Ben - August 1, Later afternoon

August 1, 4:45 PM
Hotel Finca Venecia
Ometepe, Nicaragua

Hola from the volcanic island of Ometepe in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua. It’s a beautiful late afternoon as we relax in our hotel room. As I mentioned, we are on the volcanic island of Ometepe in the middle of the biggest lake in Nicaragua. Ometepe is an isolated island 20-25 miles across with 38,000 residents. It sits in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua (also called Lake Cocibolca), which as its name suggests (the translation is ‘lake of Nicaragua’) is the biggest lake in the country. It is humongous, slightly smaller than Puerto Rico. It is largely a farming culture; it is not an uncommon occurrence to see cattle, pigs, dogs, or chickens wandering the streets. There are several towns, including one called Los Angeles, where there are shops, restaurants, banks, etc., although it seems that the majority of the culture is centered around agriculture and farming. I mentioned it was a volcanic island; there are two volcanoes on the island – Concepcion and Maderas. Maderas is dormant, while Concepcion remains active, last making some noise in 1957.

Today, Dad and I decided to hike Concepcion, which necessitated us getting up at 6 am. We went to the restaurant area where we were told we would be provided with breakfast and some sandwiches for lunch later. So we went. We sat. We waited. No food came. No people came. Our company was two dogs – one calm, medium sized dog that was very furry and one hyper, overactive, young Dalmatian that was begging for love and attention. So then our guide and driver arrived, and we told we had no breakfast or lunch. Our guide was a young man named Johan from Ometepe who spoke good English and had a wife from Michigan who seemed very nice. We drove into town for breakfast at a small restaurant. There my dad and Johan had a long discussion about Nicaraguan politics that I had trouble following. We bought some bread and fixings for lunch and set out for the hike. Concepcion was around 5,000 feet or so, making a formidable hike, but on the way there, our guide informed us that the volcano had been a bit active lately – spewing some ash and such. While that didn’t affect most of the mountain, he told us, we wouldn’t be able to approach the summit, and we would have to stop at about 2/3 of the way up. As I soon found out, that was still far enough.

We set out on the trail, which began with a long stretch of flat trail before starting the ascent. We soon come upon 2 other groups that included a woman from Michigan, a young man and woman from Denmark and two older men from Spain. As the trail started to rise, it became clear that this was a fairly steep trail. Johan set a quick pace early on and we continued the hike. The trail got continually steeper and there was a great deal of vegetation growing right around the path. Johan pointed out a number of plants and animals and seemed very knowledgeable about the hike. The hike was becoming increasingly difficult made more so by the fact that Johan was continuing on his very rapid pace. I’m in pretty good shape, but I was working extremely hard to keep up and keep going. The trail was extremely steep and where there would’ve been switchbacks on most hikes, the trail kept going straight at a very steep grade. By the time we reached our stopping point, an open grassy plateau, I was exhausted and I was not helped by the slightly sickening (to me at least) smell of sulfur that occasionally wafted down from the summit. I flopped down and simply sat there for several minutes, prompting a couple questions about whether I was ok from my dad. I was used to fairly long hikes, but it was not the distance that made me so tired, rather the steep grade and the rapid pace. Indeed, we covered the 3300-3400 vertical climb in less than two hours and arrived at the stopping point a good 20 minutes ahead of the other groups, who had started before us. After a light lunch, some water, and some good rest, I was ready to go back down. The way down, punctuated by some rain showers, was much easier and quicker and was fun.

So we went back to the hotel to find that the ladies had not done anything all day because my mom had become sick and was feeling nauseous and unwell. So here I am back at the hotel, with mom sleeping and trying to overcome her sickness and everyone else reading, relaxing, etc. Tomorrow, we leave for the old colonial town of Granada where we will stay three nights before going to the capitol city of Managua where we will fly out on Tuesday. So until later, adios!