Active Volcanos Are Much Easier to Climb

We moved on from Granada and caught a ferry to this crazy island called Ometepe. There's a silent TL on the end, it's supposed to be Ometepetl in the native language of Nahuatl, but TL is just too hard to pronounce so they gave up.

The word Ometepe means "between two mountains", it describes a crazy island that is made up of two huge volcanos and a little piece of land in between where the lava flowed together. Yesterday we climbed the active one, Concepcion. It was 10,000ft lower than our first but it was still a rough climb. They don't know about switchbacks in Nicaragua, so it was 5,000ft straight up the mountain, often on all fours because it was so steep. Our guide was Ramon, we met him the night we arrived while the bus was stuck in the middle of the road with a flat tire. We were late meeting him for our climb because the same bus had another flat tire before it got to us. They are quite expedient about fixing flats, however - happens a lot I suppose.

Again, Emily rocked the volcano, carrying the backpack all the way up. I carried it back down again as my contribution.

The views from the top were spectacular - the lake is gargantuan, the other volcano looks like another stranded island, you feel like Tom Hanks in Castaway when he gets to the top of the island and realizes where he is. The mystery is increased by the hot sulfur and gases pouring out of the still active crater. The volcano looks like a model volcano you would make in 7th grade, complete with a perfect cone at the top, lots of old lava flows down the sides and clouds of hot steam and gas pouring out the top. Way cool. Luckily it hasn't erupted since last year, and even that was a little one. Now that I write this, it explains why the island isn't so popular with tourists. We were surprised at how few tourists we saw during our visit, but I would attribute some of that to being off the beaten path and the rest to the fact that there's nowhere to run if the volcano goes.

We also went horseback riding, which was GREAT. We rode up to a beautiful viewpoint, down along the beach at sunset, and through the jungle under lots of low hanging branches. I thought the horse would automatically recognize a tree branch at head height and move around it, but Emily knew better than me and I ended up eating them involuntarily. Luckily a lot of the plants are medicinal.

In summary, Ometepe is quite amazing and really undiscovered. We spent last night sitting on the shore, looking up at stars untainted by city lights and listening to some local guitarists croon songs in spanish. I leaned over to mention to Emily that it couldn't get any better and a shooting star went flying past our heads. Honestly!

This morning we reluctantly left our hotel in Ometepe and took a bus, a ferry and a taxi to San Juan del Sur. Welcome to the Pacific Coast! This place is really beautiful, lots of restaurants, hotels, shops, two dive shops and a bunch of spanish schools. We're going to stay for a week and soak up some local language and some sun. We start a homestay tomorrow, we'll let you know how it goes.

On our taxi ride here, we learned about local politics which was fascinating. Their election is in only 23 days away and we have seen several horse carriages, streetlight poles, bicycles, and tuba players campaigning. Now we know who to vote for if we can just fit in enough...we also confirmed that the official Nica's favorite type of music is American soft rock from the 80's. Everywhere we go we hear Chicago and Brian Adams. And "Guilty feet have got no rhythym." Unfortunately, we already know all the words and can only entertain ourselves by trying to translate them into Spanish.

The morning before our volcano climb Emily and I were waiting for the bus around 4:45am, just before the sun started coming up. We saw men and women walking to work, men driving cattle on bicycles (think about it before you say something, it'll make sense), dudes with machetes and a bottle of water, women carrying things on their heads, teams of oxen, people on horseback, and pigs, howler monkeys, stray dogs, chickens and roosters running around. It was amazing to see such a vibrant and active community, alive even before the sun rose, and it made us think about everyone's lives around us, how different they are from what we do every day. Especially the guy with the machete and a water bottle, what does he do?