Buses, airplanes, ham, cheese, and wine

Yeah yeah I know it’s been a week and we haven’t written anything. I can’t even remember where to start. It’s been travel madness. To start I’ll just give you a summary of what the past week has been. We’ve taken a taxi from San Juan del Sur to Rivas and barely caught our bus in time for San Jose, Costa Rica. We got off the bus in Alajuela, Costa Rica (near San Jose airport) and took a taxi to our hotel there. We stayed there two nights there, and then caught a very early flight to Buenos Aires through Panama City. We took a cab from the airport to our hostel in Buenos Aires. A few days later we took an overnight bus to Mendoza, Argentina and that’s where we are now. Phew!


Nothing extremely exciting has happened except that yesterday was really fun. I will write about that later, though. First I’ll start with our trip from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua down to San Jose, Costa Rica. In our standard style we slept as late as possible before catching the cab to Rivas. We had to do this because the bus to San Jose stopped there and not in San Juan del Sur. Our bus was supposed to be there around 9am and we left San Juan around 8:15 after running down the street with our bags. The cab tried to stop and pick up another person on the way and half out of fear of robbery and half in urgency we started yelling at him “No tiempo! No tiempo!” He kept going and we got to the bus stop half confused on where to go. We walked toward some other tourist looking people as the bus rolled up. Talk about good timing.

Our bus was nice. TicaBus is a Central American bus company that travels from Mexico to Panama and they are surprisingly clean, comfortable AND on time which is a rarity. Well they are on time when they can be. We got stuck at the border for 3 hours. It was Sunday and the lines were massive, especially the way they have it set up. You have to get an exit stamp from Nicaragua and pay a couple bucks, then board the bus go about 100 yards through the border to Costa Rica and go through the whole process again.

Only Costa Rica is much stricter because they don’t like Nicaraguans and really watch for illegal immigrants. They also searched our bags so that took another half hour or so. It was a really slow process, but this time it was much better because it was nice weather, we had direction from the bus operators, and we were not alone. I even changed my leftover cordobas for some Costa Rican colones with one of the crazy cambio guys. The rest of the ride was pretty uneventful except they showed “The Bodyguard” in Spanish. Haha

We got off the bus at the airport in Alajuela since we heard it was a little nicer and we already knew San Jose sucked. Plus it’s close to the airport and our flight was at 6am. Since the flight was so early we didn’t want to risk not making it due to some unknown delay so we actually traveled to Costa Rica on Sunday even though our flight wasn’t until Tuesday morning. After the bus ride went so smoothly, despite the border, I was regretting our decision because there was not much to do. That was before the Montezuma’s revenge kicked in. While we were on the bus a guy came aboard and was selling food and drinks. Everyone was buying it and it looked pretty good. MISTAKE. Never buy food from a random dude with a cooler. I’m just now feeling better.

At any rate we hung out in Alajuela the next day just picking up random stuff like shampoo. It was so much nicer than San Jose so we were glad we chose to stay out there rather than in the city. Our hotel in Alajuela was owned by this German couple and everyone at the hotel was German too. It was kinda weird, but the owners were super nice and helpful. Breakfast was pretty good too with fresh blended juice and all kinds of different jams to choose from for the toast.

We caught a cab at 4:30 in the morning to the airport and everything went off without hitch. I’m just glad it wasn’t busy because there are extra steps you have to do when leaving Costa Rica which translates to more lines. You have to pay this “departure tax” of $26 in a separate line. Once that is paid you have to do the usual airport lines and waiting. Our flight to Buenos Aires was also pretty uneventful. We stopped in Panama City which is a really strange airport. The place is like a mall, but almost entirely filled with electronics stores. I don’t know why; they weren’t a good deal, but people were going crazy and buying everything.

We arrived in Buenos Aires around 11pm via a taxi from the airport. The car was new, the road was smooth, there were no potholes, and no weird smells. It’s amazing the things you take for granted, but it was a really nice change. Our hostel in Buenos Aires was in the San Telmo neighborhood and called Ayres Portenos. It’s a tango themed hostel with lots of cool paintings and decorations. The pictures to the right is of the common area right outside our door and of our door itself. However, and this is the reason that I’m writing this post now instead of back in Buenos Aires, the internet was slow there. Imagine AOL dialup, but shared across 10 computers. It was that bad. Top that off with us trying to book an airline ticket to fly to El Calafate (southern Argentina) using websites that are constantly crashing or going down. It was a joke. One day we literally spent 5 hours trying to book stuff. It turned out that all flights to El Calafate were either ridiculously priced ($1000) or sold out. We had to try to plan an entirely different trip using this horrible internet. It took forever and was so frustrating. We finally decided to head to Mendoza first (wine country). We booked a ticket on the AndesMar website which coincidentally went down in the middle of trying to book our ticket. We switched to another website that was horrible and all in Spanish. After struggling through that forever the AndesMar website came back online and we booked through there. I’m having a hard time conveying how frustrating this process was. Things would happen like you’d type all your information into an online form, then it would just randomly erase. Type it again, erase. You didn’t even press a button or touch the computer and the website would erase stuff or crash all while taking 5 minutes to load a single webpage of only text. Their programmers must be serious idiots. Another frustrating thing is that hostels are booked up everywhere along with airlines. Of course half the time their websites are down, so we spent some time in offices in Buenos Aires only to find out things like the planes are owned by the Air Force and they are being used so there are no flights. AGHH!!! FINALLY we were able to book a bus from Buenos Aires to Mendoza AND find a place to stay that was not booked up.

The remainder of our time in Buenos Aires was just spent walking around checking out San Telmo (the kinda edgy artsy neighborhood our hostel is in) and the surrounding areas.

The city is really beautiful and cosmopolitan, kinda like a cross between New York and Paris. Everything is so much cleaner than in Central America and the people also dress really nice. Of course this means everything is more expensive so in Buenos Aires we found prices only about 25% cheaper than the US. There are so many people there, though. Everybody walks as parking seems pretty crazy so the streets are sometimes packed. There is a subway, but we never rode it.

We walked several miles the last day we were there and went through different neighborhoods (we ate lunch near the giant tree in the picture above). We came across this huge hydraulic operated flower that closes at night using solar panels in its petals. The sign was in Spanish, but it said something about Lockheed Martin so that was kinda interesting.

Near there was the Recoleta Cemetery where Eva Peron is buried.  This place was a sight, massive, and filled with huge ornate mausoleums dating back to the 1800s.  We didn’t really stress about seeing too much there this time around so we didn’t do a whole lot. We will be back for an extended period come Christmastime. Plus, I couldn’t really drink or go out thanks to the Montezuma’s revenge from Costa Rica.

The bus terminal… Haha well this is mostly our fault due to poor planning, but it was an experience. Luckily the people working at AndesMar were so helpful. We arrived there via taxi 20 minutes later than we wanted. Our bus left at 7:55pm and we got there around 7:30 thinking “how difficult can this be? It’s a bus.” This was more like an airport, it had four separate terminals, its own ramps from the road just like an airport and over 90 offices of different bus companies. Holy crap. We were running around trying to find the AndesMar office; when we finally did find it they asked us where our tickets were. I said I didn’t have any because we booked online and they said I should have printed an email. Come to find out that this pure text, poorly formatted email I got that was all in Spanish informed me somewhere in the middle of it that I had to print it and show it in order to board. We got around that and they sent us on our way to the AndesMar bus. We ran through the throngs of people and found our bus which was almost done boarding. It said it left at 7:45, not 7:55. I was a little confused, and thought something was wrong. At that instant the girl from the AndesMar office came running up screaming “No bus! No bus!” What had happened was that we booked using AndesMar, but they are partners with other companies so we were actually on a bus operated by CATA. We had to run BACK upstairs to the offices and go to CATA, get our tickets printed, then run back down to the terminals and board the bus. Once again we literally sat down and the bus rolled out. Another close call.

If any of you have ever traveled to Argentina you know that the buses here are awesome. Each seat on this two level bus had a nearly full reclining seat, its own private LCD screen, curtains, blanket, pillow, wine, dinner. Everything! It’s basically like flying international first class, but on a bus. We still slept like absolute crap so we were pretty tired when we arrived in Mendoza at 9am.

Ham and cheese. I have to add this. People in Argentina have some sort of obsession with ham and cheese. Our dinner on the bus consisted of the following: a small ham and cheese sandwich, a ham and cheese wrap, ham and cheese quiche, loose ham and cheese, ham and cheese pieces on a small skewer, and the main course? Chicken cordon bleu, which guess what, is filled with ham and cheese. Literally the only items not containing ham and cheese in our meal were the roll and chocolate dessert. We suspected otherwise… Breakfast: ham and cheese sandwich. What the heck people? Are you addicts or something? I suspect a pig farmer conspiracy. We’ve been trying to avoid the ham and cheese sandwiches that are everywhere and in every café and restaurant here. Ham and cheese pizza, ham and cheese quesadillas, ham and cheese empanadas, ham and cheese on ham and cheese. I’m telling you they love the crap. Gross.

Finally on to where we are now, Mendoza, wine country of Argentina. We didn’t waste any time either. After taking a heavenly hot shower (first consistent hot water in weeks), we decided to do this bike riding wine tour. We rode a cab to Maipu and were dropped off at Mr. Hugo Bikes.

We recognized some people in there and found out they were from our hostel as well, two guys from Germany and another girl from Bermuda. We did the tour with them. Mr. Hugo, the owner, is just trying to get you drunk I think. He kept pouring us big cups of wine before we even left! We headed out and rode to the end of the line first.

It was kinda far, about 5 miles heading right into the wind. It was a little annoying because the tastings were not free and you just about were required to do the tour before you could taste. I don’t care that barrels are stored here and your grapes are picked there. That’s nice, give me wine. Haha. This bike tour was like torture, but not because it was boring or the wine wasn’t good. It was a blast and the wine was awesome. The reason it was torture was because we couldn’t buy the wine! They said it would cost about $150 to ship two bottles back to the US! We can’t carry it with us either because we are weight limited by the airlines.

We ended up splitting a really good bottle with the group to drink at dinner. It was their special reserve Malbec, each signed by the wine maker and covered in dust from years of storage. Only 4167 bottles were produced and it was considered a collection wine. It cost 95 pesos or about $25. It was their most expensive wine. Crazy right? All the wines were so cheap; normally they were priced around $7. Another reason it was so torturous. We made our way through a few other stupid tours and good tastings. We drank a bottle of some good stuff at our last stop before the chocolate factory. Mmmm chocolate. This place had handmade chocolate, stuffed olives, liquors, jams, and sauces. We got to taste a majority of them and they were all so amazingly good. We bought some chocolate. It’s gone already :O)

Today we are planning on planning. Haha. We are forced to plan ahead here because everything is so booked up. We need to book bus tickets, hostels, etc. We are going to stay a few more days here and probably do some more wine tasting. Next we are headed to Salta which is in the northwest of Argentina. From there we are going over to Iguazu Falls which is the picture in the title of this blog. Next, we fly from there to El Calafate to do some hiking in the Patagonian Andes. We make our way from there up to Bariloche which is famous for its chocolate and amazing views and lakes. Finally from there we will go back to Buenos Aires just before Christmas and spend about a month there. Better get to work!

The sunset on San Juan

Coraleigh got stung in the ass by a jellyfish!  hahaha.  She won't let me post the picture on here, but it resembled a hundred mosquito bites all grouped together.  Before we get to that, lets move back to the beginning of day 3 here in San Juan del Sur.  While we were waiting to take off on our turtle watching thing, we were asked by the reception at Casa Oro (the hostel organizing the turtle tour) if we wanted to go sailing tomorrow.  Apparently a few people had cancelled and there were some other people that really wanted to go out.  We didn't really have any plans and had already spent two days on the beach so we figured it would be a nice change in scenery.  We signed up and it turns out that the two people really wanting to go were a couple from Chicago (Bob and Janet) that we had met in our hotel in Granada.  Pretty strange coincidence and even stranger when I found out his son works for Lockheed Martin.  Anyway with us, the two from Chicago, and 3 other girls from London we had a full boat.

The boat we went out on was called the Gypsy.  For those of you out there who know Dan's boat, it was the exact same with a few upgrades.  They told me they recently had it in dry dock for a month doing major repairs.  The owner is a civil engineer that now works down here doing land engineering for developments and houses.  His two buddies, who were actually from Olympia, ran the sailing trips.  They had been doing it about a month and sounded like they were having a good time.  Pretty sweet job just sailing around all day drinking beer and making a few sandwiches for people.

The day was perfect for sailing; a good offshore wind of about 15 knots and all the sunshine you needed.  We sailed south from San Juan del Sur and actually passed Playa La Flor where we had seen the turtles the night before.  We saw several in the water during the day.  They also had a line out the back and let me bring in what they called a Jack fish.  Pretty lifeless for how big it was; I was able to bring it in by hand. 

We hooked up to a buoy in a little cove near the Costa Rica border and went swimming (and floating in tubes) and had a lunch.  Lunch was just bean dip and some sandwiches, but it was perfect for a hot day and went good with the Victorias I was drinking.  Coraleigh started with Flor de Cana, Nicaragua's rum, and Sprite.  Then she started to add orange juice to that concoction.  As we were floating around out in the water I kept feeling tiny twinges on my legs that felt like someone was twisting my leg hair.  About two minutes later Coraleigh started jumping around and saying that something stung her.  Of course this happens to the person who is most afraid of the ocean and its creatures.  I swam her back to the boat and she got out and I finally saw what she was complaining about.  There was a huge sting on her butt and legs where a jellyfish had been stuck between her leg and the tube.  The boat guys soaked a napkin in rum and she held that on there for a little bit.  Also, Bob from the Chicago couple had a first aid kit with him and some sting/burn cream.  She was back to her rum in no time, although that incident pretty much cleared the water of all swimmers.  When a guy from the boat jumped back in the water he also got stung on the arm slightly so we were done.  haha

We sailed back north toward San Juan del Sur as the sun was setting.  Afterward, we went to pizza with the girls from London (Claire, Hazel, and Gemma) and had too much to drink.  It pretty much rendered the next morning useless.  We ate breakfast at the Barrio cafe around 11am.  We've been doing pretty good on the breakfast side of things.  We get the house breakfast which includes two eggs, toast, a pile of sauteed potatoes, orange juice, and coffee for 50 cordobas (a little over $2).

Last night we were idiots, though.  We went this place called Piedras y Olas Pelican Eyes, the nicest hotel here, to have some drinks at sunset.  When we got there they were setting up for some kind of concert so the restaurant and bar were not open.  We were just thinking, oh well screw it, lets buy tickets and see what this is like.  They were only $7 anyway and this place is really nice.  It turns out we bought tickets to this Nicaraguan comedian.  That still may have been ok, but on top of that this guy is famous for impersonating Nicaraguan politicians and TV shows.  Think Frank Caliendo of Nicaragua.  We had no freakin clue what was going on.  DURP.  We left early.

Today we booked our bus tickets for our return trip to San Jose.  We are staying near the airport this time since its pretty pointless to stay in San Jose (its a craphole, remember?).  We are taking TicaBus from Rivas to the main airport in Costa Rica and then catching a quick cab to our hotel, Coconut House.  Its owned by a german couple, got really good reviews, includes breakfast, and was only $32 a night.  The rest of today was just filled with little things like eating ice cream on the beach, and going to a book exchange place to get a new book for Coraleigh before our long trip.  We also had some really good mexican food for lunch; strangely enough Mexican food is basically non-existent in Nicaragua.

Every single one of the sunsets here has been amazing.  So I'll end the post with pictures from the last three nights.  Today was our last one from north of the equator.  See you all in Argentina.

Movie Links:
Sailing South - short clip
Swimming around the boat

Busy days in San Juan del Sur

Just like Laguna de Apoyo this is another busy place.  We just can't seem to find the time to write a post between laying on the beach, swimming, and having drinks while watching the sunset.  hahaha

The ferry trip from Ometepe was uneventful except for more weird music videos in the taxi van like I mentioned.  When we arrived on the San Jorge side (mainland) we, of course, were mobbed by taxi drivers.  I told them I did want a taxi and they said quinientos cordobas ($25) and I told them to take a flying leap.  Coraleigh was also happy because she got to use her new word "demasiado" which means too much.  The taxi driver, funny enough, agreed and said ok cuatrocientos ($20) to which I still said no.  We eventually got him down to 315 cordobas or just at $15.  He was just trying to rip us off.  He swore it was "un buen precio", yeah sure it is buddy.  We were told by our hotel owner on Ometepe and our guidebook that it costs $15.

San Juan del Sur is a small town.  So small you could walk every street in town in one morning, but its real nice.  The nicest and cleanest we've seen in Nicaragua and the beach is beautiful.  The sand is so fine its like powder and the protected harbor makes for a nice half-moon shaped beach.  The hostel we originally attempted to stay at was doing construction and had no double rooms, just dorms.  We're too picky for dorms, haha.  So we went to another hostel and they only had one with this crappy foam mattress on the floor and the door was curtains.  Finally we came to our hotel called Encanto del Sur, which funny enough is very similar to our hotel on Ometepe called El Encanto.  We were so happy to find the hotel to be clean and bug free, and it comes with A/C all for $25.  Still no hot water, but that'll cost you $50+ at least.  We blew our budget in Costa Rica so now we're trying to make up for it here.

The hotel owner informed us that a corner room with more windows would be available in one day so we decided we would move there after one night.  Its a good thing because our dreams of bug freeness were shattered when we came home late that night to find a weird giant worm thing, a cockroach, AND a scorpion in our bathroom.  Its a good thing we were both drunk.  haha, of course Coraleigh made me smash all of them.  The worm and cockroach were fine, but I dropped a big water bottle on the scorpion because I didn't want to attempt to step on it for fear of its stinger coming up over the edge of my flip-flops.  The thing was big, about 4 inches long.  We figured they came through the wall through the sink holes which were too big; we were glad to see our new room's bathroom was more remodeled and had a new pedestal sink instead of a rotting wood base.  No more bugs since.

We spent the first few days just roaming town; Coraleigh bought a new beach dress, an awesome cat towel(see my manly pic), and we stocked up on some essentials (we've almost been on the road a month now).  We spent a lot of time on the beach too playing in the waves and reading.  Today the weather was blazing hot and we both got weird burns in the spots were sunscreen was forgotten.  I have a circle right around my belly button and Coraleigh has a blotch on the back of one leg.

We've been eating well here since there are a lot of options.  Funny thing is that this pizza place right by our hotel is excellent and we've already eaten there twice.  The owner is a retired Italian expat and makes a truly authentic pizza for only $7.  Delicious.  We've also ordered wine with our pizza both nights, Italian Sangiovese and Cab for under $15 each and they were great.  Drinks at a bar: glass of wine, a beer, and a rum and soda for Claire (this English girl we met) came to $5 and thats at the busiest beachfront bar here.  It makes it hard to control yourself.  :O)

Tonight was really awesome and I never thought it would be like this, but we decided to do this turtle expedition.  It just so happens that yesterday was the beginning of the biggest "arribata" of the year for the Olive Ridley turtle (about 2 feet across and 3 feet long).  Last night alone on this one beach over 10,000 females came ashore to make a nest and lay eggs.  This beach is protected by La Flor wildlife refuge and we went there tonight.  It was incredible even in the dark (the turtles only nest at night).  There were so many turtles on this 1km stretch of beach that you literally had to watch your step for fear of hitting an adult or stepping on a baby. The rangers had some babies (tiny! about 3 inches long) they were going to release, but there were so many adults they kept them for a later time for fear of them getting squished by all the adults coming ashore. 

There was some lightning in the distance and when it lit the sky the sight was amazing; thousands of turtles in the surf and on the beach.  We watched one dig its nest, lay eggs, and cover the hole.  It then did circles and kinda kicked and dug in areas slightly away from the nest so as to conceal its location from predators by creating a false nest.  We used these special red lights since turtles are sensitive to white light so my pictures didn't come out, but I got some cool videos.  Also the picture in the dawn hours we got from the internet, but it gives you an idea of what we saw.  There were literally that many turtles on the beach.  Luckily the turtles were so cool because the ride there and back completely sucked.  We (us and 8 other people) crammed into this 4x4 van and it took over an hour to go only 10 miles.  The road, once again, was horrible; we even forded two small rivers.

Tomorrow we signed up for some sailing where lunch is included and drinks are free all day.  A nice change from the beach so we'll let you know how it goes!

Movie Links:

San Juan del Sur beach panorama
Baby turtles
Turtle laying eggs
Dinner video

Ometepe Omegod there are so many bugs here

Ometepe. Is that native for creepy crawlies everywhere? It should be. I can’t even begin to count how many centipede things I’ve squished in our room (probably ~50). Spiders too. The one on our door tonight was so fast it was impossible to smash it. We think we have everything out tonight so we sprayed OFF along the underside of the door and stuffed it with a towel. Haha. The centipedes are the worst. Luckily they are small ones at less than an inch. Still it’s gross. Both Coraleigh and I slept like crap the first night having bug attack dreams.

I spent a good hour before bed searching the room with our flashlight and smashing about 30 centipedes. They like the concrete on the patio for some reason so they just wander under the door I think and were congregating in the corner. The one corner had about 15 of them. So nasty.

We asked the owner about it and he said he hadn’t noticed and that bugs are everywhere here. He said it changes day to day, which it did. Tonight there were basically no centipedes (I must have wiped out their race, haha). Last night at dinner there was like an ant parade going on along the wall so he moved these people’s table away. He also mentioned that it was “nothing” and that sometimes they come in billions. So many that the walls look like they are a different color, then you come back 10 minutes later and they are gone. I’m just glad I don’t live here. It’s pretty, but Ometepe is about as remote as it gets in Nicaragua. It took us 1.5 hours to get to our hotel from only about 20 miles away. The roads are horrible. The power is constantly going out or fading in and out. Last night we had no water. When you walk the roads you have to walk around pigs, chickens, mud holes, smoking banana trucks, cattle herds, and horses. There is also massive poverty and some people live in shacks made of metal roofing and logs. We heard some statistic like 70% of Nicaragua lives below the extreme poverty level and the average income is around $2000 a year. Still though, everyone is super nice and always says “hola” to you when you’re passing by.

First thing I have to talk about beside the bugs is the ride out here. As I mentioned, it was a long bumpy ride; the funniest part was the music. We rode in this 4x4 van, but it had a video screen and the guys driving popped in a burnt DVD. We were trying to see what they were watching so they flipped down the screen for us in the back. It was all music videos, but they were seriously retarded. Here these guys were jamming out to this music like it was the newest and best thing, but it was MC Hammer, Ace of Base, Milli Vanilli, and other awesome early 90s videos I had never even seen. We were cracking up so I had to mention it.  Addition: On our ride back to the ferry today it was such a contrast.  Guns and Roses and Metallica videos mixed with Celine Dion and Toni Braxton.  Weird.

The room here at El Encanto is clean and looks pretty cool, and the food in the restaurant is good. We picked it based on tripadvisor reviews and everything they said is right. I don’t think the bugs are worse here than they would be anywhere else; it’s just the island. Once again we are the only people in the hotel. There were some super weird Canadian “accoontants” here the first night, but they left in the morning. Being the only people is getting old and I think we are going to try and meet up with some people we met at Laguna de Apoyo when we get to San Juan del Sur.

The “ferry” here was more like a crappy converted fishing boat. It smoked and chugged across the lake on a luckily calm afternoon in about an hour. This lake is massive and it feels like you are in the ocean when you’re on it or look from the island. Upon arriving at and upon exiting the ferry we were mobbed by taxi, tour, restaurant, hotel, you name it hawkers. It was super annoying and something that is very different from Costa Rica. In Costa Rica you will almost never find a hand out begging, a guilt trip for a tip, or people trying to annoyingly sell you crap or get you in their hotel. Of course Nicaragua is far poorer, but just the culture is different between the two. It’s more like Mexico here, but still not as bad since tourism is still relatively new.

Anyway, there are some nice things here on Ometepe too. With all the creepy crawlies come lots of good things like butterflies. They are also everywhere and have such varying colors. We’ve seen lots of birds and lizards as well. More Jesus lizards, geckos, salamanders, green ones, brown ones. The views of the volcanoes are also pretty cool, although they’re covered in clouds most of the time. Apparently Concepcion is nearly perpetually cloudy because it emits hot sulfur gas and that mixes with the air forming its “hat”. It was nice and clear yesterday afternoon, though.

The first day we walked to the Ojo de Agua. It was a pretty long walk from here, about 6k, and it was blazing hot. It felt that much better to jump into the clear and fresh spring water pool when we got there. Ojo de Agua means eye of water and just describes the pools of water there, although they are kinda manmade now with concrete sides. The bottom is still rock and sand, though, and the water comes straight from a cold mineral spring under the volcano. They have a little area built around it with a restaurant and some chairs. It was beautiful and not what we were expecting. When we finally made it there (we followed this gross dirt/mud path through a banana farm and fields) it seemed like we had come across an amazing oasis. We were expecting Ojo de Agua to be a dirt hole with some nasty green water. It was not, as you can see from the pictures.

If you don’t mind the bugs, then Ometepe is a neat place with a lot of history. We have petroglyphs right in front of our room that are 2300 years old. Also if you like hiking there are 2 big volcanoes, one being active and extremely steep. If you’re into the rustic hiking nature thing, this is your place. If you can’t deal with insane amounts of bugs, then don’t come here. Haha. It feels like we’ve seen more species of bugs in the past two days than in our entire lives. Huge flying beetles that sound like airplanes, swarms of hundreds of dragonflies (the second picture on the right below), ants, centipedes, wasps the length of your pinky finger, termites, tons of annoying spiders floating on webs that are constantly getting stuck to your face or legs, jumping spiders, fast spiders, hairy neon blue spiders, flat super fast spiders, praying mantis, grasshoppers, giant black bees as big as silver dollars, dung beetles, moths, butterflies, and then of course your standard gnats, flies, and mosquitos. I’m sure there are a bunch here I missed, but you get the idea.

Today we went a place called Finca Magdelena which is an old coffee farm and now hostel as well. On the way there it started to rain a little bit, but we thought it would pass in a few minutes since it’s hardly rained here. It dumped on us and we were soaked like we jumped in a pool by the time we got there (over 2 miles walking). The people there gave us towels luckily, and of course it stopped raining right when we got there. We sat down and had some chocolate cake and Coraleigh bought some locally made organic honey in a rum bottle for only 2 bucks. Overall, pretty boring. I guess it’s OK if you’re a guitar toting smelly hippie. They seemed to enjoy making residence there. We walked back and spent the afternoon reading and taking some pictures down at the lake around sunset.

Overall impression is that if you’re looking to do some hiking and want a truly rustic experience (yes the old lady is trimming her toenails with a machete) with absolutely no tourist traps, then Ometepe is for you. We have mixed reviews to say the least, but it’s still a very beautiful and nearly untainted and authentic place.

This post is coming from San Juan del Sur since we had no internet on Ometepe…  More on San Juan del Sur tomorrow.