Leon, the little city that could

We bailed out of Granada fast because we knew we would come back there to take the bus back to Costa Rica.  So yesterday morning we caught a small bus to Managua and then transferred to a collectivo to Leon.  Collectivos can be hell but this was a nice minivan and the driver was a happy guy who drove like the cops were after him all the time.  We stopped for a break midway through the hour and a half drive from Managua to Leon and everyone ordered "quesillos" which are little tortillas filled with mozzerella cheese and onions.  Well, we didn't order them as a big chunk of cheese in the middle of a hot day on a crowded van seemed like a bad call.  But I'll give them a shot next time.
Leon is like a mini Granada with beautiful colonial houses and courtyards and lots of charm.  There's a big university population here and lots of politically left leaning folks so the graffiti and murals around the city are politically charged.  There is one near the square that has a big snake coming out of a basket.  The snake is colored red, white and blue and says CIA at the bottom.  We are trying to decide whether to stay a few days or head straight to the beach...

Ometepe Waterfall and the trip back to the mainland.

The best way to see the island by far is by motorbike.  Angela and i rented "mountain" bikes the first day and they sucked.  I had no brakes, she had no gears, and we still paid $5 each.  The bikes did get us to Ojo de Agua which is a little concrete swimming hole made around a spring.  If you think it's going to be some gorgeous little moss covered spring in the jungle, it's not.  But if you want a place to drink beer on a hot day with lots of laughing and smiling people and go off a rope swing this place is awesome.  Some people are disappointed by the changing rooms and parking lot which makes it feel developed.  Get over that and go swimming, if you rode your crappy bike there you will love it.

Volcano Concepcion

The motorbike we found at a neighbor's house, I handed him my passport and he handed be the bike, no contract, no nothing other than my promise to return it as i got it.  There was a playboy centerfold laminated to the seat which added a touch of class, otherwise the bike was pretty gutless, supposedly a 225 but it did not like hills.  We drove around to the falls at San Ramon on the other side of the south island.  With the bike you can struggle up the first 3km of road, then walk the last km.  The falls are over 500 feet tall and tumble into a shallow pond.  Deep enough to float in but not swim.  Very refreshing in the middle of the jungle on a hot day.  Driving around the island is a great way to get perspective of the area as well.  It is a gorgeous little piece of paradise.  The road is getting longer as I type and an airport is being built so there are changes in the making.  Hard to say how development will affect the place other than adding more gringo property owners and maybe a resort at the Myogalpa end of the island.  Time will tell.

We finally decided to leave by shared taxi from Balgue out to Myogalpa, then back on the ferry and into San Jorge.  The winds are strong this time of year and I think it's worth waiting for the big ferry that hauls cars.  The little passenger ferrys turn into vomit comets and I don't think I want to do that for an hour. 
Our taxi driver in San Jorge convinced us to go all the way to Granada with him so our $2 ride turned into $22 and he made the 70 mile trip in less than an hour.  He delivered us right to our hotel door and we found rooms in Hotel Casa Capricho.  It's a nice little botique hotel with a tiny pool and everything we needed for 2 nights.  It was also next door to Kathy's Waffle House which makes fantastic breakfasts and despite its very gringo name is locally owned and packed with locals throughout the day.

Hiking a Volcano, do's and don'ts

Rush hour on Ometepe

Ometepe Island gets its name from the Nahuatl word that means "two mountains."  There's the big volcano on the larger island called "Concepcion" and the smaller one on the other island called "Maderas."  We decided to hike the smaller one since we were staying on that end of the island.  We found a guide named 'Abel' who was recommended to us through the restaurant owner at Cafe Campestre.  You don't have to have a guide to hike here but it seems like a good idea, the area is covered with trails and it's easy to get lost and the guy was $20 for the day so why not.  Abel turned out to be a great guy with lots of good information and he definitely knew the mountain.  If you're in the area look him up.  We asked him to come up with a circular route so we wouldn't just go up and back and he gave us a fine tour.  We left a bit after 8am from Balgue and hiked up the road to Finca Magdalena.  You have to hike across their coffee plantations at first so we paid a buck and a half for the priveledge.  There were big groups of howler monkeys howlering back and forth in the morning light and we watched a little howler crawl all over its mom and then on to the rest of the family.  For little monkeys they make one hell of a racket.  After about one hour we stopped to eat some breakfast burritos that Cafe Campestre had made for us the night before.  It was a needed burst of energy.  Maderas is covered in jungle and rock all the way to the top so you never really get to an outstanding viewpoint and the terrain is like a 4 hour stairmaster covered in 4 inches of axle grease.  Technically it's not a difficult climb but it does kick your butt.  Once we got to the top you have to hike another 20 minutes into the caldera.  This part is so steep you will need to go into full on spider monkey mode and there are chunks of rope in some places that you can grab for support but it's still not that bad and certainly not a "roped climb" as some guide books might say.  If it's a clear day the caldera bottom is a gorgeous meadow with a little lake.  We were lucky to have clear weather and we ate another burrito lakeside.  It was howling wind the whole time though so i didn't go swimming.  It took us another 3 hours to get down being very careful not to slip and fall in the mud and trying not to step on the leaf cutter ants that travel in long lines beside and along the trail.  We came out of the jungle overlooking the village of Santa Cruz and Concepcion which was a great viewpoint and then we walked through several fields of plantains before we hit the road.  A few beers and advil later and we were good to go.  If you do this hike you definitely need 1.5 to 2 liters of water per person, some breakfast burritos, and shoes that can handle mud.  I wore my running shoes and they will never be the same.  If you go with a guide try to find Abel and if you go alone take a gps or compass, if it fogs in you won't be able to see 6 feet in front of you.  There are vultures in the area for a reason people.



Inside the caldera of Volcanoe Maderas

Isla de Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua

We made it to Ometepe Island and spent last night at Finca Magdalena.  It was good to leave San Juan del Sur as the surf was flattening out, the town was exhausted from New Years festivities and we had eaten at every restaurant.  The last morning we were there I got up early and went diving with the neighbor, he's a 22 year old kid who just seems to surf and go diving and i think his name was Samba.  He took me on a short hike up and over a hill to the east of town and down into a small, secluded beach area.  We snorkelled around looking for octopus and lobster.  After about half an hour we found some in a large bouldered area.  We had to dive down about 20 feet, then Samba would hook them with an aluminum spike he had made.  The lobster would come sailing out of the rock crevice and then he would catch it like he had been tossed a baseball.  If he didn't catch it in time the lobster would engage its tail and take off at an amazing rate of speed and hide in the rocks again.  Samba new all the holes and exits thoughand in a few minutes he caught 4 lobster.  We had been in the water over an hour at that point so we headed back to the hostel and grilled them immediately.  no butter or anything, and they were delicious.  Then Ang and i caught a collectivo taxi to Rivas and then another taxi in Rivas to San jorge where we caught a ferry to Ometepe.  The ferry took about an hour and was loaded to the gills with cars, produce, motorbikes and gringos.  I ended up sitting between a German and an Austrian on the way over.  Ther German was on a 4-week trip across Nicaragua, Costa Rica and ending in Panama and he had every day planned out on a spreadsheet.  Wahnsinn.  When we got to ometepe the boat was swarmed by kids who would crawl up the side and then dive off into the muddy waters of lake Nicaragua.  As we left the boat a swarm of taxi drivers and hotel owners met us, all talking at once while laborers staggered past us with the imported bags of produce.  We finally agreed to cross the island wiht a local who looked like a Hawaiian islander, dark flowing hair and the build of a hard working farmer.  He said he had a banana farm in addition to his taxi services.  Two Austrians from the boat joined us to split the cab fare.  We took off hurtling across the island on its newly paved road enroute to Balgue about 45 km away.  The taxi driver said the island is 95% born and raised islanders and he reckoned it was the safest place in all of Central America.  To our left was the volcano Concepcion, the top was shrouded in smoke and steam but it hasn't erupted for 50 years.



Concepcion, Ometepe Island



We dodged cows, horses, buses and bicycles in the 80 minute journey.  We were unable to dodge one dog though and we drove right over the top of him, you could hear him running underneath the truck, which was a beat up Landcruiser, and then he shot out the side and ran off into the woods.  This was too much for the Austrian couple who started screaming Stop! We have to see if he's ok!  The taxi driver just continued on until the woman yelled Estupido!  The taxi driver hit his brakes, stopped the car and in Spanish told them to get out, he wasn't stuped, the dog was.  i translated into German for them and said you can get out here or appologize to the driver.  Looking at the endless jungle in all directions they suddenly decided he wasn't so estupido and we continued on, but the driver was chapped.  We dropped the couple off and he asked what country they were from, I told him and feel quite certain Austrians and perhaps anyone speaking German will never ride in his cab again.

The last 6 kilometers of road were rocked and rutted and gave us a taste of what the road must have been like 8 years ago, before it was paved.  The driver said it used to take an entire day to crawl across the island.  Finca magdalena looks like an old plantation farm from south Carolina.  Big covered porches and tiny little rooms surrounded by jungle.  We're at the base of Maderas volcano which is so extinct there's a lake at the top, but I still don't trust it.  As dusk settled in we walked down the road to a restaraunt we had heard about, Cafe Campestre, and tucked into a delicious meat lasagna and a chicken pasta.  Amazing food and the salad was all grown on the island.  As the sun set the howler monkeys began to scream from the tree tops and I was thankful for my feeble little headlamp, and that they didn't throw their poo at us.