Oh My! Ometepe!

Hola - Smitty here :)

Leaving the Tree house was easy enough to do, for me anyway. It was a beautiful place and the idea behind it was equally so but at that moment it just wasn’t satisfying my travel taste-buds. We walked out of the forest and across the yellowing pasture of the farm below until we arrived at the main road.  We were a pack of typical gringo backpackers waiting to hitch a ride or jump onto the next passing chicken bus, and the latter was what we ended up doing.  Rounded up like a bunch of stray cattle, we shuffled into the back of the chicken bus and swayed back and forth as the bus bumped along in the heat of the day.  It took us as far as Rivas before we needed to take a taxi to the docks on our way to the island of Ometepe.

The ferry ride was an hour or so and as scenic as ever, but the children on board that didn’t enjoy the swell on the massive lake were reason enough for me to put my headphones on and fade away for a bit.

We learned right off that the taxis on Ometepe are expensive, but on this occasion a necessary evil.  We were happy to get away from the pack after we picked a place that wasn’t in everyone’s budget (the decision making process of the pack was falling apart.)  Just as we were checking in we saw some Swedes we knew from El Tunco and word on the street was that there was a good party “just down the road” that night so, that was the plan.  “Just down the road” was “just a little bit of an understatement” as we walked for nearly an hour and without my headlamp the darkness would have swallowed us up. We drank shots of moonshine (yes moonshine in Nicaragua) and caught up with our Swedish friends.

We had a few rainy days on the island where we caught up on life and relaxed under the thatched roof of the open air restaurant of our Hotel, Santa Cruz which was lazy but much appreciated.  Renting bikes was a must, and made me feel like a kid again as we cruised along the winding roads with volcanos on the horizons in either direction.  “Picinas de las Ojas” was a half hour bike ride that brought us to a luxurious spot in nature where refreshing pools and fresh coconuts made our afternoon completely enjoyable. Our last night was cloudy but we were offered an unbeatable view of one of the two monstrous volcanoes on the island. 

I wish I could say that we did a lot more in the way of activities while there but truth be told we were as lazy as a pair of sloths on a Sunday afternoon, and we had a few Sunday afternoons on that island.