January 22: Isla de Ometepe
Trip Start
Jan 13, 2009
1
5
26
Trip End
Apr 09, 2009
Playa Venecia,
Nicaragua
Thursday, January 22, 2009
We got to San Jorge and bought tickets for the ferry to the island(60 córdoba, about $3 US). Just 50 ft. inside the gate a guy said we could go on his boat for half the price. Plus, it would go to the exact point on the island where we had wanted to go. The boat he pointed to looked nice, so I ran back to the ticket office and was surprised how easy it was to get my money back. The ticketeers must get a cut from the small boat captains or something. We ducked into the half-price boat, only to be ushered straight through the boat and onto a smaller, rougher looking one parked on the other side! Very tricky, but still half-price so we were game. Andrea is very prone to motion sickness so she took some Dramamine.
The boat ride was wonderful. The swells were big and it felt like a breezy rollercoaster ride. We sat on the top deck and even up there were splashed several times. Andrea sat in the front so she could better watch the horizon. She, therefore, got splashed the worst and was almost completely soaked at one point.
When we arrived in Charco Verde we walked about 2 km to our hotel, Finca Playa Venecia, which had been sold to us by a representative on the dock in San Jorge. He said the cabin would be $20, but once we got there they said $30. Usual business in Central America. The cabin was extremely nice and right on the lake, so we gave in. With 4 people the price wasn´t bad.
Soon after arrival we went for a walk in a nature reserve nearby, where we supposedly could see lots of howler monkeys. This time of year is actually Nicaragua´s winter so the lake levels were so high that we couldn´t walk through one part. We had to go around and, to our disappointment, didn´t see any monkeys. Joel and Andrea went back to the cabin, while Joe and I climbed a steep path at the end of the reserve. We were able to look down on the Laguna Verde and could see our side of the island pretty well.
That night we had repochetas (corn tortilla filled with cheese and then fried in the shape of an empanada, 25 cordobas/$1.25 US) at the slightly overpriced restaurant adjoined to our hotel. Joel and Andrea had chicken spaghetti (90 cordobas/$4 US).
The next day we took a bus to Altagracia, about 40 minutes away. We went to check out the indigenous statues there, which were not all that impressive and cost a dollar (for all of us) to see.
We had planned to take a 3 hr. boat from there to Granada (a colonial city farther north)that would leave around Midnight. We asked for directions to the port from where the boat would leave and were told it was 3 km away. We decided to hike, backpacks and all, since taxis on the island were few and it didn´t sound far. Little did we know that the 3 km was actually more like 6. Everytime we got to a new juncture and asked for more directions, someone would tell us: ¨Just one more kilometer.¨ LIES!!! It took a long time to get there and was very hot. We figured, however, that at the end there would be nice beaches and restaurants to hang out at.
Once we got to the end of the long winding path, we found that the ONLY thing at the end was the port, and 1 restaurant/house. It was only about 11am and we would have to wait there and do nothing for 13 hours before the boat even docked. We bought some sodas from the nice and helpful lady who ran the restaurant and decided to hike back to town, where we could catch a boat back to Rivas and then take a 2 hr. bus to Granada.
The island was very nice and beautiful, but I think all of us are more ¨mountain people¨ than we are beachgoers. After Granada we plan to go to Matagalpa, where we can hopefully find cooler weather and the security of mountains all around.
