Quest to See the World

The boat ride from San Carlos to Ometepe island was surprisingly pleasant. When I headed down to the boat I could see Malcolm on the top setting up his hammock. I got up there, pulled out my hammock (i bought it in san carlos for $3.50-nylon) and my rope and cut the rope in half with my handy swiss army knife so. I started to hang it up and and nice Nicaraguan man came and gave me a hand. I thought that i was doing a good job, but the help is always appreciated. There were about 10 hammocks strung up on the top deck all together. the boat pulled away a few minutes later and i snapped a couple of pics of the town from the water, ate my $.75 plate of food (rice, beans, fried plantain, yuca and cabbage salad), and then took my place on my hammock. It was really comfortable. Malcolm lent me his Nicaragua book to check out, so that´s how i spent most of my evening-lying on the hammock on the top deck of the boat reading with the wind blowing through my hair. it was awesome! We pulled into San Miguelito to pick up some more passengers around dusk and then continued on our way. It was really interesting to watch the passengers getting on and off, the people loading more bushels by carrying them on their heads down the unstable ramp, and the vendors walking around loudly announcing which goods they have to offer. I´m really glad that i brought my mp3 player with a voice recorder because now i can make my own report for NPR with the sound bytes.

My friend Dale sent me a travel essentials care package before i left and one of the items included was a packet of rehydration salts. Luckily for Malcolm i didn´t need them up to this point, but he was in serious need of something. He was in pretty bad shape and he got to make use of the packet. I hope he didn´t catch something weird from the jungle cat that attacked in 2 days before.

We got underway again and I started to talk with Daniel, Natalie and Chris, new passengers from the last port. At around 10pm I decided to get a couple of hours of sleep and slept quite comfortably in my new hammock. We arrived in Altagracias on Isla Ometepe at around 1am and I wished Malcolm luck with his jungle fever-he continued on to Granada. When I was getting off of the boat I met B.J., a 22 year old gringo who just finished school, and we ended up going to the same hotel. Hotel Central in Altagracias is a super nice place for just $5. You get a nice tiled room with private bath, private veranda with a hammock and table and chairs and even a clean towel and soap. What a deal! Unfortunately I was only there for 7 hours because I got up at 8am to catch a bus to Finca Magdalena to hike Volcán Maderas on the other side of the island. I had contemplated hiking it when i was on the island on my down through nica a month ago, but ended up not doing it because if time. At the finca (farm) I opted for a hammock space for $1.50. It was quite convenient because i was running low on funds since i hadn’t used an atm since costa rica and the bank in san carlos did change travelers checks. i think i was down to around $27 in local currency and had my stash of $20 in U.S. It was also nice that i had just bought the hammock, so i was set.

After getting my hammock just right and reading for a little while, i decided to walk down the 1km dirt road to the main dirt road to see what was going on in the village. On the way I saw a group of howler monkeys close by in the trees and watched them for a while until some guy showed up and kept asking me personal questions. I continued along the way and arrived to the main dirt road where there was a shack selling random things. i asked the lady what they had to drink, but she was so into the soap opera on t.v. that she just signalled to me that she would be with me in a minute. the other older lady got 2 chairs and told me to have a seat. During the commercial break the younger of the 2 women updated me on the story line, but still didn’t address my need for something to drink. I sat there for about a half and hour and watched the whole thing-Decisiones-and got into it too. There was also a girl around 11 years old there watching and she kept giving me shy smiles. After the telenovela was over i got the only thing available, kola shaler, which is a copy of coke or pepsi.

after the soap opera and my drink i walked across the street and got my standard plate of rice, beans and fried plantains for $.80. when i was done i walked further down the dirt road and a few children along the way asked me to take pictures of them. it was very sweet. i wished i had a polaroid so that i could give them a copy too. It was starting to get dark so i made my way back to the finca.

that night i went to sleep on the porch of the old farmhouse on my hammock around 10pm. At some point during the night i woke up to a HUGE thunderstorm. It was awesome being on the porch in my hammock with the tropical thunderstorm blowing through. it lasted for a few hours. at 5:30am i got up to start my long, hard hike. We (B.J., me and the guide-Manuel) left at 6am to hike to the top of maderas. About 10 minutes after we left another huge storm blew in and continued for the first 3 hours of the trek. I didn’t mind though because i’d rather have the rain than the intense sun on me. It was raining so hard that we were hiking through the bed of a stream and my foot went into mud past my ankle once. By the time we reached the crater lake at the top the sun was out which I welcomed since it’s cooler at the top. It took us 4 hours to hike 1393 vertical meters which is 4570 feet, straight up the side of the volcano. It wasn’t a dry (obviously), black volcano though, we hiked through cloud forest and saw a white-faced monkey along the way as well as a bunch of spiders which caused me to have a nightmare about one that night. We stayed at the top for 45 minutes and had a snack and then made it back down in 3 hours. It was super slippery coming back down that stream bed, but it was amazing with the sound of the howler monkeys in the distance. I arrived to the bottom and got a big glass of passion fruit juice, relaxed for about 20 minutes and then scrubbed my pants and shoes. i was covered in mud up to my knees and soaking wet with sweat by the time i got to the bottom. it was quite a challenge, but i felt great completing it.

After i got my stuff packed up and took a shower, i checked out at 5pm from the finca. For a night in the hammock, 3 fresh juices, a guided hike, a sandwich, a bowl of soup and two big bottles of water, i paid around $15. i made my way to the port town of moyogalpa so that i could stay the night there and get the 7am boat back to the mainland. this time i stayed in hospedaje central (not as nice), sharing a room with b.j. for $4 each. i got something to eat and crashed around 9:30pm, exhausted from the hike. i did get to use an atm though and could even get out U.S. dollars surprisingly.

the next day i got the 7am boat that took an hour and headed to rivas to use the phone with no luck. i hopped on a bus back to granada because i know that there was good, cheap phone service there. i again stayed at the oasis hostel for $7, used the phone to call a bunch of people and people watched in the afternoon. I had wanted to do more that day, but my legs were really sore from the hike, so i just walked around town and ate some yummy pinolillo ice cream, mmmmmmm mmmmmm. I sat on a bench beside a local older man and was taking pics of random people selling stuff in the park and he began to talk to me about my traveling and the problems in nicaragua. we had a good conversation for about an hour.

the next day, last saturday, i went back to the town of masaya to get the last of my nica souvenirs for the kids i know and 1 thing for myself. i walked around the neighborhood of monimbo and took some pics before hitting the market place. i was still pretty sore from the hike. i spent a long time in that market, but found just about everything i was looking for. they do such beautiful work here, especially for little girls’ clothing. Not a really exciting day, but relaxing. On Sunday (yesterday) I made my way back to Leon where i am now, so that i could hike cerro negro volcano since i didn’t last time i was here (i opted for the surfing lesson that day instead). After i arrived here to leon i went and got some pizza at a local place and then to the plaza to people watch again which is one of my favorite things to do. this time i sat down beside an older woman and she too began to speak to me about the war and how it affected her and her family. Later i went to another hostel to sign up for the volcano trek today and stopped at the supermarket to get something healthy to eat. i ended up with drinkable yogurt, oatmeal, water and bread. it’s hard when one doesn’t have a full kitchen to use. i’ve been having some stomach issues for the 1st time during my trip so i wanted to eat something different than the usual. that darn cebada (light pink, cinnamon flavored drink made by adding water to the natural mixture) was so good in san carlos that i got 2 and now i’m paying for it, although today i’m feeling much better.

this morning i got up around 7:30am ate my oatmeal and headed to the market to get some ponytail holders. I found some and also bought a cd for just over a buck on the way. I got some more to eat at the big, modern supermarket and headed back to the hostel to eat and read about el salvador where i’m headed tomorrow. At 1pm i headed to big foot hostel to board the pick up truck for the hike/boarding adventure down cerro negro volcano. there were 12 of us total, in 2 pick ups and we flew down this dirt road for 45 minutes through farming land. along the way we would pass by kids that would come running to edges of their yards to yell to greet us flying by. it was fun. we were bouncing all over the place. we went through about 4 gigantic mud puddles and had to slow down for a couple of herds of bulls. We arrived at the base of the volcano, each got a volcano board and a bright orange jail looking jumpsuit. We hiked for about 45 minutes to the summit carrying the wooden boards which were quite heavy. the hike would’ve been easy if it wasn’t for the the boards. the whole way up we walked on black volcanic rock with no vegetation nearby. the sun was blazing hot too. the volcano last erupted on 1999 and is on a 7 year cycle so it’s due any day. At the top we got a quick lesson in handling the board and then we were off. it was basically like sled riding down the side of a volcano on fine black volcanic rock. the highest speed that they clocked someone was 60km/h which is really fast when you’re on a board going down the side of a huge volcano. we put on our jail suits and goggles and we were off. one guy wiped out really badly and ended up going to the doctor when he got back into town because the whole side of one leg and one arm were really ripped up and i guess he did something to his knee too. he didn’t brake at all and then completely wiped out. if you punch in “volcano boarding” in you tube there are a bunch of videos there that you can check out. it was kind of scarry, but super fun. i’m glad i came back to leon to do it.

tonight i’m going to another hostel to play a trivia game with the others who went to the volcano today. it should be fun. tomorrow i’m off to el salvador. i’m excited because it’s new territory for me which i haven’t had in a while. most tourists skip it because it has a bad reputation, but i’m not going to the capital except to quickly change buses. i’ll let you know how it goes. i’m really sad to leave nicaragua because i don’t know when i’ll be back next, but it’s only a short plane ride away anytime i want to return. adios.

Tags: Central America 2007, Finca Magdalena, Nicaragua, ometepe

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