Granada and Ometepe (Nicaragua)

Ola all!

Yes, I know, we are very good at dodging hurricanes, muahaha! This time we tricked Felix, it hit Utila after we had left. We haven't heard anything on the news about casualties and damages but we now that the islands were evacuated. We hope everyone is OK there, they were still recovering from hurricane Mitch which hit them in the early 90's...

We left Utila straight into Nicaragua. We are by now quite used to chicken buses and weirdly enough, have grown to love them. Well, at least I have since I always get offered a seat (Tom had to travel standing in a couple of occasions...). We crossed Managua which is a truly horrible place: everyone we know that has been there got robbed! Only stayed for long enough to change buses and a couple of hours later we arrived in Granada. Ah, Granada: it is a beautiful colonial city, where the houses are massive, with pretty inner gardens and colourful facades. It's definitely worth a visit!

The following day we carried on to the island of Ometepe (still on an island theme, I'm afraid...). It rests in the middle of Lake Nicaragua (which is only 170Km of length per 60Km of width, you can cross it lengthwise in a mere 12h boat journey...). The island is composed of not one but two volcanoes: after having escaped two hurricanes, we figured that we are lucky enough to risk a visit there :-) The lava flowing from the two volcanoes eventually connected their cones, forming Ometepe. Only the biggest volcano, Concepcion, is still active so we decided to do a trek up that one. Don't worry, the "beast"is permanently monitored and now, for instance, it is expelling gases so it is officially forbidden to climb it all the way to the crater.

Last Sunday we met our guide Horacio (deeply advised by us to anyone going there) at 7am for what we thought was a nice walk up a volcano. How we were wrong! The trek takes 3 hours up and 2h down, via a barely existent path through thick forest. Our legs still hurt today! On our way we met several groups of howler monkeys which, with hindsight, were not howling but laughing at the two silly tourists still blessfuly unaware of what they got themselves into. We also met a few venomous spiders (but fortunately no coral snakes), loads of butterflies, urracas (these amazing blue magpies) and vultures (checking us out for lunch at the top of the volcano, that's how alive we looked then). And loads of trees and bushes, like the cactus that produces dragon fruits (aka pitaias): we didn't actually see the fruits as the monkeys get top them quickly but we believed in Horacio. Oh, and we learned that apparently, the best coffee is the one that the monkeys eat and then poo, but I can explain it better if you are a coffee aficionado like myself. Yummy! The volcano is 1600m tall, 900m of which are covered by forest. Due to the gases, it's only safe to go up to 1000m right know, but that still is equivalent to an overall 13 Km hike up and down hill. Our legs were shaking by the time we reached the top! Needless is to say the only thing we did for the rest of the day was hammocking while watching this beautiful sunset...

The next day we invaded Costa Rica but just that crossing is a long story on its own...

Bye for now,

Vania