More volcanos
Trip Start
Sep 06, 2006
1
27
36
Trip End
Sep 01, 2007
Isla de Ometepe,
Nicaragua
Sunday, January 14, 2007
01. Tired and confused
. So our first night in Nicargua was very enjoyable that was until we set foot on the old ferry.All in all I thought our jouney was a little uncomfortable and during the crossing we took a detour. At first someone, ie: Cath, shouted that there was a shark in the water, ( the lake used to be full of them as they would migrate from the carribean up the river to the lake, but they over fished them and sold them to the Japan so now there aren't any), but as we got closer it turned out to be a poor fisherman whose boat was sinking. He was holding on to his nets and the submerging boat as we (the captain and his team) scooped him out and bought him back to dry land.
As we set foot on terra firma we hopped on to our first local chicken bus which took us round the island and dropped us off at a little beachside hostel 2 hours later. Ometepe isnt a big island but when you're on a chicken bus for 2 hrs on rough roads with massive pot holes it feels like it. The buses are of course old American school buses so the seats are designed for little people with little legs but the seats are strangely quite wide across, maybe its beacause they have a lot of a fat kids in America. Anyway, if you do get a seat you're more than grateful cos you don't want to be standing up in this crowded sweaty bus with no head room
02. Party with the locals
.We ventured on to another hostel the next day, Finca Magdelena http://www.fincamagdalena.com a lovely little coffee farm built in 1888 and collaboratively owned by a number of families. The Finca has important partnerships with fair trade organizations in the States which purchase half of their yearly coffee harvest and use profits to fund projects on the island like clean water systems, education and health care because the island is very poor. There is basic accommodation for backpakers inside the main barn, where one night Cath made me catch a spider the size of a chicken (well maybe a chicken leg) before we could get into our mosquito ne and after all the nerd insect/bug guys had had a look. It is a really pretty little place, slightly up Volcano Maderas with a great view of the lake and the Volcan Concepcion. In the grounds of the farm you can go for a walk to see many stone hiroglyphs that have been around for a very long time! On the way to them you walk through banana plantations and pretty paths where butterflies are flying all around and many fields and it was in one of these fields that I realised that we had taken completely the wrong path and the stones where much nearer the farm so we took the lovely walk back again.
Seeing as we were on a volcano, all be it an inactive one, I thought we should stop lounging around and try walk up one
03. Beach bus
. So we formed a little group with two kids who had just done operation raleigh, a crazy canook Canadian and his Ozzie girlfriend, oh and a couple of guides. This was a strange experience. It was a 3.5 hour walk to the top, the first part was easy but then half way up through the jungle everything becomes covered in cloud (at this point i was getting fed up with volcanoes and cloud but apparently it hardly ever is clear). Then the muddy path turns into a mud stream as you try and scramble up clutching at branches. Cath had started to lead the group but now she was lagging behind and seemed to be falling over quite abit. Once you do get to the top you still can't see anything as you have to desend into the crater where the lake is which takes another half an hour with lots of more scrambling down. We could see the edge of the lake, all muddy and brown but we could only see about ten meters in front and then you start to think to yourself, why? Why? Why? We stopped there to have a sarnie, crazy canadian had tortillas with peanut butter and raisons, Mmmm and then started our 3.5 hour walk back down, brilliant. Now the path has turned into a mud river which made the gowing tough but very funny. Luckily we were with a good group so the chat was a great deal better than we had on the inca trail and everyone cheered when we took our turns to fall over in the mud. Yeah!We had done our time on the island and it was time to move on we got back on the chicken bus and then the ferry but this time we felt much than before. On the ferry we looked back with a sense of achievement and bemusment that we had climbed a volcano in the cloud and it was at this point we looked back on the island and the volcanoes and the cloud had gone and it was blue skies everywhere. Typical eh!
