Seeing more of Nicaragua

Bags packed and ready to move onto Playa San Diego, I awaited the arrival of the captain of the boat to arrive. The meet time was 10am but, as with the whole of Central America, it was bound to be a bit later than that. When he arrived, I said my goodbyes to everyone and helped get the boat off the beach and into the water. The waves were coming in fairly big, reasonably fast and in an unavoidable line, but this didn’t stop the local fisherman. He aimed for a nice part of the wave and gave it some wellie. We flew of the top of the wave and attacked the second one coming in. Once we were clear of the waves, he sped off out to sea.

Clear of the coast and heading south towards Playa San Diego, the captain slows the engine and comes to a stop. Suddenly he says it is too far to go for the money he is paid and asks for $20 more money. After 20 minutes of discussions about why he wants to change the deal now, we refuse to pay the extra money and he refuses to move the boat. The only other option is for him to take me back to where we came from and this was what ended up happening. We headed back to El Transito and he dropped me off back on the beach. With all the time wasted going out to sea and back, it was too late for me to catch public transport to my next destination so I stayed one more night.

The next day, after much convincing and a little bribe, Niko gave me a lift halfway to Playa San Diego. This made my journey much easier due to the irregularity of the buses and multiple changes I would have to make. I arrived at the hostel approximately 6 months after I had originally planned to arrive as a volunteer. When I arrived there were people everywhere and I couldn’t believe how busy this remote place was. I found out later that night that there were 3 owners, a local family of 3 who worked there, about 9 volunteers and only 1 guest, an American dude called Jared. For as many people as there was there, the place was still very relaxed. If you wanted even more tranquillity, you could walk 10 minutes down the beach in either direction. There was a humungous, expensive, American resort and golf course 10 minutes away, but it wasn’t busy at all so there were miles of empty beaches to walk. There were surf spots in both directions too, some of which were close and others a maximum walk of 40 minutes away.

I put my hammock up over-looking the beach and rock pools and slept to the sounds of the ocean every night. During the day, there were waves to surf, which I did badly, and not a lot else to do other than eat, relax and play some cards. During my stay here, we entered into ‘Semana Santa’, a religious week for Easter involving everyone deserting the cities for the beaches to party and get drunk basically. As the week progressed, the beach got busier but it was still a relatively relaxing spot. By now a couple more guests had arrived, including a German girl called Debbie.

After staying there for about a week, I headed off towards a place called Masaya to visit the surrounding volcanoes and lakes, and Debbie followed not wanting to be the only guest left behind. Due to it being Semana Santa, the city was empty and Vulcan Masaya was closed for the next few days. We managed to catch one of the few modes of transport operating, a lorry with a cage on the back. It took us all the way to the Laguna Apoyo, a lake in the crater of an extinct volcano, with an approximate diameter of 6/7km at its widest point. It was a busy day there but we managed to walk a bit down the beach to find a quieter spot. I had a lovely encounter with a ridiculously drunk local guy called Raphael, who told me his name constantly and how he owned the lake. At one point, whilst he was probably telling me his named or that he owned the lake, Raphael picked up a piece of rock. Due to his proximity it was a reasonably tense moment as to what he was going to do with this rock. He fortunately put it down but then he drunkenly fell towards me and I think he went for a kiss. Whilst avoiding his affectionate lunge, I stood up, grabbed my stuff and thought it was time to move somewhere else. I think Raphael just fell asleep where we left him. We found one of the hostels on the beach and used their facilities and beach and even took a kayak out onto the lake.

As the sun went down, it was time to try and find a way to get back to Masaya and the place was a lot quieter than before. As we got onto the road heading out, the first car that went passed, stopped and a guy we had met earlier whilst out kayaking popped his head out of the window. They were down for the day from the capital city of Managua and offered us a ride home. It was a bit of a squeeze with one driver, someone sitting on someone’s lap in the front, and five of us in the back. The car wasn’t the biggest either but it was better than walking. They took us all the way to a junction just short of Masaya and we managed to get a bus from there back to where we were staying.

The next couple of days were spent perusing the town and checking out the local markets and an area where they make hammocks in their houses. We were waiting for the volcano to re-open after the Easter break and when it did we went up to take a look. Vulcan Masaya is still active with visible lava in the crater, and because of this, you were restricted in how you could see the volcano. During the day it was 100 Cordoba’s ($3.50 roughly) but at night, when it was better to see, it was $10 (300 Cordoba’s). You had to have a car to see it or be on a bus as part as a tour. The tours were fairly expensive and we managed to get a taxi driver to take us for half the price of the tour. His car was a hilariously pimped up Hyundai made to look like it was really fast but in fact it struggled to make it up the volcano. We had to wait up to 1 hour in a queue of cars before they let you inside where the held you again in a queue. They let a certain amount of cars through at a time, who drove up the last kilometre and parked up near the craters edge. You then had 15 minutes to take a look, take a selfie and try not to fall in before they blew a whistle and it was time to leave. I believe the 15 minute limit might be because of the high levels of sulphur in the air or maybe it’s just so everyone can get a chance to see it. The crater was about 20-30 metres deep with liquid magma bubbling at the bottom and a red mist rising into the dark sky. When the whistle blew, our 15 minutes was up and we had to try and find our taxi in the dark. Oh there it was, with the neon disco lights flashing all over the place.

Masaya is fairly small and I had managed to see more or less all of it in the few days I had been there. So this time I followed Debbie to the beach at Popoyo as she only had a couple of days left before she flew home. Apart from the last bus dropping us in the wrong place, the relatively complicated, multiple bus journey went very smoothly and quickly. We countered the bus dropping us in the wrong spot by hitching 2 rides taking us directly to the camp site. We made it there around midday, leaving the afternoon available to check out what the waves are like. After the first wave, and same wave, my board managed to land on my head pretty hard and Debbie managed to cut her stomach with one of the fins on her board.

The campsite was really laid back with really nice owners and a good group of people coming and going. There was toilets, a shower, a basic communal kitchen, surf boards to rent and trees to hang my hammock in. There was also 2 dogs, 3 cats, a horse and a colossal pig. The pig spent most of the day rolling around in the mud or eating the organic waste from the kitchen, but at night, he was running around being a pain in the arse. He ate someone’s dirty washing one night and on another, he decided to roll around on my towel and other belongings covering them all in mud and whatever else he had been rolling in. We were trying to convince Omar, the campsite owner, that we should cook him on the BBQ. He was massive and could have fed us all for over a week, but he was having none of it.

After just under a week, I decided to leave Popoyo and head for the Ometepe, an island formed by two volcanoes joined together in Lake Nicaragua. There was an Italian guy, Dan, who was heading to Ometepe the same day, so we decided to travel together. Surprisingly again, the journey went very smoothly and we made good time getting to Rivas and then to the small port town of San Jorge. This was where we caught the slow, 1 hour ferry across to Ometepe and having made it on to the island, we then had to try and get to the other volcano part of the island which involved 3 buses. We got dropped off by the entrance to the place we had planned to camp and bought some food to cook later on. After walking 20 minutes up the side of the volcano, we made it to Finca Magdelena. They didn’t have a kitchen for communal use which would have made all the food we had bought redundant. Instead we headed off back down the hill to find somewhere else and ended up at what we heard was the only place with a kitchen to cook in.

The Lazy Crab was a Hostel painted the Reggae colours all over and a lot of volunteers again. But this time there were a lot of guests too. In fact it was full but after asking again, they managed to squeeze us in. The first night I struggled to sleep due to the amount of mosquitoes biting me constantly. Even with my mosquito net, which was a bit of a botch job, they just kept finding a way in or biting me through the net. The next day I wanted to find somewhere else where the mosquitoes can’t get me. I found a place called Chocolate Beach which was more relaxed and I could hang my hammock by the water’s edge. I was going to move that night but instead got side tracked by the finding out about the Lyrids meteor shower that was going to happen in the early hours of the next morning. The owner of the Lazy Crab had a farm on a bit of land that stuck out from the island, and he said we could camp there for the night. Due to its remoteness, the sky had less light pollution and it should be a better view.

We met a dutch guy and he joined Dan and I as we set off on the walk towards the farm thinking we should get there before sunset. The walk was much further than expected and we arrived close to the turning off the road just as the darkness started to set in. The directions we were given were  to just walk up this road until you get to a path off the road just after this place, then walk up this track and it’s here. We were lucky to find the track off the road but by the time we were halfway up this track, it was pitch black with no lights other than the stars. We decided to stop and try to find out more info on where it was and how to recognise his farm. It sounded like the place we had stopped by was his farm but in the darkness we were uncertain, so we headed in for a look. We made our way through the bushes and headed towards the trees at the bottom and the water on the other side. Having found a nice little beach, if not the correct one, we decided to sit down and make use of it. The Dutch guy had climbed the larger of the two volcanoes earlier in the day, so he was tired and fell asleep after a couple of hours of getting there. Dan managed to stay up a bit longer but not long enough to see many shooting stars. I saw a fair few of them and even saw the biggest one I had ever seen. We all slept on the beach but woke up fairly early under the heat of the sun and headed back to the hostel.

After breakfast I packed my stuff to head to Chocolate Beach. I went to settle up my bill and realised that I didn’t have to pay anything for the previous night as I didn’t stay there, which was nice. I walked the 30 minutes to Chocolate Beach, a small beach and a chocolate factory making raw organic chocolate with a plethora of flavours and mixtures. It is only small scale production but the place is only 4 months old and looking to grow and develop. For me, it has multiple hammocks and swings, play chilled music all day and is right on the water, so it was perfect.

I arrived at Chocolate Beach and put myself into a hammock to try and catch up on the sleep I missed from the previous night. I woke up just before sunset and watched the sun fall behind the large volcano on the other part of the island. I put my hammock up between the 2 trees closest to the shore, over the volcanic rocks of varying sizes that lead out into the water. The view from there is ridiculous. You are looking at volcanic rocks leading to water with locals fishing in it, a green jungle with monkeys howling, so many different species of birds flying everywhere, the sun setting and the clouded peak atop the silhouette of Vulcan Concepcion looming over the jungle canopy.

After the sunset I went up top with intentions of getting some food. Instead I got into a hammock and fell asleep until midnight. The next day I had planned to climb Vulcan Maderas, the smaller of the volcanoes, with Dan and needed to meet him at the lazy crab by 7am. I did manage to fall asleep again at about 3am and somehow I woke up at 6am ready to get going. We made it to the start of the trail, at Finca Magdelana, and set off around 8am. They encouraged you to take a guide but at a hefty price it was never going to happen. There was only one real path the whole way up and any path that lead off from the main path, joined back up with main path again soon. It wasn’t an easy hike and with the majority of it covered by jungle canopy, it was humid, hot and very sweaty. We made it to the top of the path in under 3 hours, which sat at about 1300 metres, 100 metres short of the peak on the other side of the crater lake. The view was another one out of the top drawer. Unfortunately it was a bit too misty on the other side, otherwise there was a viewpoint looking the other way that showed you Vulcan Concepcion in the distance.

After a bit of lunch and wait to see if the mist would settle we decided to head down. The walk down seemed to go on for a long time and although it was easier than going up, it still hurt the legs and made you sweat. We were in no rush so we took our time and we even bumped into some monkeys messing around in the trees above. Having made it out alive, we had a beer and gabbed some food before I headed back to put my feet up and rest my legs. Having been teased by the guys at Chocolate Beach already for sleeping so much, going back for a sleep didn’t help the matter. The next day my legs were a tad sore, so a day of rest was in order. And that brings me to this present moment in time, as I rest in the hammock, watching the sun set next to the silhouette of Vulcan Concepcion typing the final words of this instalment.