Termites really do taste like carrots
Trip Start
Dec 26, 2006
1
23
90
Trip End
Dec 25, 2007
Isla de Ometepe,
Nicaragua
Wednesday, March 21, 2007
Still in Nica I decided my last stop would be Isla De Ometepe a great island in the middle of Lago De Nicaragua, CA´s largest lake. To give you a bit of a geography lesson, Ometepe means between two hills and to call Volcano Concepcion and Maderas hills would be like calling New York a quaint little East Coast town. As a backdrop it was a sight you never tired of looking at. On the ferry I hooked up with Bas (Holland) and Pete (UK) as we were all heading to the final destination of Merida, close to Volcan Maderas. This was to be another long day of travel starting with the 9am bus-ride from Granada to Rivas, a taxi to San Jorge, a ferry to Moyagalpa on Ometepe, finishing with a bus to Hacienda Merida...where we rocked up 9 hours after the journey began
01 - The beach is the place to be
. To travel on Sundays in Nica is to experience every tout in town telling you that the ´local buses do not run on Sunday, which translated means 'you will have to pay us an exhorbitant amount if you want to get to your destination´. After being shafted on Sonday's in Managua we decided to call the taxi drivers bluff and wait for a couple of hours until the local bus was due to run. All the locals were in on the action, some even changing their story mid-stream as the taxi driver appeared rambling in quick Spanish and no doubt offering the locals a cut. Sort of like the movie Deliverance minus the cross-eyed albino's playing banjo.
The closer it came to 2pm the price for the taxi was dropping but we were confident in our choice, besides the locals have to get around the country on Sunday somehow. His last desperate throw of the dice led him to drive the van right up to us and admit his deception but the school bus was ready to roll and we were happy with our choice. What's not to like about a 3 hour journey over some of the worst pockmarked, gravel roads for the princely sum of about 75 cents. And so it was as we rocked up to Hacienda Merida, showered, changed into clothes that were now into their third week withour being washed (if it smells OK it is clean as far as I am concerned...hygeine shh-mygeine) and we watched one of the most magnificent sunsets over Lago de Nicaragua
02 - Whats for lunch?
. And then it began...a trip down memory lane as Pete started quoting lines such as ´Jousting sticks 4 for 20...Tell em their dreamin´´and ´Hows the serenity´. Thanks to a girl from Bega, NSW he had heard about this Aussie movie called The Castle and throw in a few ´flaming galahs´ from Alf of Home and Away fame and I started to feel right at home in the middle of Nica. Before you could say ´G´day mate´ the sounds of bugger, crikey, fair dinkum and strewth were echoing everywhere as a dutchman and an englishmen added Australian to their vocab which meant Bas was now fluent in language number six or was that seven...all at the tender age of 19. And the world now has two more people who know what budgie smugglers (get me outta here!), noahs, nice and nasty´s, daddy longs, dead horse and sheila´s are and that has to be a good thing doesn´t it? And thanks again Raewyn for that classic Aussie ad for the surf-lifesaving championships...GOLD!
The next morning after the chorus of g´day mate, g´day mate had died down we rented the mountain bikes for a trip across the island to Ojo de Agua. And what a trip it was to be across roads masquerading as quarries in what felt like 35 degree heat where the sweat dripped out of the pores at a rate of knots, a body that this owner stupidly let get sunburnt on a ferry trip that was 'only an hour' the day before, Pete mocking Bas and myself for ourstupidity. The body started to feel muscles that had lied dormant for a few months as potholed hills lay before us to be shared with buses and packs of roaming cattle. It was a major exercise in gear changing as you quickly went from third to first and back to third gear again as the hills loomed before you.
It was head down, teeth gritted between cursing, and concentrating on how bad the roads really were combined with a headwind (every bike I ride comes with a free, all inclusive headwind it seems) and hoping like hell the Ojo de Agua was going to be worth the pain my body was to feel the next day
03 - Our mission, to climb Volcan Concepcion
. I can safely say it was...not from an awesome site perspective but the fact it had the simple things....a rope swing and a clean cold body of water...if you ignored the water spiders that seemed to make their way into the laguna with ease. And the three of us proceeded to spend the next couple of hours jumping into the water, sometimes graceful entries, others spent flopping on my back ensuring another 5 minutes of stupidity induced pain...before getting back on the swing and doing it all again. The simple things I tell you, the simple things...and a great way to avoid getting back on the bike for the inevitable journey home. The journey was broken up by a feed of the traditional Nica dish of spaghetti bolognese and another card game of Midnight Cowboy...one of many in the 5 days. It was delaying the inevitable ride back homewhich I have to say was nowhere near as bad as the trip there. Sure the roads had not been mysteriously paved in the two hours we were at the lagunabut apart from a couple of bone jarring trips at speed down a few hills where I literally hung on for dear life the wind having eased made the trip seem a lot quicker. And passing alongside Volcan Concepcion, its crater shroud in cloud gave us an idea of what to expect in a couple of days when we would negotiate the path to the top. The night was to be spent playing backgammon with oversized dice on a board that could double as a kitchen table, whilst surrounded by a crazy dog barking and growling as he tried to consume his own tail
04 - Mis amigos on Ometepe, Bas and Pete
. Now I know why I had those rabies shots. From Merida it was back to Moyagalpa to arrange a guide Pete had been recommended to climb Volcan Concepcion, a volcano that last experienced an eruption 50 years ago. The hike was classed as physically gruelling, about 10 hours in length with some scrambling required near the top. After finally making contact with our guide by chance in the streets of Moyagalpa we arranged for a 7am start the next morning. And so it was that the alarm sounded and Bas, Pete, Wilmer and myself began the ascent to Volcan Concepcion all 1610m of her. As a snack on the way up Wilmer tempted us with termites on a stick, and what part of 'they taste like carrots, woody carrots' is not appealing. And so it was that the little critters found their way onto the stick, which I then put into my mouth and duly crunched the little suckers to find they really do taste like carrots. So next time you pass a termites nest and the stomach starts to growl a little, satisfy yourself with a treat of termites on a stick. And I can report no visible side effects...yet!
In fact the walk from the base in shifting sand provided other treats such as leafs that double as toilet paper (not willing to take one for the team on this account), ouzo smelling and other medicinal leaves especially for kidney infections
05 - The likely lads take a breather, strewth mate
. Not to mention the birds, butterflies and ubiquitous howler monkeys. And so the slog began to the first stop, the Mirador (lookout) located around 1000m. We were walking in the treeline to 900m so being sheilded from the baking sun was a relief, even if the path provided no respite for the legs as they pounded up the slope, at what felt like a continual 45 degree incline. Man this was no easy walk as the body sweated out all water that was placed into the system...and this was meant to be the easy bit to prepare you for the last 600 meters.And at 900m as we poked our heads above the tree-line we could see the view and how far we had already come...and experience the wind thats was ultimately to prevent us going any further than 1000m. When we finally hit the Mirador we were buffeted by the wind to the point you could lean into itat an angle and still remain standing. And seeing the path we would have to take to the top made us glad our guide said no-go, as I do not know how many termites I could chew on as I spent my days in the ravine waiting to be rescued. It had taken us nearly three and a half hours with stops to reach this point with the return journey taking almost as long as we negotiated the many steep drops down.
However the entertainment was provided by the howler monkeys whose call was imitated by our guide which seemingly bought the monkeys to life
06 - The sun finally sets over Moyagalpa
. And it is amazing how many bad pictures you can take of howler monkeys in trees (or in some cases just trees) without realising. When we hit the creekbed like any walk the last 90 minutes seems more like 90 hours and by this stage we were all duly covered head to toe in sweat and many layers of dust...and thinking only of the shower. So we arrived back to our hostel and came to life after food a shower content that we had made it to 1000m but still wondering about how it would have looked from the top of Concepcion. As a footnote Bas and Pete, I saw pictures from Volcan Concepcion in Costa Rica from a guy who took Wilmer as his guide and was climbing near the top when the volcano suddenly erupted sending clouds of sulphur hurtling down the mountain. They all promptly shat themselves (including Wilmer) and bolted back down to the Mirador trying to dodge the cloud of sulphur heading their way...amazing photos but they were damn lucky given how close they came to getting swamped by the hot sulphur gases. They were pissed at Wilmer as their had been a lot of activity in the days before their climb and he said it was all good. Great story though!
Our last night in Moyagalpa was spent playing more cards, sharing a bottle of Flor de Cana 7 years and talking some more Aussie, although I did learn a few dutch phrases such as 'Neurken in the kirchen' which I will not go into however I will say that the english transaltion is best demonstrated by Glenn Close and Micheal Douglas in the opening scene of Fatal Attraction....just make sure the stove is turned off and there are no sharp objects lurking lest they come and bite you on the bum, if you know what I mean
07 - Bas composes himself on Volcan Concepcion
! And so it was that my time with Pete and Bas was up as we boarded the ferry the next morning with me destined for San Jose, Costa Rica the lads headed for the Pacific surf locale of San Juan del Sur. And none of us were disappointed to leave the room at Moyagalpa which had taken on a funky smell all of its own, resulting from three guys, a shortage of clean clothes and 3 pairs of hiking shoes all with their own distinct aromas. The ferry trip back to the mainland was on a much smaller boat than what we took across four days earlier and we all felt real sorry for a couple of locals on IV drips, one just a small child as the boat lurched up and over the chop of Lago de Nicaragua, the horizon bouncing all over the place. To watch someone in your direct field of vision trying so hard not to vomit, only to eventually fail made the trip that much harder to take. And so it was that I said see ya later to Pete and Bas with a good chance they would make it to Oz one day to see the Noahs, blue ringed octupus, box jelly-fish and fair-dinkum Aussie sheilas (man that is such a bad word) all for themselves!
