Central America is littered with many volcanoes, some active and some dormant for thousands of years. The next stop would be the island of Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua, it looked to be an interesting place. The lake is one of the biggest in Central America (8264km2) and although not as big as Lake Titicaca we visited in South America it was pretty impressive and was more like a sea than a lake!

The islands were formed thousands of years ago when two volcanoes emerged from the sea. The lava flows from the volcanoes then dried and connected the two. Volcan Maderas at 1345m and Volcan Concepcion at 1611m.

The best way to see the island is on bikes so we hired a motor bike for a few days. We hired a fully manual 125cc so good for the crazy dirt roads and hills! The first day we visited an Ecological reserve, a crystal clear natural lagoon filled with flowing volcanically cleaned water and to the largest beach of the island. On the second day we went to the smaller volcano and took a big trek up to a volcanic waterfall, super hard as we ended up doing it in the midday sun and upwards for 3km.... again! We ended the day at the best viewpoint on the island for the beautiful sunset that closes down over the hills from the mainland.

Some of the island is paved so great for cruising about but about a 3rd of our route was crazy off road gravel and dirt tracks, all added to the experience! As with all places you seem to hire bikes in Latin America or Asia, the speedo, petrol gauge and rev counter didn't work, and soon after hiring we could only kick start the bike but all adds to the fun in these places!

We found a great little hostel to stay in, definitely one of the more popular on the island and also some great local food. A really good bbq one night and some nice arepa type things another. Grilled maze with cheese and meat fillings!

After our trip around the island we were heading to a small city next and quite looking forward to being back in an urban area for the weekend, Granada bound....