Today Mother Nature taught me a very valuable lesson...she will always beat you!! But even so... I had an amazing day!!
This morning Kim, Barry, Joyce and I were picked up for our Ometepe Island tour. Our guide showed us on the map where he wanted to take us.... however we were very quick to let him know that we weren't interested in going to the island museum. One more day of looking at ruins or their associated artefacts may in fact kill me. Our guide was brilliant and came up with an alternative which we loved the sound of.
First stop was to climb 1/3 of the way up the dormant volcano on the island. So off we trot. The climb was actually quite a nice one. Not too strenuous. Even the steep parts were good. We had walked just over 1.5 km of the 2.5km journey when out of nowhere torrential rain hammered down. We tried to shelter as much as we could under the trees... It didn't matter as we were already wet from how humid it was. We waited it out.... And about 10-15min later it stopped. The sun reappeared and we continued on our trek. The only difference now was the walking track was now a mud slide.....and we had the steepest section still to climb. So off we went. We climbed and climbed. I had a few close calls with slipping back down the track...but I managed to hold on. Then I had a brain wave.... I will start walking up where it is green and get more traction. I was so close to the lookout... and then out of nowhere both of my legs were on fire. What the hell? I looked down and couldn't see anything, but something had attacked my legs as they were all red and raised. I think we worked it out, I was either bitten by fire ants or brushed against a stinging thistle.... Either way my legs were killing!!!
We all made it to the lookout, and the views were worth it!!! You could pretty much see the entire island. It was amazing. Then the fun part.... climbing down. I was not looking forward to this at all!! I was so lucky to have a brilliant guide who held my hand all the way down. Joyce had the driver to help her down, and Barry and Kim helped each other. We then started the very slow walk down. About half way down the steep section our guide was the first to fall on his bum. By this stage I was concentrating so hard, my legs were no longer stinging. I had a couple of close calls where I was just sliding down the hill backwards...just like skiing. Thank goodness my guide stopped me! Then towards the bottom of the steep section I was the next one. I was so distracted by a bird I heard that before I knew it I was flat on my back in the mud. I was totally fine... It was actually quite funny. Even more funny by the fact that I had pale blue shorts on and a white singlet. Yep, I'm glad I picked those clothes this morning!! With no more incidents.... We finally made it down to the bottom of the volcano. The only casualty... my white converse shoes are now brown!! We tried to clean our shoes at the farm located at the bottom of the volcano, however I had no luck with mine!!!
We then piled back into the car and drove to our next location... And this was my idea of heaven.... butterfly paradise.
As soon as we got out of the car.... We heard the music. Classical music was playing.... and our guide said that this was to make the butterflies dance.... and they were doing just that. We entered the enclosure and it was heaven. It was filled with beautiful tropical flowers....an attraction in their own right. However fluttering around were thousands of butterflies. Everywhere you looked was a different butterfly I had never seen before. I felt like a butterfly paparazzi. My camera went flat chat for the 40mins we were in there. The guide finally managed to pry me away from the enclosure, and we went and had a quick lunch, before setting off again. Surely we cant get any better than where we have already been this morning. Wrong again!!
The next place we stopped at was called the split. This beach was located to the south west of Ometepe Island. It is a sand bar that is made up of black sand.. a combination of normal sand, volcanic sand and volcanic ash. We walked to the end of the sand bar and was greeted by the most amazing view of both volcanos. Pretty special!!
We walked back to the car, and then made our way to the natural springs. This was like a huge natural spring that looked very similar to a huge rock pool. The water was so clear and refreshingly cool!! Such a great place to cool down after a long hot day. We didn't go swimming, as we knew that our bathers and towels would never dry in time in order for them to be packed tonight. We made do with dangling our legs in the water!!!
We finally made it back to the hotel... a little muddier than what we set out, but having seen and experienced a lot of Ometepe Island.
For dinner we decided to head to a local vegetarian restaurant, and had a nice veggie stirfry.
Final job for tonight...pack my bags..... AGAIN!!!!