Paradise Lost…
As we are slowly getting to the closing chapters of our southern adventure, we though it wouldn´t be quite fair to our readers to finish the story off on the beach in the sun, with us living happily ever after. So here is the true, unabridged and inglorious story of Matt and Venla's last couple of days in Latin America, as they travel from their paradise island to the harsh realities of Masaya and Managua.
San Jose del Sur
For our final night on Ometepe (and, for all intents and purposes, our last night of vacation), we decided to opt for a little more luxury, moving out of the $10 a night places to pay a whopping $20! We headed over to the island's south end to stay in a nice, lakeside place in San Jose del Sur to spend an evening and a day swimming, sunning and relaxing in the hammocks. We ate some great (albeit distressingly typical) food in the village, and just relaxed. It would have been perfect, f it were not for all of the tarantulas that came out after dark!
Cascada de San Ramon
While we decided not to climb Ometepe's other volcano, Maderas, we did head about halfway up its slopes to the beautiful waterfalls called the Cascada de San Ramon. These waterfalls are fed by the abundant flows that saturate Maderas, filling its crater with water and creating springs around its slopes. The waterfall in question is a thin, sinewy stream that plunges some 40 meters over the edge of cliff and creates a small, pleasant pool at the bottom. The walk to get there is quite nice, with lots of birds, butterflies and other wildlife. Once arriving, we of course plunged in to the refreshing pool, although Venla naturally spent more time in the water than I.
Biking Around Concepcion
We have a strange way of resting, some have said. Sometimes the way we rest even resembles a triathlon. So we spent one of our last days on the island biking around the big volcano. The ride provided another interesting glimpse on local rural life, and it even included a stop in the precolombian art museum, which, apart from the usual pottery we are all big fans of by now, also included a lot of grinding stones (a status symbol, they say, much like cars for us). We barely made it back to our hostel by sunset, just on time for the power outage caused by the fiesta in town. We had no regrets about going straight to bed, our legs a little store once again.
The Petroglyphs (and flowers) of El Porvenir
I'm sorry, but I am an addict. I just can't stay away from the Old Piles of Stone. Unfortunately, Nicaragua is not exactly an archeology junkie's dream world, despite what the national tourist office's promotional literature claims. But we did our best, and went to see the petroglyphs of El Porvenir, on the Maderas half of Ometepe. Archaeologists estimate that these scribbles etched in stone are between 1200 and 1400 years old, but I am pretty sure that they pulled that number out of somewhere other than good science. Luckily, though, the glyphs are surrounded by some really lush forest, making for some great flower sightings.
Ojo de Agua; or, the Eye of Water
After a day of celebrating with the locals in Altagracia, we decided to spend a day relaxing a bit. So, we headed over to a bubbling volcanic spring on the isthmus between the two volcanoes known as the Ojo de Agua, or the Eye of Water. It is a beautiful place, where visitors can swim in the warmish water or just sit on the edge of pools shaded by ancient ceiba trees and ordering drinks or meals from the small, thatched roof restaurant up the hill.
Altagracia and the Zompopo Dance
After a couple of days staying in the town of Altagracia, we were lucky enough to find that our visit coincided with the island's biggest festival of the year, the Fiestas Patronales, dedicated to Altagracia's patron saint, Saint Diego. It may seem odd that the most important festival of the year should occur at this time and not during the week preceding Easter as in most of Latin America, but there is very good reason for the difference. Before the arrival of the Europeans, Altagracia was the most important indigenous settlement on the island, which in turn gave it a lot of spiritual prestige. Indeed, the town is host to Nicaragua's most important pre-Colombian finds, including a number of statues that remain in the church yard (one of which features on the 500 Cordoba bill). The most important festival for this community was the fertility celebration dedicated to the Zompopo, or the leaf-cutter ant. It happened to fall on the Catholic feast of Saint Diego, and so the natives simply renamed the festival and continued celebrating it.
Climbing One Last Volcano
Well, you know us. We could not resist the call of one last volcano. The Volcan Concepcion rises above the town where we are staying in Ometepe, and summit was calling us. After three days of thinking on it, we finally decided to give her a go.
Biking across Ometepe
For our first day on the Isla de Ometepe, we decided to rent a couple of bikes and go exploring a bit. Ometepe is a true island paradise. We rode through villages, watching people farm and admiring the views of the two beautiful volcanoes. We got a wonderful meal in a little comedor on the side of the road, watching ox-carts rumble by and finished the day off with a dip in Lake Nicaragua. We are finally on vacation!
The Ferry to Volcano Island
After exhausting our possibilities in Granada, we took a five hour ferry ride through Lake Nicaragua to get to the famous and unvaryingly picturesque Ometepe island. Omotepe is known mostly for its silhouette as seen from the shore: two high, conical volcanoes rising out of the water connected by a thin stripe of land. In reality, the island is little more than that: shaped like a figure-eight with volcanoes on either end, Ometepe offers boundless opportunities for hiking, biking, swimming and picture taking in a singularly dramatic setting.
Granada’s Mi Museo
While in Granada, we took a look at some more precolombian pottery, in a nice free little museum called Mi Museo, where Nicaraguans are supposed to be able to come to learn about their culture and the achievements of their ancestors. Some of the designs might look familiar: the inhabitants of the area are in part descendants of the Maya and Aztecs who migrated down this way, and supposedly found their promised land on the islands of Lake Nicaragua. Some of the contemporary pottery produced around here, is, surprisingly enough, also quite cool.
Convento y Museo San Francisco
Granada's premier museum is, probably, the one located in the former convent of San Francisco, one of the few surviving religious structures from the colonial period. Within its walls are located a wonderful collection of contemporary art, some excruciating religious art that even the Museum's own signage admits is boring, and a collection of pre-Colombian statuary found on the larger islands within Lake Nicaragua.
Biking to the Asese Peninsula
One of Granada's big attractions has nothing to do with its history, restaurants of museums. The big attraction is a big lake, the biggest in Central America. Lake Nicaragua, or Cocibolca in the native Nuahatl, is a huge blue blot on the map of the country and, as anyone who knows Venla knows, she is drawn to swimming in blue blots on the maps like flies are drawn to... garbage. Unfortunately, Granada's untreated sewage drains directly into the lake, making it a pretty nasty proposition to swim near the city. So, we rented a couple of bikes and headed out to a place where the water was cleaner and calmer.
Welcome to Granada
After our trip up to the north of Nicaragua to float in a canyon, we headed pretty much directly to the southern city of Granada, the country's other big colonial city. Granada certainly has its fair share of colonial architecture; although most of the big mansions and churches have fallen in the earthquakes that periodically hit the area, a few of them stand between the the plethora of colonial manner houses (four-winged structures with shady patios inside). Most importantly, though, we ran into some friends we made earlier in the trip, a pair of Argentinians who are making their way to Mexico by selling their artesania. Equally cool, a French couple who we met sailing in San Blas met us in town, so we had a "normal" social life for a couple of days!
A Parade in Esteli
On our way to the canyon in Somoto, we spent the night in a town called Esteli, a place mostly famous for its cigar factories. We would not even mention it except for the fact that while there, we happened to witness the the town's school parade. It was quite a site, with cheerleaders followed by a great drum line and finally the “Queens” and “Kings” of each grade.
Swimming in the Somoto Canyon
After leaving Leon, we decided to head up to the north of the country, near the Honduran border, to visit the Canyon of Somoto. This particular place is a relatively new addition to the list of things to do in Nicaragua, being open to the public only since 2003. The canyon is a deep, narrow slot carved into the countryside which reaches depths of 100 meters and at places is as narrow as 5 meters. Where it is narrow, there is only one way to pass: via the water. The small river provides some surprisingly good swimming in these spots, with depths over 3 meters (in some places over 20!). In other spots, we had to slalom through small rapids, using our feet to avoid the rocks.
Poneloya Beach
In order to make good on our commitment to relax as much as possible, we decided to offset our volcano climbing with a little bit of beach laying. So, on our last day in Leon, we took the bus a half hour down the road to the village of Poneloya, a tranquil little fishing community overlooking a darkish sand beach directly onto the not-so-peaceful Pacific Ocean (seriously, was the name supposed to be ironic?).
The El Hoyo Volcano Hike
Yes, we went to another volcano. This time we went on a two-day hike with our friends at Quetzaltrekkers to spend the night on the slopes of El Hoyo. This one is less active than the others that we went to from Leon; its geologic activity is pretty much limited to the geysers of hot steam that push up from the depths of the earth. This has led to a couple of interesting formations. The first is a large, sheer-walled sinkhole right on the side of the cone, giving the mountain its name. The other is a big, steaming hole.
Volcano Boarding
One of those obligatory things you have to do when you get to Leon is volcano-boarding. This curious little sport involves donning a Ghostbusters-like jumpsuit, taking a toboggan to the Cerro Negro (Black Hill) volcano, and riding it down the ash that a 1998 eruption deposited there. The experience is fun, although you don't quite get to the thrilling speeds that the tourist brochures suggest (although most people seem to take the trip in various stages of inebriation, which probably makes it seem more exhilarating).
The Tilica Volcano
Some of our most memorable moments from our first stop on this long journey, Guatemala, were on or around the beautiful volcanoes that run through the country, part of the same chain that forms the backbone of Nicaragua. Our first thoughts upon arriving in Leon, therefore, naturally gravitated toward the tantalizing, smoking range just to the east. We made our way to one of the area's more trusted tour agencies, the non-profit, volunteer-run Quetzaltrekkers that also has a branch in Guatemala that we hiked with almost a year ago. Were were in luck: they had a trip going on an overnight, full-moon hike to the crater of the Tilica Volcano, just a few kilometers away.