Lucie & Rhys´s Honeymoon Adventure: Week 37 - San Juan del Sur, Isla Ometepe (Nicaragua)

We left San Jose early doors and walked a kilometre to the office for the bus company heading to Penas Blancas and the Nicaraguan border. 5 hours later we were at the border and had a surprisingly easy crossing despite the confusing layout and lack of signage to tell you where to go and the stories of 2 hour crossings. We made it on to a Rivas bound bus just as a fight broke out at the bus stop, wondering what Nicaragua had in store for us. After we left the border our impression of Nicaragua instantly improved with the locals shouting at us to get off the bus at a cross road to catch the San Juan del Sur bus.

San Juan del Sur, is a cute little town on the Pacific coast full of hostels, bars and surf shops. Although the beach in town is decent enough, everywhere offers transfers to the surrounding beaches where the surf is supposed to be world class - we didn’t make it out of the town. The first afternoon, after a wonder around to get our bearings, we ended up at happy hour at one of the bars right on the beach to watch the sunset, you can’t turn down $1 beers and rum and cokes. Once happy hour had finished a storm drifted in and we ended up running through the streets, shoes in hand, ‘Tom Cruise’ style, to a little curry restaurant we’d spied earlier. Back at the hostel we were happy to see the electricity had finally come on having been off all day.

The next day we’d intended to head to a nearby beach but decided instead to relax in town. Rhys stayed at the hostel to fix the computer while I wondered around town and along the beach, amazed at all the driftwood brought in by the storm and the unusual sight of people actually clearing it (this never seems to happen in South America). In the afternoon we headed up to Pelican Eyes, one of the plushiest hotels in the area where rooms were completely out of price range at upwards of $180 a night, but where they let you pay a couple of dollars to use the infinity pool with views out over the bay. An amazing storm with ridiculous thunder and lightening started just as we got in from dinner.

We left San Juan del Sur as soon as we woke to catch the chicken bus (an old American School bus, normally pimped to the nines) to Rivas. We were dropped in a frenetic market area where we ended up paying over the odds for a cab to get us to the dock in San Jorge thinking there was a ferry at 11:30. The ferry didn’t leave until 12:30. We ended up spending an hour sitting on the rickety old wooden boat waiting for it to leave. By 2pm we had docked in Moyogalpa, the main town of Isla de Ometepe.

Isla de Ometepe is Lago Nicaragua’s largest island and a bit of a backpacker hub. The island is dominated by the cones of two volcanoes, the active Volcan Concepcion in the north rising to 1,610m and the dormant Volcan Maderas in the south, standing at 1,394m. It’s an incredibly laid back and peaceful place with just one road running as a ‘figure 8’ around the two volcanoes. On arrival we negotiated a taxi to take us from the dock in the main town across to the southern, quieter side of the island, to the small village of Balgue and Finca Magdelena. The Finca is an old hacienda, converted into an organic coffee co-operative. Using our new bargaining skills picked up from Fleur we managed to get a private room for a bargain $10 a night before heading back along the 1km track from the Finca to the village to an amazing little cafe, Cafe Campestre, for a delicious organic, fresh meal and to pick up an equally yummy packed lunch for the next day. Back at the Finca we settled down to watch the mesmorising sunset over Volcan Concepcion from the veranda enjoying bargainous rum and cokes.

We were up early again the next day to meet our compulsory guide for a hike up the verdant slopes of Volcan Maderas, the smaller of the two volcanoes on the island and supposedly the easier walk. The volcano is clothed in cloud forest filled with monkeys, birds, and super loud cicada bugs and we were lucky enough to spot a brightly coloured venomous coral snake. The hike is supposed to take 7-8 hours. We managed it in 6 ¼ hours. It took 3 hours to walk to the crater lake, a pretty steep and slippery up hill slog followed by a 10 minute downhill in to the crater. The lake was covered in cloud when we got there and was very mystical but I wouldn’t say mind blowing. We ate our sandwiches before starting the return leg which was just as difficult as the uphill since it had rained a bit and we were scrambling over muddy, slippery boulders. It was a shame that the clouds were low so our views over Volcan Concepcion and the lake were limited but all the same it was worthwhile. As we got back to the Finca a storm hit, great timing! We spent the rest of the day eating cake, drinking coffee grown in the Finca and finishing the bottle of rum from the night before.

We’d intended to walk into the village and catch the bus back up to Santa Domingo, a little stretch of hostels lining the islands main beach. That was until we found out that buses don’t run on a Sunday. We ended up calling a taxi which for the sake of ease was worth every penny. We checked into a little loft room just as another storm hit and apart from a short walk along the beach, spent the day at the hostel with lunch at a nearby comedor.

The rains continued all of the next day and ruined our plans of renting a scooter. Rhys hung around the hostel and I only ventured out for a short walk along the road and down a footpath before realising that plastic flipflops and ankle deep mud were a bad combo.

Luckily when we woke the following day the rain had subsided, we booked in to the hostel for another night and headed out to rent a scooter for the day. It took us about an hour to get up to the main port town in the north, Moyogalpa where we stopped at a great little cafe for lunch. Since we couldn’t take the scooter along the unpaved road we turned back the way we came. We made two stops, the first at a beach/mirador, Punta Jesus Maria where a spit of sand juts out into the lake from where you can see both volcanoes. Our second stop was at the museum. We haven’t been to a museum in ages and thought it would be worth a look, if you don’t speak Spanish I wouldn’t recommend it. It’s by guided tour only and there are about 4 rooms showing the history of Nicaraguan money and then another 4 rooms with archaeological finds from the island. Next we were back on the scooter to ride around to the eastern side of the northern volcano to the second largest town, Altagracia, before heading back south to El Ojo de Agua, two outdoor swimming pools in the forest filled with thermal spring water with medicinal qualities. We didn’t have swim wear with us so only stayed long enough to dangle our legs in before heading on to El Porvenir, a hacienda where for a small fee you can walk around the grounds and admire the ancient petroglyphs, swirling patterns and stylised animals carved in the basalt rocks. We ended the day back at the cafe in Balgue for an early dinner before returning the scooter.