Chapter 4: Only in Ometepe

Yesterday I set out from Granada for Islia de Ometepe. In what turned out to be an 8 hour journey – in which 90% of the distance was covered in 50% of the time, and the final 10 kilometers took 2.5 hours. I didn’t really know what to expect from Ometepe other than reading that it is Nicaragua’s crown jewel and that it is a must place to visit with farms and volcanoes. The island itself is made up of two volcanoes, one active and one dormant and both of which are climbable if you are in the mood for a gruleling several hour long hike in near equatorial heat. Having heard several harrowing accounts of peoples attempted or successful climbs I decided I wasn’t in the mood so I left my hiking boots in Granada so as not to be tempted by the challenge.

After a two and a half hour bus ride from Granada sitting in front of a big white goose who made its presence known with a loud and jarring squak about half way through the trip, I arrived in Rivas and split a cab with a French couple to the doc about five minutes away. We had to wait an hour for the ferry to arrive so I ordered some gallo pinto (beans and rice) which I didn’t eat because it appeared to be about three days old and very questionable from a digestive system defensive perspective. I spent most of the ferry ride on the top deck in the sun – and got my first proper sun burn of the trip.

(on the bus from Granada to Rivas en route to Ometepe - the goose was behind me but I didn't get a good pic )

We landed at Moyagalpa and went for a drink in a little restaurant while we waited for the 4:30 bus to Mireda on the other side of the island. The bus filled up and off we went for drive across the island with a view of volcano conception looming overhead glowing in the setting sun –with the exception of having to arrive at the hostel in the dark, I was very glad I opted for the three hour bus ride over the one hour cab ride. The drive was slow and pretty and cool and breezy and the scenery was amazing. Aside from the fact that I couldn’t fit my legs into the seat of the antique school bus it was one of my favorite bus rides ever. Even the bumpy portion of the ride over a rough dirt road was pleasant.

(on the road on Ometepe - they evacuated the island at least twice while I was in Nicaragua due to the volcano acting up)

I was less than impressed with the hostel we had chosen – at night in the glow of too many fluorescent lights it seemed cramped and dingy. The shower didn’t drain and the sheets were not exactly clean. There were no mosquito nets in the dorm room and the air smelled of burning garbage. I hastily strung up my mosquito net, registered for a dorm bed, ate a quick dinner did some star gazing. The view of the stars here is amazing and alone worth the trip far from any light pollution. I have never seen so many stars in the sky in my life. Then I went off to bed for a sleepless night on the top bunk of a wobbly bunk bed in a smoking hot dormitory.

At about 6 am I woke up = or rather stopped trying to sleep, and wandered out in to the cool morning tried a different shower stall that was quite luxurious, had an excellent breakfast buffet and tried to decide what to do with my day. In the end after much debated I decided not to hike anywhere, and not to move to another part of the island, and not to go kayaking, so I spent the day writing and making travel plans and generally relaxing. I took a walk with a group of volunteers staying at the hostel along some dirt roads and down to a pretty little beach with a rustic restaurant/hotel and played a game of cards. I walked back to the hostel alone with some slight trepidation passing dozens of chickens pigs and horses along the way.

The island really is beautiful – I didn’t have to climb a volcano to see that – and since I am leaving first thing in the morning I will just have to content myself with having seen some beautiful rural landscapes. I can always come back and Kayak another day if I don’t find anything I like better. I really have to work on this decision making thing because if I had known I was going to spend the whole day doing nothing I would have done a whole lot more nothing and a whole lot less trying to decide what to do.

(a sunny relaxing evening at the hostel in Ometepe)

So, having decided to save myself half a day of travel I had my self booked on to the “fast speedboat” that would get me to the ferry terminal and off the island by seven in the morning with a couple of outdoor adventure guides and a British girl who was going home a week early on account of having fallen off a horse and probably breaking her arm. After not sleeping for the previous two hours for fear of missing my boat – I was properly awoken at five am by my trusty alarm watch. I packed up all my things and jumped off of my top bunk dorm bed with a bit more creaking and shuffling than my dorm-mates probably wanted to hear at that hour, and I was ready for my 5:55 fast speed boat ride.

The fast speed boat was very fast and very small to boot, which allowed for a generous, refreshing and fairly constant spray of Lake Nicaragua as we bounced along on the giant waves (giant only because the fast speedboat was so tiny). As I looked down to assess the degree of water damage to the left side of my body, I miraculously discovered a tiny tick just getting itself settled in my arm – this, and my ensuing attempts to remove said tick from arm, was enough to divert my attention away from the horizon long enough to initiate the much dreaded sea sickness that has plagued me on many a foreign boat ride in my various travels. This was not a good thing considering that I had a long day of traveling ahead of me and I really did not need to company of a stubborn case of motion sickness.

Twenty minutes later we arrived at the ferry dock disembarked from our tiny fast speed boat onto a large rickety other boat – from whence we had to balance across a tiny and equally rickety looking plank onto the nice solid concrete dock, from whence we immediately boarded our ferry, and waited for an hour to be on our way. While we were waiting we enjoyed a nice cup of instant coffee, some stale bread and the company of the resident ferry-kitten.

Me and the British girl with the broken arm found ourselves a nice shady seat dead centre on the top deck of the small ferry –would have been the perfect place for sea sickness prevention if the boat was not listing excessively from side to side in the ocean-like surf of this giant lake. But thankfully it did not rock the whole time and I made it to the mainland without having thrown up. Then, took a taxi to the bus station in Rivas, took a Managua bound bus to the cross road near Granada, took a tiny open air taxi-type vehicle to Granada, wandered around for a few hours, collected my yoga mat and some other essentials from my luggage stored at the Hospidaje there, ate a paupusa and a grapefruit and jumped on the shuttle bus to Laguna de Appoyo for my three day working holiday retreat.

(Top deck of the ferry - leaving Ometepe)

(bus stop in Rivas - 90% of the Bus system works on these old american school busses - kind of fun to ride around on - and open windows beat mouldy air conditioning systems in my book even in 40 degree heat...)