Ometepe: monkeys and a crater lake
Trip Start
Sep 28, 2007
1
21
33
Trip End
Ongoing
San Juan del Sur,
Nicaragua
Monday, November 12, 2007
With my one day on Ometepe I chose to hike up Volcan Madera. My motivation was varied. I felt the need to get some real exercise, especially as the next stage of the trip is supposed to be all about hiking. The hike is through virgin cloud forest where there were supposed to be good opportunities for seeing wildlife, and it ends at a crater lake.
The hike is reasonably long but it is not especially difficult. It is supposed to be 5 km in length but is up hill all the way and involves a pretty big climb in elevation, I would guess that the starting point of the hike is well below 100m, and you reach almost 1400. There more challenging point was coming back down again because the path is quite steep and very slippery. It is a pleasingly undeveloped track, but clear enough to make the 'guide' an overpriced and unnecessary luxury
cloud forest
.We started out from local finca (homestead) which is set amidst flowering bushes and with great views of the other volcano, and soon moved past coffee bushes and cacao trees. the coffee berry is quite tasty and refreshing, and the seed inside has a sweet furry coating. I think that I prefer them in this raw state. Unfortunately, the cacao had all been harvested, so only rotten and unripe cacao remained.
We then reached the forest proper and began a steady climb that took us a good three and a half hours. We passed a petroglyph which it seems that they don't know too much about despite them being quite common in the area, but one of the carvings that remains is a pretty well worked image of a butterfly. Others include a depiction of a leader who may be buried under the stone with various symbols worked don his front. We heard occasional grunts from howler monkeys in the distance, but overall I was amazed at how quiet the forest was. It was like hiking in a New Zealand forest where the pest control hasn't worked.
This is not a hike for good views, as you remain in forest the whole time, and even at the summit cannot see past the trees
Cloud forest with cloud
. The nicest bit about the hike is getting to the level of the cloud and hiking through the mist, and then it is not dissimilar to a forest hike in New Zealand - very green, lots of moss and ferns, everything a little wet and little wisps of mist everywhere.From the summit it is a pretty steep drop down into the crater lake, also invisible because of the fog which lies between the summit and the level of the lake. On a day like this the lake is not that appealing - the day was not especially warm at this level, the lake was very pretty but covered cold looking fog. First appearances were not deceptive. The water was cold. The mud was deep and squishy. And the lake was very shallow. I went a fair way out - far enough that I couldn't see the others on shore but I was never so deep that I could not touch mud. Just how far the mud went before you hit solid ground I couldn't say but it had a sucking property that was enough to discourage me from fully investigating. One good thing about the mud though was that it was warm, so that it made a nice place to bury cold feet.
On most sides of the lake the walls of the crater came right down to the lake, but along one side there was flat land and grass, presumably an area that frequently floods.
Howler 1
The hike back down was also pretty uneventful and I was feeling pretty frustrated with the billing this hike had got, when I heard a noise off to the left. On leaving the track I was able to spot a howler monkey on a branch overhead. The remnants of our group then had a really nice view of troop of howler monkeys hanging out in the trees of the cacao plantation. We could watch them moving along the branches and in some cases collecting the leaves and eating. We stayed there for as long as we thought we could get away with, and I took a lot of terrible photos (it is really hard to take good photos of animals directly overhead, especially when there is foliage in the way and it is quite dark on the forest floor). So that improved the day dramatically. It got even better soon after as we wandered back through the coffee plantation. In the trees above the coffee plants were a number of small howlers, actively feeding. There leaves on these trees were small, allowing more light through and providing much less cover for the monkeys. As a result the viewing was excellent, and I quickly changed my mind about trying to catch up with the group. We counted about 10 in the trees here, and for a while we had one hanging from the branches directly overhead and feeding. He was perhaps only three meters above us. We could hear the leaves tear.
When we got in it was nearly dark. But Nancy had the idea of washing off in the lake. This was good thinking as it turned out because the lake water was beautiful - quite warm but still refreshing, and a good deal warmer than what was available at the hotel. But the real surprise was the size and power of the waves. They were incredibly regular, coming through every five seconds, and with great force. You really had to brace against them and they were high enough to body surf in on. It was lovely playing in the waves in warm, fresh water, under the shadow of volcano Madera. As Nancy pointed out, this was my kind of lake - big enough waves to be fun, and with sharks to boot!
