Ometepe Island Adventures

I´ve been a little lax on keeping my blogsite updated since Sydney´s been here. When she arrived we spent the first week in Granada again. I don´t know what it is about Granada, but I keep finding myself there. Sydney took 2 hours of Spanish lessons a day while I loafed around in the mornings. In the afternoons I took her around to some of the sites around Granada, that I had previously been to. Plus, my pals Sarah, Mark and Nate were also visiting Granada for the first time, so I wanted to show them around too. The pictures I have posted are of Las Isletas de Lago Nicaragua (Islands of Lake Nicaragua). That is where the monkeys jumped onto the boat. It was so funny. These 365 islands were formed from the eruption of Volcan Mambacho 20,000 years ago. This is the volcano that is in the background in some of my Granada pics. Sydney and I then visited Volcan Mambacho. We were too lazy to climb to the top (probably about a 4 hour hike) so we took this big truck/bus to the top and went on a 1.5 hour hike around the rim. It was beautiful. I am posting pictures of this hike.

We left on Friday to head for Ometepe Island. We returned to the Monkey Hostel in the community of Merida, so that she could meet the pet monkey that I saw earlier in the trip. We arrived Friday evening and stayed until Sunday morning. We lazy-ed around all day on Saturday. I literally layed in the hammock until 3:00 in the afternoon, just reading my book and drifting in and out of sleep. It was then that I started contemplating about the last days of Syd´s childhood. She was running around all morning with the children of the family who ran the hostel. She was playing with the pig, the dogs, the chickens, the talking parrot, and the monkey. She actually had grass stains and dirt on her pants from rolling around on the ground. It was great. I was also getting all nostalgic for my childhood, too. While I was laying in the hammock the radio was playing all these early eighties songs (and some 70s). And, they don´t play the same songs they play on the 80s stations in the states...they play weird ones you never hear like Debbie Gibson, Samantha Fox, and Air Supply. They also played "Silly Love Songs," which really give me weird feelings from a time I don´t even have concrete memories of. Maybe from when I was like 2 or 3. Hotel California used to do the same to me, but I played it so much in high school that now I have other memories attached to it.

Sunday morning it was off to another village on the Island, Balgue. The only bus leaving Merida was at 8:30 a.m. I made sure I didn´t miss it this time (no hitchhiking with Syd). It was starting to rain as we were leaving the hostel to catch the bus. I had hoped it would stop, since I knew we had a little walk ahead of us, and the bus wouldn´t take us directly to Balgue. No such luck. By the time the bus dropped us off, it was pouring down rain. After looking at the map some more I estimated about 45 min. to get to the hostel. So, we strapped the bags on our backs, put our rain ponchos on and started walking. Sydney was laughing hard at me in my red poncho. She said I looked like a deformed Little Red Riding Hood with a huge hump in the back, and one in the front with my day pack. I would have liked a picture, but I wasn´t going to get the camera out. The laughing didn´t last for long, however. The walk to Balgue was all uphill, with the last 15 minutes of the walk straight up and down, in the mud. Needless to say Sydney was crying by the end. But, she was a trooper...I offered to stop, or to let her rest while I carried my bags up and came back down for hers. She said "No...I just want to get there." in between sobs. We finally made it and the hostel...The Finca Magdalena...was beautiful. Finca Magdalena is a coffee cooperative established in the 1980s. There are 27 families working for the coop. Many of the profits from the organic, shade grown coffee come back to the community of Bague in the form of potable water and education projects. It was only after we left and I was viewing the photos I took, that I realized the photo on the cover of my Moon Travel Handbook was taken from Finca Magdalena, from the exact spot where I took a picture. I´ve looked at that picture so many times, even before the trip and wondered where it was and if I would ever see it.

We only stayed at the coop for 2 days and then we again stayed with a host family and took Spanish classes. It was here that Sydney got to know some of the local kids by playing soccer every night for like 1.5 hours each time. It was so cool to see them interacting, even though they don´t speak the same language. She loved it! They played on half of a hard surface basketball court (the other half was actually being used for basketball). The kids played either barefoot or with slip on sandles, but could still run so fast! Sydney felt a little out of place with her athletic shorts and tennis shoes on. But, she still kicked butt! Everything will be so different when we re-enter the crazy world of organized, competive soccer, school, homework, music, etc. etc. I´m just trying to cherish every minute of this.

My spanish teacher was horrible this time. I feel like I wasted my time and money this week. But, the host family, Estella and Marcos were very nice. And, again, Sydney made friends with the talkative parrot. The computer here is very slow. Doesn´t look like I´ll have an opportunity to post the pictures until I find a faster computer. Until later...SEK