Granada is a Nicaraguan town that struck me as somewhere that was struggling hard to recapture its former glory. Sure it had some 'nice', 'quaint' painted houses on the main cobbled tourist street running from the cathedral down toward Lake Nicaragua (as every second local proudly informs you the 10th largest fresh water lake in the world) but once you left the main tourist street and surrounding lanes there were many run down, even dilapidated colonial buildings, many for sale. The guide books compare it to Antigua Guatemala and even say its nicer the difference is that Antigua is a real town, as well as its colonial charm it has real people living in and around all its environs. Granada has a tourist facade like a Hollywood set.

We left Granada took a 'chicken ferry' to the island of Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua (just in case you forgot its the 10th largest fresh water lake in the world). Ometepe is an island that consists of two volcanoes, the active Concepcion and the dormant Maderas. Its quiet a laid back place with a lot of natural beauty. For some reason Alex, Gareth, Dave and myself decided to climb the dorment volcano (see mum not more lava walking for me!) an ascent of little over 1,300m from lake/sea level to the summit at 1,394m. As the volcano summit and caldera lake is covered in cloud for 360 days each year we didn't hold much hope of seeing views, we just went up for a challenge, and that is exactly what we got......the track was a muddy slippery slog for all 1,300m up and down, we made it up in 4 hours and it took around two to come down. Through much of the rainforest we had company from various troops of howler monkeys who's territory we intruded on but even this novelty soon ran out with the sheer frustration of walking through mud! Before this I did have the Kokoda track on my list of things to do but now methinks I'll stick to nice rocky mountain trails as down a mountain in mud is no fun!

Despite this the guide did tell us a good story about the island and the lake, which I found quiet amusing given certain happenings in Antarctic waters last year.......Another claim to fame of Lake Nicaragua (did I remember to tell you that it is the 10th largest fresh water lake in the world?) is that it is home to the world's only fresh water shark species. The shark, closely related to the bull shark, was a major hazard in the 70s with local people being taken when they went down to wash or swim in the lake. In the late 70's the Nicaraguan government gave a 10 year fishing concession to the Japanese to catch the sharks. Apparently they took approximately 22-thousand sharks per year for this period and now the sharks are very hard to find. Recently National Geographic tried to make a documentary on the sharks but couldn't find any. In desperation Nat. Geo. even resorted to towing a dead pig around behind the boat to attract the sharks but to no avail.........gotta love sushi!

Farewell from the 10th largest freshwater lake in the world!