Nicaragua Part 2: Ometepe

Ricardo, Giovanni, and I left Pichula and Cubby parked at the dock in San Jorge, and jumped on a ferry to Isla Ometepe.

 

 

We got off the ferry, and jumped on a bus.  The bus got pretty packed full and at times there were people pretty much hanging out the doors of the bus because it was too full.  Experiencing these hot, cramped, slow bus rides made us appreciate that we have our own car along on this trip!

 

 

We got off the bus at "Ojo de Agua", a mineral spring pool. The water, that comes straight from the spring, is supposed to have volcanic minerals that energize and rejuvenate. According to the man at the entrance, you leave ten years younger than when you went in. I don't know about that, but it was very nice...
 

walking to Ojo de Agua

ojo de agua

 

We spent the afternoon swimming in volcano water, then rushed out to catch the last bus to Merida. On the bus we met two other travellers, Dennis, originally from Hungary but living for many years in Canada, and Jerome, from France.  These were cool guys! We hit it off well and ended up staying in the same hostel, and basically hanging out together for the next few days. A local woman agreed to let us use her kitchen, and Giovanni cooked pasta for everyone that night - delicious!

bellies full of pasta - salud!

 

Later the group was joined by two more travellers, a guy from England and a guy from Spain. It was pretty interesting to have so many nationalities together!  Eventually, I went to bed and the boys continued drinking until the wee hours of the morning.  I don't know what all was consumed that night, but I know there were some miserable faces the next morning when we woke up early to hike Volcan Maderas.

heading toward the volcano

 

As we climbed, we began seeing the vegetation change from tropical to cloud forest. Before long, we were sloshing around in mud and having to climb the steep trail by hanging onto branches and occasionally ropes in the places that were too rough. 

 

We saw lots of monkeys and beautiful tropical plants.

 

We also got glimpses, from time to time, of the landscape below.  Here, you can see Volcan Concepcion on the other side of the island, and the narrow strip of land that connects the two.

 

Finally we made it to the top! You can see the lake in the crater behind us.

 

 

Getting back down to the bottom, an evening sunset swim was in order.
 

The next day, we decided to take some kayaks out on the lake and into the river.  It was beautiful...

 

spot the two monkeys on the rock

 

That night there was a rodeo going on in the town. We had to put in an appearance at this special celebration.

 

The rodeo was taking place inside this enclosure, with all the spectators standing on the rickety platform above, no rails behind to prevent one from falling off.

 

Inside, there were men riding (or trying to ride) bulls. The big event was the last bull, supposedly the biggest and meanest one. Anyone who could stay on for 30 would receive a $500 prize. This never happened, however, because the bull jumped the fence, with the rider on it.  That was the end of the rodeo!
 

The next morning, we took a bus and got off at Porvenir because we had heard you can see petroglyphs there. We found that it was actually a fancy lodge and had disappointingly few petroglyphs, and even more disappointingly, absolutely no information about when or by whom these petroglyphs were made.

 

The lodge did have extensive gardens, so I got a lot of nice plant pictures, however.

 

When we left Porvenir, we found that there were no more buses passing there for the rest of the day, since it was Sunday.  We had to walk and hitchhike about 10 miles to where we could get a bus to the ferry.  We were again reminded of how nice it is to have our own car! We did make it back in time for the ferry, and took it back to San Jorge, where Pichula and Cubby were waiting for us.  We had one more stop in Nicaragua, but I'll save that for the next post...