May 30-June 2 - Ometepe Island, Nicaragua

Volcan Maderas

Ometepe Island is situated in the middle of Lake Nicaragua in the southern part of the country. It was created by two volcanos, Volcan Concepcion which is still active, and Volcan Maderas. Local folklore says that the island was created by a Romeo and Juliet type story of two lovers from different tribes that were forbidden to be together, so they committed suicide and the women fell back into the lake and her breasts became the two volcanoes. Now everytime I look at a map or pictures of the two volcanoes I see a pair of tits...

Volcan Concepcion

We crossed the Nicaraguan border around noon, caught a cab to the ferry and took a it across the lake to the Island. The ferry ride was about 45 minutes long, it was a beautiful clear day, we had an awesome view of Volcan Concepcion and we were the only people on the top deck. It was such a beautiful boat ride and we were all just taking as many pictures as possible.

Once on the island we found a little hotel that Misha had read about online. We rented a room for the three of us, ditched our bags and went out for some food. It wasn't as cheap as we had heard Nicaragua was suppose to be, but we had figured it wouldn't be because it was an island. We also discovered that the power goes out about twice per day there.

Natural Springs

The next day we hired a driver to take us on a tour around the island. We stopped first at a store for some beers to take with us, which we got some funny looks for. Then we stopped at a nature reserve and did a small hike around to see the different animals and plants. We were able to see a pack of howler monkeys, lots of different birds and a ton of tap poles in the nearby lake. After the hike we went to some natural cold water springs and swam for about an hour.  Then we headed to a nearby beach where we had lunch. On the beach we saw the most malnurished dog I have ever seen in my life. You could see the contours of his pelvis and all of his vertebrae. It was really hard for me to see that and makes me want to come down here if I get through school and help animals here. So I gave him most of my lunch and we headed back to town.

Beach by the restaurant

The next day we rented some bikes to tour around the island with. There was very little traffic on the roads so it was excellent for biking. We hit up a nearby beach and an archaeological museum. While I was in school I had considered doing a field school here on Ometepe Island. I had seen many pictures of the stuff they had dug up in the previous years, and it was the same stuff in the museum. I don't know if it was all of the same artifacts from that field school, but it is always interesting to see the things that you've learned about in school in real life.

Unfortunately Kat became really sick at the museum so we caught a taxi ride back to town with our bikes and headed back to the hotel. She felt better in the evening so we went out for dinner to an awesome argentinian restaurant, had some beers and we back to the hotel to sleep. 

The next morning we caught a 9am ferry and bus back to Costa Rica. Ometepe was gorgeous, it had beautiful water to swim in, it was safe, the locals we friendly and the owners of the hotel were really great. We all had an awesome time (apart from Kat getting sick) and it was worth the almost full day trip to get there.