though! I got a nacatamal – Nica’s version of tamale and it was great! After breakfast, we headed to Claro to buy a SIM card. I think we got unlucky with timing because a large family was in there getting chips before us and it took an hour for us to get out. We made a quick lap of the town square and then headed back to the hotel to get our things for the main event – Laguna de Apoyo.

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Apparently we were getting swindled by our hotel. The cab to Hostel Paradiso was more than the price on the wall when we got there ?. Oh well. The deal was $7 for a day pass that included access to all facilities, kayaks and coffee. We spent 45 minutes swimming in the lake before getting out to get some lunch.

We spent a little more time swimming and then gathered our stuff to leave.  The shuttle we were planning to take back to Granada had a flat tire, so the hotel was calling cabs for groups of 4. While we were waiting, it started pouring rain out of nowhere! We finally got a cab and when we arrived back at our hotel it was sunny again! So we spent the rest of the daylight walking down to see the lake in daylight.

We head back to the hotel and cleaned up for dinner. We had spent a lot of time wondering where all the Americans were. They were all at Restaurant el Zaguan. Despite definitely catering to gringos, Zaguan was delicious! The steak we got was better than any steak I had in South America! After dinner, we were surprised to find ourselves in the middle of a Christmas parade.

We took a quick walk around the town square and then made our way back to the hotel! Interestingly, the pool area was packed! Overall, an awesome day! Now if you’ll excuse me, I think there’s a bat in my hotel room ?

There has been this interesting trend over the last year of museums that are popping up pretty much with the purpose of being photo-ops for Instagram.  It has inspired me to create the Museum of Modern Butts – aka MOMButts.  Until MOMButts comes to fruittion, there are two pop-up museums currently running in San Francisco: the Color Factory and the Museum of Ice Cream.  Last Friday I finally made it to the museum of ice cream in San Francisco, which means I can now do a comparison between the two  🙂

The Color Factory

The color factory has been open in San Francisco since August 7 this year, but the initial block of tickets were sold out before it was even on my radar.  I experienced the Color Factory in September.

Pros:

• Really cool exhibits
• Exhibits were interactive
• You can take really great photos there

Cons:

• Very short
• Did not have a lot of “extras”

Highlights

I really enjoyed the room where the instagram selfies were getting printed out.  It was cool to take a selfie, post it to instagram, and then get it printed out.  Also, there was a room with LEDs of alternating colors, got some great photos in that room. And of course, the ball pit was a blast!

Takeaway

The Color Factory feels like an art museum in some senses.  Every room is an exhibit that can stand alone, but it still maintains a flow.  From my perspective, it felt very much like a playground for adults.  Overall  it was fun, but I was left wanting more.

Museum of Ice Cream

Museum of Ice Cream is more established than the Color Factory, it has already made a few stops before getting to San Francisco.  Based on photos I have seen online, there are slight variations for city to city.  Tickets for Museum of Ice Cream were an equal challenge.

Pros:

• You get a lot of treats
• Some pretty interesting history

Cons:

• Long queues throughout the museum
• Less diversity for photo opportunities

Highlights

The experience started out with a whole It’s-It (Bay Area ice cream sandwich for those who are unfamiliar).  The ice cream in the unicorn room was also very tasty.  Got some great photos in the sprinkle pool, but my absolute highlight was the swings at the end.  I got a little over zealous on the last swing and dented one of the cans on the wall – Oops!

Takeaway

Museum of Ice Cream has more of a history museum vibe.  There are sets, but they are candy-themed. There is a candy/ice cream theme (obviously).  My big issue with Museum of Ice Cream was the long queues (particularly before the unicorn), and I did have a big group of kids who entered the museum around the same time as me.  But, I really shouldn’t have eaten beforehand – they are not stingy on treats!

Verdict

In my opinion, I think they were both about $5 too expensive. but I thought Museum of Ice Cream was a bigger bang for your buck.  I had fun at both, and I took better pictures at Color Factory, but Museum of Ice Cream was a lot of fun and a really great date night!  If you are only going to go to one, I would choose Museum of Ice Cream.

You can keep up to date on the ticket situation for Color Factory here and the Museum of Ice Cream here.

Trip Stats

Distance: 8 miles
Time: 3 hours (and change)

Background

The trail of ten falls is located in Oregon’s Silver Falls State Park, about 90 minutes south of Portland. When I first started planning my weekend in Portland, I knew there was going to be some hiking on the itinerary. The obvious choice is usually to head to Portland’s backyard: the Columbia River Gorge. Unfortunately, there was the devastating fire that hit the area in late summer.  A lot of the hikes I was interested in were closed indefinitely. I guess I had to find a plan B.

The name of the trail was very intriguing. Trail of Ten Falls: that’s a lot of falls. The distance seemed a little off putting.  Eight miles is possibly a little long for a half day hike.  Fortunately, most of the beta I was reading about the walk said people typically spent 3 hours on the hike, so it sounded like a go! We woke up at 8AM, grabbed some coffee and hit the road 🙂

Canyon Trail

The trail of ten falls loop is actually made by linking two trails: canyon trail and rim trail. For a fantastic start, head out on canyon trail. You will immediately find yourself at South Falls, arguably the best waterfall on the trail. I would argue against you if you said that, but it was Dennis’s favorite. Before you reach the south falls amphitheatre, you will have the option to take a short side trip to Frenchie falls. This is the one side trip I would suggest you skip. By the end of the loop you will have waterfall fatigue, and it just wasn’t all that great.

Continue down the canyon trail and you will have the opportunity to walk behind South Falls. It is a very cool experience and you will get wet. This is a beautiful waterfall, but don’t spend too much time here, you still have 9 more!

There was a trail race in the park the day I did the trail, and the runners were travelling in the opposite direction as me. About a mile later when I hit Lower South Falls, there was a photographer setup to take action shots of the runners as they passed behind that waterfall. I wish I had known about this race ahead of time to sign up for this shot alone. It really would have been an epic. Passing under this fall was also one of the first times in my life I wish I brought a tripod hiking with me. Lower south falls is a crowd pleaser and bottle-neck along the trail.

The next mile-ish after lower south falls was uneventful. It was very lush, and beautiful, but there were a lot of people. Finally we arrived at lower north falls. Under normal circumstances, it would be a very lovely waterfall, but compared to the previous two, it was just ok.

Just past lower north falls, there is a side trip to double falls. Definitely go check it out! Standing right beneath double falls is a very cool experience. It is a very intimate view point.  There is this cool rush of air that comes over you in the tiny canyon at the base of the falls. This one was probably one of my favorites.

Back on the trail, you pass drake falls. Like lower north, it is not a particularly captivating waterfall. Keep going and you get to another short side trip where you go and walk behind middle north falls. This was my favorite waterfall by a mile. As you wrap behind the fall you come to this amazing view point which was definitely the highlight of the hike from me.

At this point, I thought the trail kept going, but actually you have to backtrack to the trail to avoid bushwhacking. The next waterfall you pass is twin falls. Not an exciting waterfall for me, and also at this point I was beginning to feel waterfall-fatigue :/ We passed a few runners at this point who asked me to take a picture of them. I did, but I have no idea how to get the photos to them, plus, I’m sure they weren’t as good as the action shots on the course.

After some uneventful walking, we finally arrived at North Falls: The crown jewel of the canyon trail. This waterfall has a giant cavern behind it with some amazing vantage points. After stopping for some photo ops, we finished the canyon trail which ends at a parking lot. There is one more quick side trip beyond the parking lot to see upper north falls.

Rim Trail

At this point, we had seen 9 of the 10 waterfalls, the race was wrapping up, and the weather was deteriorating. Reports online say that the Rim Trail is a letdown after the Canyon Trail. It certainly wasn’t as dramatic as walking through the canyon, but I saw some of my favorite views of the day on the Rim Trail. I guess one reason why people might not like it as much is that you are walking right next to the road.

We still had one more waterfall to see, but we were also starting to get really cold. When we finally came to the junction with Winter Falls (aptly named for our trip), we had a moment of deliberation as to whether we were going to go check it out. In the end, we had come to see ten waterfalls and would not settle for any less. We head down to see it. I certainly do not regret making the side trip to go see the tenth waterfall, but it also was just not as spectacular as some of the other falls we had seen during the day. Plus, there was a couple standing there ruining our photo-ops :p

The last mile or so parallels a bike path, and it was just a casual stroll through cold drizzle back to the car. Overall all the Trail of Ten Falls did not disappoint. It is the perfect length and distance from Portland to be a good half day trip if you want to get out of the city and into the woods.  We made it back to Portland just in time to share a cheese plate at Cheese and Crack.  A solid day in my book 🙂