Hola !!

So as I mentioned in my previous post this past weekend I was blessed to visit Ometepe island. Blessed is infact probably an understatement. This island is beyond words and definitely beyond what my camera could capture.  The island is huge and situated on an extensive fresh water lake (complete with fresh water sharks) and has two volcanos, Concepcion and Maderas, which take up most of the island. We were only there for a weekend but I´m sure that you could easily spend weeks exploring the hidden treasures of this island.

So here are some of my favourite pictures from the trip, hope you enjoy!

Our journey began on the main land where we took about a two hour ferry ride across the lake to the island

This was our first view of the active volcano Concepcion

When we arrived on the island we took a taxi to Charco Verde, the road to Charco Verde was blocked by a herd of cows . . . .

And right behind the cows, Coca Cola (I am fascinated by the extent of the Coca Cola industry even in the romotest parts of this country)

Charco Verde pretty much consisted of a restaurant, hostel and beach. This is the entrance to the restaurant, it was absolutely gorgeous (though admittedly pretty touristy)

We were excited to find a playground and swing set on the beach but there was a large sign reading ¨Solo por los ninos¨which made us sad.

Here is the beach, we pretty much had it to ourselves which was nice.

Except for one dalmation who was enjoying an afternoon in the sun as well, he looked too out of place not to take a picture

When it was time to leave Charco Verde we had arranged for the hostel we were staying at to pick us up. Apparently the hostel was pretty busy that day so we were instead greeted by a wonderful woman driving a pick-up truck and so began my first pick-up truck ride in Nicaragua. I joined two of my other friends on a bench on the back of the truck and enjoyed the most amazing drive of my life. You would think that an hour ride on the back of a pick up over very rudimentary dirt roads would be less than enjoyable, but the view of the villages, country side and people was unforgettable, not to mention the sunset. Here are a couple of pictures to attempt to illustrate the beauty of this island.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We arrived at the hostel just in time to finish watching the sun set. Here is Kaitlyn on the dock.

And the sun set from the dock

The hostel was really nice, we met some pretty cool people there from California, France, Quebec and Ireland. The hostel helps to run an english language program at a local school and so we were happy to find out that part of the money earned by the hostel goes to support volunteers teaching english in the village.

Here is our room

In the morning we went kyaking along the coast line and down Ometepe River. Unfortunately I don´t have any pictures from this excursion, but it was neat to see all the people out on the lake, fishing, washing clothes and playing in the water. Very peaceful.

In the afternoon we decided to go on what we were told was an hour and a half hike to a waterfall. It turned out that the hour and a half part was just to get to the park and the real adventure was the three hour hike up the volcano from the park. Here are some pictures from the road to the park.

Thinking about the power of volcanos really amazes me. We were a good piece away from the base of this volcano but there was still a lot of evidence of its last erruption. Everywhere you looked you could see these good sized bolders sticking up out of the land, I can only imagine what it would have been like to see them thrown through the air !

This cow was posed too nicely not to take a picture

Ever seen a flock of butterflies? There were so many butterflies around this ´special´ pile of manure.

So we arrived at the park which consisted of huge landscaped grass lawns (very uncommon in Nicaragua) and really nice buildings. For those of you who enjoy the television show ´Lost´, we felt like we had found the Darma Initiative, it had that kind of vibe. So we were under the impression that the waterfall was just within the park and that the hour and a half hike we´d just completed was the extent of our hike for the day. But we were very wrong. The hike started out innocent enough up this nice hill . . .

After the first half hour the path became a little more like a dirt road.

After about an hour and a half of steep up hill climbing, four members of our group had called it quits. However being the stubborn person that I am I continued to climb the volcano with Leanne (a volunteer medical student from the states).

In addition to us both being extraordinarily stubborn signs such as this one kept us thinking the waterfall was just around the next corner

they lied.

The path just kept getting sketchier . . .

 and sketchier . . .

However after about four hours of hiking we finally reached our destination.

And we were again rewarded on the way down the volcano with another gorgeous sunset.

It was neat to walk home along the road as well, our flashlights attracted a lot of children who would walk with us a short distance before disappearing into houses along the road.

The next morning we reluctantly said good-bye to the island and took a boat back to the mainland.

 

 So that about summarizes my adventures from last weekend. This weekend we´re off to Leon.

Su Amiga, Lauren