The Best and the Worst of the Beach Life

Surprisingly not too sore after our volcano climb, we all woke up wednesday morning with pleantly of time to spare before the old chicken bus came by on its route to the port city of Moyogalpa on Ometepe. Buses ran surprisingly well in Nicaragua, at least where we were. They were always running and our bus transfers always seemed to go off with out a hitch. This bus was no exception, and was only slightly later than the woman at our hotel had told us.

We arrived in Moyogalpa to learn that one of the ferries wasn't running and we would have to wait a couple hours before the second one left or take our chances on a smaller ferry. It was decided that we would wait and in an effort to get out of the hot sun, we headed for lunch. Lunch was two of the largest pizzas I've ever seen for $5 and although 4 of us tried our hardest, we were unable to eat them all.

Upon arriving back in Rivas, we negotiated a cab and all five of us squished in. Our cab driver navigated over bridges, around bridges and in the ditch along a dusty stretch of road to the ocean. Our destination was Bahia Mahagual but upon arrive at the beach, we learned that the resort we'd been heading for was closed and that we were actually on Playa Madera. No matter, it was a beach with beautiful sand and huge crashing waves. We managed to find two rooms in a beach front building on the nearly deserted beach and set about enjoying the sun and sand.

We spent three lovely days on the beach, sunning and surfing. The waves were a little too large for me, but the others swam and worked on their burns. We were served meals at a little beach shack, where the woman graciously made Jon and I a meat free option each night - deep fried cheese slabs!

On Friday, our last night on the beach (and also our first evening without Maarten), the lovely food shack woman packed up her stuff and headed into town, leaving us dinnerless! We went elsewhere in search of food and ended up at the only other place on the beach, Crazy Daves. We climbed up the cliff from the beach to his house, where we received a strange welcome involving a reenactment of what it sounded like when Dave had thrown a pot out of his house and down the hill. Only a little uneasy we agreed to stay for dinner, which seemed to be spaghetti. We were told we were waiting for a bunch of surfers who had seen Dave "rip a big wave" earlier in the day. Dave was indeed crazy, and regaled us with the same story of his big wave over and over again. One surf movie and a couple beers later, we were starting to wish that we'd never come when we were finally served our spaghetti, although there had been no sign of the surfers. The spaghetti was an interesting creation involving veggies, bread crumbs, an egg and curry seasoning (those who ate meat got the version with ground something in it). We ate as quickly as we could, paid for our over priced spaghetti and hurried down the beach to the safety of our little beach front home to enjoy our last evening by the ocean.

Ometepe

Volcan Concepcion from the ferry

Ometepe is an island in Lago de Nicaragua. Its comprised of two volcanoes, the active Volcan Concepcion and the inactive Volcan Maderas. We caught a bus out of Granada to the town of Rivas, and then a cab to San Jorge, a small town on the shore of Lago de Nicaragua and the location of the ferry to Ometepe.

For me, the 1 1/2 hour ferry ride to the island was horrible. The lake is quite windy, whipping up waves that caused our ferry to slosh about. I was very thankful when the ferry docked on the island and I was able to stagger onto firm ground again. Our destination on the island was Playa San Domingo, home to the best beaches on the island and a strong sea breeze (according to Lonely Planet), also conveniently located near the trail head for Maderas, the volcano hike we'd decided on. Two buses later we were standing in front of the Casa Hotel Isiam staring at the beach. And having sand whipped into our faces by the very strong sea breeze. The beach itself was not a thing of beauty, but the water was warm and if you ignored the cattle drinking out of the lake (or the tanker parked on the shore) it was alright.

Volcan Maderas

The next morning we met at 7 am, loaded into the back of a pickup truck and headed to Maderas. Our group was joined by the interesting Igor as well as our guide, Alan. The hike started off fairly easy, wandering through scrubby brush but soon turned into a muddy uphill climb through a cool cloud forest.

Jon in the forest

Four hours later, we reached the peak of the volcano, looked out into the mist and headed down again into the crater lake for lunch. It was too misty to see the lake, except for a brief moment. Soon it was time to turn around and we headed back into the forest for the decent down. The return trip was un-remarkable until we neared the bottom of the trail and were treated to a troop of monkeys playing in the trees.

Monkey

We returned to our hotel in time to have a quick swim before the sun set. Exhausted from our hiking it was an early night, since we had plans of catching the first bus out of there the next morning.

Summer maybe?

Its finally May, and that means I've only got 4 more months left of school! In past years today would have been the first day of summer for me, usually coinciding with the first day of treeplant and freedom from boring school for a whole 4 months. This year, like last year, it just means that the halls are a little quieter and my supervisor has more time to check and make sure I'm working.

With no effort on our part, two bunches of daffodils sprouted in our front garden over the weekend. The crocuses are also out in full bloom at the off leash park. It really makes me wish that I wasn't still inside!

We are currently trying to re-grow our back lawn and spent the weekend fencing off a section and seeding. I've checked every day since, but the lush green carpet I'm desiring hasn't appeared yet. Patches got his pool put out on Saturday and all three dogs have been enjoying the mud bath created in the backyard.


We got a little bit of ulti playing in this weekend and Patches showed off his skills. He getting quite good at catching the frisbee. (thanks to Mic for taking the shots!).