Day 4: Ometepe Island

So then, before we begin today's adventure, perhaps a little geography (landforms?) is in order, to give you a broader context of where we're staying in this land of Lakes and Volcanoes.  I pulled a couple of maps off the inter web - the first one gives you a sense of where we are in the entire country.  Of course, we flew into Managua airport, and then drove south for about an hour to get to Granada, right on the shores of Lake Nicaragua.  Btw, the name of the country itself is derived from Nicarao, the name of the Nahuatl-speaking tribe which inhabited the shores of Lago de Nicaragua before the Spanish conquest of the Americas, and the Spanish word Agua, meaning water, due to the presence of the large lakes Lago de Nicaragua (Cocibolca) and Lago de Managua (Xolotlán), as well as lagoons and rivers in the region.  You can see on the map below where Masaya volcano is, relative to Granada as well as our destination for today, Isla de Ometepe.  Also on the slightly more detailed map below, you can see Las Isletas as well as the Mombacho volcano, where we will be doing our cloud forest hike on Thursday.  Its a pretty compact country really, with the majority of the population living on the western coasts with less than 6 million people overall in the entire country.  That's less than New York!!  The largest city is, of course, Managua housing a total of 1.2 million inhabitants.  Granada, by comparison, has less than 150,000 people in total.  Here are a few more population stats for the demographic junkies among you, courtesy of Wikipedia:

During the Nicaraguan Revolution and the Civil War, thousands of Nicaraguans left the country. After the 1990 Nicaraguan Elections some people returned, but many more emigrated during the rest of the decade. In 1998, theHurricane Mitch killed almost 4,000 people in the country and destroyed much of the Nicaraguan economy, as a result thousands of Nicaraguans received the TPS for emigrate to the United States as "refugees".^[7] In recent years, many Nicaraguans had left the country to escape poverty and unemployment.

Nicaraguan emigration is a recent process. During the 1990–2004 period, more than 800,000 Nicaraguans left the country, compared to 100,000 during the 1970–1989 period.^[8] According to the World Bank, in 2005 there were 683,520 Nicaraguans living outside Nicaragua legally. If those who are undocumented are counted, some sources estimate as many as 1,500,000 Nicaraguans living abroad by the end of 2005.^[9] Nicaraguans are the third largest community of Central Americans living abroad, after Guatemalans and Salvadorans. Nicaragua is also the second country in Central America by percentage of population living abroad.

Right then.  Enough of that.  Back to today's adventure.  Again, courtesy of our friends at Tierra Tours, today was to be an all-day trip to Ometepe island which, as you can see from the map above, is situated slap bang in Lake Nicaragua.  Over the northern half of Ometepe looms the Concepcion, a majestic and cone-shaped active volcano, while the southern half is dominated by the extinct volcano Maderas which is swathed in a cloud forest and has a mist-shrouded lagoon in its crater. http://www.ometepenicaragua.com

Our day started bright and early, with a pick-up time of 6am.  The hotel had been kind enough to pack up our breakfast for us, so we were fully stocked up with fresh fruit salad, bread and cheese to tide us over til lunch time.  We were the first to be picked up (by our cheerful driver from yesterday) and we only made one other pick-up before setting out, a very hungover British girl called Lindsey who, on clambering into the back of the van, promptly put her sunglasses on, earphones in and went back to sleep.  Way to represent, girl.

Fortunately, not our ferry...

We were due to catch the ferry out of a little town called Rivas, about an hour or so's drive south from Granada.  The roads are generally in pretty decent shape, so it was a nice smooth drive and, as we got further away from the tourist hub of Granada, it was fascinating to see how the scenery changed.  Fewer cars, more people on horseback or walking or on mopeds.  Lots of cows and horses and pigs just casually grazing and hanging out by the side of the road.  Fewer retail buildings, instead more agriculture with fields full of crops of plantain, tobacco and coffee.   People simply going about their business, as they've done for generations.  It was nice to feel as if you were getting a little bit of an insight into what day-to-day life is like here.  

Anyway, we finally arrive in the port town and get on board our ferry.  It looks a little beaten up and old, but in the way that a solid workhorse does - not flashy, but you have 100% confidence that it will Get the Job Done and get us to our destination safely and without incident.  The fact we had to sign our names on to this little clipboard, also listing age and nationality, so that they would know who was on board in case we sank, didn't worry me at all.  Honest.  

Slightly more fortunately, here's our ferry

The ferry was fine but v….e…..r……y…….s…..l……o……w…… so although the crossing was quite short, distance wise, it took about an hour to chug our way across the lake to the port of Moyogalpa.  We sat up top for the first half of the trip, before - surprise, surprise - it started raining, forcing us inside to take cover.  The chairs in the middle deck's lounge were surprisingly comfy (like those red velvet ones you get in movie theaters) and reclined nicely, enabling us to watch the shockingly atrocious local TV station in comfort.  If you have never seen local Nicaraguan TV, its absolutely priceless.  Its so awful, its brilliant.  And, it would also appear that Nicaraguans have mastered time travel as everything appeared to be stuck in the 80s! From the host's Deirdre Barlow glasses (Loopy, I thought of you and our bridesmaid pics!) and unbelievable power hair, to the achingly  naive and endearingly unsophisticated ads on telly, even to the replay of 80's classic music videos (when did you last see the video to the Ghostbusters theme tune?), I felt as if I'd inadvertently stepped into one of the Back to the Future movies, and Marty McFly would race by at any second.

But… he didn't… and in its own good time, the ferry finally docked and we disembarked and met our new guide and driver.  First order of business was…well, business… as we made a stop for the loo, plus some restorative caffeine and cake for our British friend who was slowly coming back to life.  Never one to miss a retail opportunity, I bought a pot of locally-made peanut butter from the coffee shop for my smoothies back home (although..thinking about it now, that was my assumption at the time - i don't actually recall any mention of peanuts being grown anywhere around here…so who knows?!). With everyone fed, watered and unwatered, it was time for our first stop, a visit to the Chaco Verde ecological park.  

En route in Ometepe (Jessica - saw this and thought of you!)

Chaco Verde means Green Puddle and is basically a big pond (not really all that green, to be honest) surrounded by some rather lovely scenery.  Its a protected area (as is a lot of Nicaragua, which is encouraging) and is particularly lush in the rainy season.   Again, we were proving to be quite fortunate with the weather - after the little squall crossing the lake earlier in the morning, the clouds had now cleared up, so it was a beautifully sunny day - but not so roastingly hot as to be intolerable.  Just the job for an hour long amble through the park.

The active volcano, Concepion - a perfect
(and perfectly deadly) cone shaped volcano

Now, at times, I wasn't sure if I was on a nice pleasant stroll through some lovely forest or in a scene from the Hunger Games.  As attractive as things were, there seemed to be an awful lot of stuff (animal, vegetable, mineral) that seemed to have evolved just to cause you harm!  Particularly the trees!!  Who knew trees could be such vicious little buggers!!!  I will never look at a Ficus tree the same way again, now knowing their modus operandi for growing alongside another (non-ficus) tree and then entwining itself around it and slowly strangling it.  Or this other tree (can't remember the name) that had devilishly sharp spikes encrusting its trunk, ready to impale any hapless creature (or tourist) that would come too close.  Or different tree with similarly sharp spikes (again to prevent anything climbing up it) or this evil plant with mottled leaves that contained an irritant that, if brushed against the skin, would cause intense pain and itching.  Apparently, in olden times, it was used by men who suspected their wives of being unfaithful, by slipping it into their beds.  Never used against wayward men though - interesting, huh?  

It wasn't just the plants that were out to get ya, either.  As we walked along the trail, at one point our guide told us that we needed to be silent for the next few minutes - the reason?  A nest, about 5 metres up in a tree overhead, full of a type of wasp that - if one stung you, it would be very painful, but if 5-6 stung you, it would be game over.  Yikes.  Needless to say, we were very very quiet.  Also, as our guide caught a Brown Vine Snake for us to have a look at and take snakey-selfies with, he also told us to be on the look-out for the Coral Snake - basically one of the most venomous snakes on earth that could pretty much kill you just by looking at you.  If you had the misfortune to get bitten, you had about 45 mins on the earth to put your affairs in order.  He helpfully told us you could actually last for longer if you "didn't panic" - probably not the most actionable of tips, to be honest.

Pretty flower, big-ass (killer?!) wasp!

The Green Puddle itself

On a mission to capture a snake

Say hello to the not-all-that poisonous
brown vine snake

Charmed, I'm sure

Spiky-tastic

At last - something that wasn't out to get
 me - just a plain old green iguana!

You can't see it very well, but about
 half way up the branch on the right,
are the death wasps - SHUSHHHH!!!

Beautiful view of the volcano

Evil bugger, right??

We were hoping to see some howler monkeys but - alas - we were out of luck.  We did hear them, but they were just too far away to spot, so after an hour's wandering through the Forest of Possible Death and Spiky Things, we made it back to the van and headed off to our next stop.  

Next up, some ancient carvings and stone art.  Now.. I'm not sure i can actually remember who did what, when - but I do vaguely recall the estimated date for these carvings is about 1000-1200 years old.  Pretty damned impressive, really.  We saw 7-8 of them, just hanging out in the fields, protected from the elements by little wooden shelters.  The guide told us that they were all in the places that they were originally discovered in but not the place they were originally carved.   Yes, these - and many countless thousands and thousands of tons of rock were displaced during the last major volcanic eruption, so no-one actually knows where on the island exactly these petroglyphs came from.  As for what they depict?  Well, your guess is as good as any too!  (If you want to learn more about the petroglyphs, here you go: http://www.ometepenicaragua.com/petroglyphs/index.php)

Cool, huh?

After the carvings, it was about 12pm and I was starting to wilt a little.  Fortunately, though, our next stop was for lunch, at this great restaurant perched up on the best beach along the lake.  If you wanted to swim, this was the best place for it, however, Lisa and I were perfectly content instead with the simple pleasures of a nice leisurely lunch and a glass or two of chilled white wine.  Apparently, there are also sharks in the lake, so that didn't exactly act as a call to action either.

After lunch, it was time for our last stop before our tour of Ometepe was over - this time to a natural spring (notice I didn't say "hot") where the waters were supposed to be rejuvenating and cleansing.  This obviously proved to be too attractive an offer to pass up for our still-recovering British friend, so she took to the waters to chase away the last vestiges of her hangovers.  Lisa dunked her toes in, and I poked the water with my index finger (it doesn't look any younger, btw) so I think I had it pretty much covered.  We did indulge in the local rejuvenating water-hole special, though, the Coco Loco - a coconut milk and rum drink made while you wait from real coconuts (I know - shocking, right?!).  It was absolutely delicious and what else would you drink while sitting by a natural water hole on a volcanic island in a lake surrounded by volcanoes?

And, with that, our time in Ometepe was drawing to a close, so all that was left to do was to clamber back into the van for the short drive back to the port, hop back onto the ferry for the ride back to the mainland and to meet our driver again for the ride back to Granada.  We got back to the hotel around 6pm, so it was a long day, but well worth the trip.  To close out, a few hands of C&F (Loopy - Anders can tell you what that means) just to set the seal on a very enjoyable day.  Next up, cruising around the little islands of Las Isletas!

Not Loco.  Yummy coconut and rum
cocktail, served poolside

Relaxing pool-side (note: Stunt Feet in use,
due to my own shameful lack of  a pedicure)