Vacation in Nicaragua

January 14, Isla Ometepe, Nicaragua

We've been in Nicaragua one week, and much of it has been spent relaxing on one sort of beach or another. We basically skipped Honduras. I know, geographically, that's impossible, but psychologically, it's not. We crossed into Honduras, found a place to escape the heat for the night and crossed into Nicaragua the next morning. So, we transited about 100 miles of Honduras, true, but only to move on. If we thought we could do two border crossings in one day and stay sane, we would have. We will visit Honduras on our way north.

We found ourselves in Leon, Nicaragua's intellectual center. We were working on finding a place to stay, but we kept missing - either too high-end for us or too low-end. While I was checking out a place, Tom came up with a better plan. Let's head to the beach! It's only about 20 km away, and if there's nothing good there, we can always come back. It's hot (and dry) here, so the beach sounded great to me. We found a little "hotelito" right on the beach - four rooms, a dorm, and a bar/restaurant. The food was good, the beer cold, the rooms cheap, and the waves were nice for swimming. It was a social place, so we traded notes with other travellers while we recharged our own batteries. After a few days of this, we were ready to head off again.

(Our hotelito)

(The view from the hotelito restaurant)

(Another beautiful sunset)

We explored Leon a bit. It seems to be a very understated city. There are no big signs for businesses, which makes finding places a little tricky. We got all of our erranding done while getting a feel for the place. We decided to keep moving south, leaving the highlands to be explored on our way north.

(One of the lions of Leon)

Off we headed to Lago de Nicaragua, also know as Lago Cocibolca, and Isla Ometepe, the largest freshwater island in the world. The island is made of two volcanoes, one of them a perfect cone, joined by an isthmus. This is said to be the island of peace because neither the Revolution nor the Civil War was waged here. I'm sure glad with have our motorcycles here. There's a stretch of road about 25 km long that is paved with concrete blocks. The rest of the roads are some combination of sand and volcanic rocks. We have a map that shows a main road and a deteriorated road paralleling it. If I didn't know better, I would have sworn the road we were on must have been the deteriorated one (nope, it was the main road). Nicaragua is not known for great road quality, but this is extreme. Everyone we met who had taken a bus around the island was very jealous of our motorcycles. Along one stretch, we opted to ride down the beach instead of the road. The beach was nice and smooth!

(Approaching Isla Omatepe)

(The other ferry. It matches the one we are one.)

(Much smoother than the road)

(The volcanoes dominate everything)

The wind has been howling from the east the whole time we've been there. There's quite the surf crashing onto the west side of the isthmus, where we stayed for two nights. No bugs, though. A big attraction is too climb either of the volcanoes, but after sitting on a motorcycle for a few months, I don't think I'm in good enough shape to really enjoy it. Instead, we've done other exploring, on the bikes and on foot. There's a wide range of plants and birds here, as well as howler monkeys.

(Wind driven surf)

(On a little nature walk)

(The wind is howling through the grass here.)

(Keep tabs on your breakfast or the birds will get it!)

(Tom's up-do after the ferry ride to the island)

(Time for a new 'do)

(That should help Tom stay cool.)

All advice was to avoid the ferries if possible on a Sunday, so we are staying another night, and will head off tomorrow. We are getting to a place where there really is only one road, or at least only one road crossing from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.

Being here has put a different spin on Costa Rica, even though we haven't gotten there yet. I look forward to hearing the Costa Rican side of the story. There seems to be quite a bit of tension between the two countries, similar in some ways to the US and Mexico. Many Nicas cross illegally into Costa Rica, work low-level or manual jobs, and don't always get treated with respect.

I am really enjoying Nicaragua and look forward to seeing more on the way north. Unfortunately, I don't think we will get to the Atlantic coastal lowlands; there's just too much to see. Some of the statistics on Nicaragua are pretty grim - it's the second poorest country in the hemisphere behind Haiti - but it's beautiful and welcoming, and according to other statistics, safer than many of the countries we've travelled through already.