For our final days in Nicaragua, Aaron and I headed to Isla de Ometepe in Lake Nicaragua. The island is really unique in the fact that it is an island formed by two volcanos, in the middle of an enormous lake (the 21st largest in the world), fed by 45 rivers, at the southern tip of Nicaragua. The island was formed so many years ago, that it has it's own ecosystem, different from all other parts of Nicaragua and nearby Costa Rica. It's the only place we've been where when they say "You have the chance to see wild monkeys!!!!", you actually see them. Plus the volcanic soil creates the perfect conditions for all sorts of plants and fruit that you don't see anywhere else in the country. So after spending another night in Granada so we could board the twice-weekly ferry, we arrived in Altagracia at the northern tip of Isla de Ometepe.

The ferry pulled in to Altagracia around 6pm - just in time for the last bus to have already pulled away . Therefore, we accepted Hotel Castillo's offer for a free ride into town if we stayed at their hotel. The place was pretty nice, but they hounded us all night about taking one of their grossly overpriced tours the following day. We politely declined about 100 times and took off early the next morning. 

We took a bus on the brink of falling apart to a small town near Volcan Maderas called Balgüe and from there hiked 1km uphill to Finca Magdalena where we planned to base ourselves for the next few days. We spent most of our second day on the island talking to other travelers and taking a hike up through the nearby coffee plantation. Instead of being on the search for spider monkeys, I sort of felt that they were on the search for us. We'd look up to find a family of monkeys just staring down at us and following us as we walked away. Odd. 

We rose early the next day to get an early start on what our hotel called a "moderate, 8 hour hike up Volcan Maderas" . Little did we know they had Lance Armstrong rating their hikes...

The hike up was through cloud forest and semi-tropical forest, we passed some ancient petroglyphs, and tried to enjoy the beautiful surroundings. However, hiking in a cloud forest means you are hiking in wet conditions. And on steep dirt paths - this is difficult. Sometimes there were roots or trees you could grab on to to help hoist yourself up - but other times without any grip, for every two steps you took forward, you'd slide one step back. Much like Paula Abdul and that crazy cartoon cat. (If you're not Generation X or Y - please ignore the previous comment.) There were limited viewpoints on the hike due to the thick forest cover - and when you could see out to the lake you had to wait for the clouds to part, so instead we just concentrated on our 4 hour hike up to the top. The whole time we were hiking up, I knew that coming back down would be a lot worse. With the severity of the incline and all the mud - I knew we could count on a loooong trip back.When we finally reached the summit, we immediately began descending to the crater lake that Maderas is famous for. However, in our exhausted state of mind - we were less than impressed. We enjoyed the relaxing break, some other hikers swam in the cold water, Aaron and I ate our nutritious lunch of 6 cookies each (hey - we packed in a hurry), and tried not to think about the fact that we were only halfway done .

And all the dread about the return trip turned out to be pretty valid. The descent was probably the un-funnest thing we've done on this trip yet. And we've hand-washed a lot of clothes, traveled on a lot of overly-full buses, and waited long hours in long, hot lines, and this descent still beat them all. It sucked. We couldn't look up to enjoy the view without tripping and falling over everything, it started raining on us to make things even more slippery, it was murder on our already-tired legs, and took us an hour longer to get down than it did to get up. That's just not right.

But we finally reached the bottom, scrubbed our shoes as best we could, climbed into freezing cold showers, and collapsed into chairs - not to rise for the rest of the evening.

Our original plan was to head to the beaches of Isla de Ometepe the following day to spend some deserved time with the sand and sun (it had, after all, been about four days since we were last on a Caribbean beach ...). The only problem was that it was Sunday - and no buses run to Balgüe on Sundays. So we were faced with the option to spend a day relaxing and doing nothing at Finca Magdalena - or find another way to get to Charco Verde. Unfortunately, we chose the latter.So we strapped on our bags, walked a kilometer back into Balgüe, continued hiking 3km to Santa Cruz, and were able to hitch hike to El Quino where there was bus service every two hours. If I had known that I would end up in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of bananas, an engine, and a crazy pig who, even though he was tied into the truck, continually tried to bail out either side of the bed- I wouldn't have gotten out of bed that day. But such is the lives we lead these days. Finally we arrived at Charco Verde (which, for the record, was another 1km hike from the road) and found a nice room at a pretty nice hotel. It was more expensive than we'd normally like to pay (and it was still only $15 - but no kitchen so we had to eat at their expensive restaurant), but the setting was beautiful . We went for a walk on the beach and got to see Volcan Concepcion puff out a bunch of smoke and had another close encounter with a howler monkey. After a pricey and non-tasty dinner, we each grabbed a beer and watched lightning chase the sun set over the horizon.

We spent our last night in Nicaragua in Moyogalpa - the largest city on the island - so we could catch the early morning ferry to Rivas on the mainland. The shoes I had tied to the outside of my backpack so they could dry somehow untied themselves on the top of our bus and I never saw them again. Oh well. That's what I get for tying stuff on and not squeezing it inside. We met an American ex-pat who had a cable feed from New York, so he invited us to his place (Yogi's Bar and Cafe) to watch good ol´US TV. It was really nice to sit down and watch a little television. It made me feel normal. But it wasn't nice to have to sit through those horrible Verizon commercials again. After The Daily Show and The Colbert Report caught us up on current events, we headed to bed.

So Nicaragua is finally a thing of the past. Despite some emails to friends and family about the lack of friendliness of the locals - I can't deny it's beauty and uniqueness.   The variety of the terrain - from cloud forests to tropical islands, active volcanos to great surfing, and the tourist infrastructure - from family stays in Miraflor to luxury resorts and colonial palaces - Nicaragua has a lot to offer any traveler. However, the country is on the fast-track to becoming the next Costa Rica - so if you want to see it while relatively unspoilt, you need to book your ticket now. Next up, Costa Rica and the remainder of the Central American peninsula. And at the rate we're going, we should reach South America by Christmas...