Isla de Ometepe and beyond

To think that we nearly missed the opportunity to visit Ometepe! Our original plan was to stay at one of the fincas (farms) for a week, then we changed our mind and went to the Corn Islands instead. Luckily we reverted (almost) to the original plan and stayed at the area of Playa Santo Domingo for 5 nights. Ometepe means 'between two hills'. This is a literal description of the island that is made out of two volcanoes with a narrow strip between them, which is where we stayed. The bigger volcano Concepcion (right above the two towns with the ferry port) is active, whereas a greener Maderas is dormant. The island is the biggest fresh water island in the world,rising from the huge lake Nicaragua, which has a very unattractive taupe colour, but is apparently clean and I saw many people taking a dip in it, including Semir.

It took around an hour on the local bus from the ferry port to our hotel and the part of the road crosses the runway; never seen that before! As always, the bus was very crowded and I couldn't see much whilst standing. Once we settled and cooled down, we realised that we chose to visit a very special place indeed. Both of us started talking about a really "good energy" of the place. As hippie as it sounds, I believe that this "energy" reflected the island's purity and (still) unspoilt nature; the presence of fire and water colliding (potentially!) and holding enough tension for the potential to create something new; of life itself. And there is abundance of life here: during the whole of the trip so far, we've never seen such a beautiful and rich variety in one place. Taking about an hour long walk along the road or the beach brought us up and close to some big trees where we sometimes saw monkeys; chickens, turkeys, dogs, geese and cows walking alongside the road; banana plantations, palm trees, mango trees, horses trotting; urracas, preying on the food on our plates; vultures, eating a dead fish washed out on the shore; parrots, squirrels, volcanic springs, a waterfall (we didn't see the waterfall, it is a few kilometres hike to there), a variety of bright coloured flowers outside the houses, goats...if I new more about nature, I'd be able to make a more exhaustive and accurate description, but I don't.

Most of the locals seem to either work on farms and/or own them and we saw even children as young as about ten riding horses and guiding the livestock from one place to another. People seem very friendly and this is the first place where we were never approached by anyone asking for money or offering us needles services. We also noticed that most of the stray dogs look reasonably healthy and the locals looking after pets such as dogs, cats, rabbits or parrots give them a good care and the freedom; in other places, we saw all these animals, apart from the cats, either on a chain or in a cage. As always, very sad and upsetting. Having said all this, things are not perfect here either; we saw a pig being transported at the back of the bus, with its legs tied. The poor animal was just keeping still, placed sideways on the top of some boxes. This sight brought me one step closer to becoming a vegetarian.

As the local buses are not that frequent, the best way to explore the island is on a motorbike, although at 30USD a day it does not come cheap. We rented a scooter one day and went around the Maderas side initially. The roads are mostly unpaved on that stretch and more bumpy as we moved further out, passing through villages, places renting kayaks, alongside the farms and so on. There seems to be a microclimate around one area at the foothills of the volcano; we moved from the sunny weather and into the low clouds and rain and out of it again, in no time. The roads at times resembled a roller-coaster ride, going steeply down and then rising up under a similar angle, making our tiny scooter use all its mighty power to climb up. We then realised why locals mostly ride the cross bikes. So there we were buzzing in between the villages, when a sudden roar swept across the road! It sent us straight into an episode of Lost! What was that?! A wild boar? A bear?!But the sound seemed to come from above and we didn't see anything flying or crossing the road, yet the sound was carried across!! Luckily we stopped, rather than driving away and we saw howler monkeys on the branches of the trees on both sides of the road. Mystery solved. They were all curled up and resting, but were obviously unsettled by our presence. We walked closer under the tree and some of them moved up towards the top branches. We didn't stay for long as we didn't want to disrupt them any further. The trip continued with a ride to the other side of the island, to Charco Verde where we visited the lagoon and the butterfly reserve. They also do the canopy tours and it was possible to do a little hike here, but we settled for a cool drink in a restaurant before heading back.

One other day we walked to the Ojo de Agua, natural pools filled with the water from the volcanic springs. There is an information leaflet at the entrance that explains its medicinal properties and likens it to the similar benefits of the healing water in Switzerland. Again, another amazing place. The water in the pools was coolish and very clean, surrounded by the tall trees and we even saw a few parrots and urracas. Walking back during the sunset was very scenic and this was another wonderful day out.

For us, Ometepe reflected that familiar Nicaraguan welcoming feel, with an added bonus: a perfect balance of moisture in the air, no mosquitos, cool breeze that moderated otherwise difficult to bare heat on the mainland and we hardly saw any rubbish around. It is popular with tourists, but there is plenty of space around to feel like we were one of the few people around. And, most importantly,although we came across this idiosyncrasy elsewhere in Nica: people greet each other warmly and they laugh from their heart - a feature that has become so elusive in many "developed" societies. All this made our stay on Ometepe inspiring, restful and rejuvenating. This is definitely a place we would like to visit again.

From Ometepe we moved to a nearby San Juan Del Sur on the Pacific Coast. This was our last destination in Nicaragua before moving further down to Costa Rica. It was nice to spend some time on a different kind of a beach, watch the powerful Pacific waves break, whilst we frolicked in the cool shallow water. The sunset was quite spectacular, but otherwise, a pretty uneventful place for us. It is the place to be for surfers, very touristy and there are a lot of happy hour offers and, hence, a lot of drunk tourists slurring their words by 8pm!

The following morning we boarded a local bus and headed towards, again, extremely disorganised border. Many more hours later than we envisaged, we luckily caught the last local bus in Costa Rica for the final 38km up the mountain bumpy and curvy road. This was very lucky indeed, because we caught the bus by a minute and only because it was delayed. This journey took us nearly 2 hours and I don't think the hitch hiking would be an option, as for a such a short distance, Monteverde with its cloud forest and the longest short journey is truly a world away.