Dad - August 2, Early Morning

Friday August 2, 2007
Hotel Finca Venecia, Ometepe
6:30 am

Take away the mosquitoes who are taking advantage of the windless day and this is a picturesque setting. I am on the front porch of our one room casita (2 stories, identical lay out, tile floor). Lago Nicaragua is 20 yards away with the far shore 15 miles off. A few large trees reach out across the shore – under one lies an overturned dugout canoe, thick and heavy. Jays are screeching in the trees – same color as our blue jays pero mas grande. Out on the lake, two fishermen are casting nets. There are stone piers in the water, where people come to do their wash. (“That is not very good for the clothes, is it?” Rachel asked.)

Ben did yeoman’s work on the hike yesterday so I will fill in few details about the island and how we got here. Trusty Luis spirited us away from Playa El Coco on Wednesday, back over the hills of the coast to san juan del sur and up to Rivas and San Jorge. Luis was quiet until we got into politics where he had more to say about the misery caused by Somoza than the pain caused by the Sandinistas and the contras. “Muy triste”, he would say with a detachment born from experience. After lunch we boarded the ferry for Ometepe. Prior to launch, the fun was watching the men of the port jeer other ferries as they came in and seeing them squeeze two trucks and a car on the ferry. All the commerce for the island has to pass through these ferries, so perhaps that limits the development on the island. An enormously fat guy kept jumping into the suspicious water, off the dredging boat next to us.

Ometepe is dominated by the two volcanoes – Concepcion and Maderas. Their tops are constantly in the clouds, but the perfect cones frame the island – breasts of the fallen lover in their version of the Romeo and Juliet story. I forewent the trashy latino soaps on the tv below deck and hung out on top with the Irish college kids, watching the captain who has taken off his uniform to navigate.

A tremendous shower greeted us at Moyogalpa, making the usual chaos of running the gauntlet of taxi drivers and tipsters more intense. Heidi’s Ometepe guy Marvin – hulking, with bad teeth and a harmless smile, like a sidekick in an old movie – was waiting for us. He shoved us into his turismo van and off we went. The road of Ometepe is no better than anywhere else, and Nicaraguans drive with caution – to protect their precious cars (Luis’s Elantra has 400k km on it). While the scrawny dogs and wandering chickens and pigs are all over the place, Ometepe is relatively prosperous, with well stocked tiendas and nice schools (“There is poverty here,” guide Johan said, “but not much misery. Not like the North”) From the volcano yesterday, the agriculture was apparent – with lots of small green plots stretching out all around us; the main crops are sesame, plantanes, coffee and corn.

Finca Venezia sits at the end of a long road on the shore. Its chief attribute is a nice rancho for meals, where you can get good Tilapia grilled in foil and a cold beer. The grounds are well tended – by a toothless old guy who doubles as the night watchman - and the clientele mixed and skewed towards backpackers and Europeans. Americans prefer their travel to be a little tidier in general.

Immediately to our south along shore is a beach and a refugio. Rachel and I had a very nice walk there yesterday afternoon, where she was able to bag a monkey sighting for this trip, along with scores of dark sea birds with long beaks and a strange cackle, lined up facing the wind in dead trees – kind of foreboding. Lizards were out in force, skittering across the trail.

Colette has appeared and seems to have shaken her bug, which will allow us to go to Granada today, assuming we can scare up some more cordobas from somewhere. Johan has fixed us up with his half brother for a ride – every body’s got a friend.