Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua

One of the highlights of Nicaragua, Ometepe Island, or La Isla de Ometepe, should not be missed on a trip through Nicaragua.

Get to the island on a ferry boat ride from Rivas, crossing the choppy waters of Lake Cocibolca. The twin Volcano peaks Concepcion and Maderas rise out of the lake and dominate the island. There are a few villages around the island with hostels, guesthouses, and farms to stay at.

There is no shortage of places to volunteer around the island either. An orphanage, organic farms, and a biologic field station all welcome volunteers. I met an American couple staying at Hotel Hacienda Merida who lingered there for a couple weeks teaching English to the local kids in exchange for free accommodation.

Besides volunteering and farming, you can swim in clear springs and climb the volcanoes. But don’t expect any views from the top of Maderas or Concepcion because their peaks are covered in cloud forest. It was actually so cool and wet at the top that my hiking party didn’t even want to continue down into the crater of Maderas.

For an awesome guidebook to Nicaragua, I recommend Moon Nicaragua (Moon Handbooks)

For more photos of Nicaragua visit my album on Flickr.

Text and photos by Stephen Bugno

Submit your photo of the week to be featured at GoMad Nomad with a link back to your blog!  Send a photo with a paragraph or two describing the photo or your experience to gomadnomadtravelmag [@] gmail.com

The docks at Moyogalpa

The trail through the cloud forest on the top of Maderas Volcano on the Island of Ometepe, Nicaragua

A fish dinner at our hostel in Merida, Ometepe

Cascada San Ramon on the Island of Ometepe in Nicaragua

A view of Concepcion Volcano on the Island of Ometepe in Nicaragua

Emolyn’s Travel Snapshots

Our boat on the tour of Las Isletas

The sun rises slowly but the noises of morning come suddenly. I’m used to hearing roosters alarm sleepers that morning has risen, but here a large community (or so it sounds) is quacking and twittering “get up, get up.” As I stand in the yard a parade of animals make their debut, one at a time. A pig is scoffing his nose in the dirt and in seconds a chicken and her chicks come shuffling through in a line. They flip leaves over to see if a worm or bean lays underneath. A dog who has seen better days wanders through looking for any resemblance of breakfast. It dawns on me, poor dogs, that they don’t have it as easy as the other animals because they don’t eat grass or leaves. Minutes later, a sheep makes an appearance. Her fleece is short almost like a cow, not soft like the wool my mother uses to spin and knit. A woolly sheep would be miserable in this ninety degree heat. A minute later I compare her fiber with a goat’s that is chewing its way through the yard. Taking no notice of me, it eats down the path like a lawn mower, out to the trees. It’s only 6 a.m. and already I have been given a tour of domesticated animals in Arenal, Nicaragua.

Today we are going to Granada, on the northwestern side of Lago de Nicaragua, and I wait for the sound of Donald’s truck. Donald is a produce farmer and coordinator of sorts for other farmers in his community. He is also the driver for the village. He honks and I take the dirt path down from Patti’s house, where I am staying with her and her five year-old daughter. We pick up others and by the time we leave Masatepe, we are three in the front and six in the back. I speak with Marta, the school teacher, while we head down the road, but soon the wind carries away my words and I seek refuge on the bed of the truck behind the cab.

art in Granada

I am excited to see the colonial city, one of Nicaragua’s most affluent, and still one of the most popular. Over the years, the city has been redeveloped, old homes renovated, historic buildings restored, thus becoming a tourism model for the rest to the country. As we park the camioneta in the city center, I can see Volcan Mombacho, the highest point in the distance with its crumbled top. I am not used to seeing volcanoes, being from southeastern US, and they continue to fascinate me. Nearby the vibrant yellow Cathedral of Granada is full and still filling with people dressed in white for el Purisima on December 8th. Inside the massive building, rows of people hold hands with family members to sing and celebrate the Virgin Mary. Outside in the plaza others are watching the scurry of people, eating platano or slippery papaya, or catching up with friends. Our group takes a seat at a bench and Donald passes a bag of salty platano around for us too. The thin fried vegetable is more than addictive. I may just have to eat it…all the time.

My friend and I walk around the streets, wandering to comfortable coffee shops and cafes, that are well established here for the constant flow of travelers. At a book store with over-priced novels in English, we purchase the guide book “Moon Nicaragua”, again, because ours was stolen. A little spiteful, we spend the money anyway, but at $20? Used? Fuming a little about robbery and why…WHY!, my gaze falls on an open building with paintings inside. The walls are covered with images; to the right, left, on the tables, on the shelves. I flip through some dry heavy canvases and I can’t stop looking at the brilliant oil colors. I wander to the courtyard in the back and watch two painters leaning in over their easels in concentration.

Later, we pile into the back of the truck again and I’m buckled in by hope that we won’t have a road accident. When we get to the shore of Lago de Nicaragua, I can’t help but stand, belly up to the back of the cab, and watch Las Isletas de Granada wisp by. “How fortunate we are,” I think with wind in my face “to have hosts show us around instead of being a tourist.” Do they know how much they are giving us just by being in our company?

In a motor boat, we venture out into the lake. The three hundred or so small islands were once the top of the towering Mombacho, until it exploded and formed the archipelago. I read in my new guide book that it happened twenty-thousand years ago. Now it is home to families who row a boat to church and school. If I’d grown up here, instead of wanting a car when I turned sixteen, I would have begged and pleaded with my dad, “Pleeeease can I have a row boat? I’m old enough now!” We cross the lake and the driver idles the boat by a shore. Then I hear him say, “Mira, los arboles!” I look up wondering what he’s talking about. Finally I see the small furry face looking at us through the leaves. The monkey poses childlike, curious about yet another boat cruising past his limited habitat.

After a long day we leave Granada for the countryside. On the way home, I am cuddled behind the cab again while most everyone is dozing. While I sit there, the events of the day come back to mind. The ceremony in the cathedral, the plaza, and the boat tour of the islands. Then I remember the painting workspace. I can still see the colors, remember sifting through the images, and the mere quantity of it all. The more I think about it, I realize it wasn’t the artwork that attracted me inside the building. It was the feeling of comfort to see people working out of interest, not solely for income. The painters were absorbed in something stronger than any chaotic surrounding, any place of haggling, or uncertainty outside in the streets, inside homes, and neighborhoods, where the next meal may not be laid on the table, and people often go without help. The canvases displayed a people who had found support from somewhere, monetary or not, and a tranquil place to work. A small particle can flourish and people will pursue their interests, if let alone to do it.

Posted by Emolyn Liden, Dec. 2009

processing coffee at Finca Esperanza Verde

Blog of a Modern Nomad

By Stephen Bugno

“I tried to buy a ticket too, but they’ve run out of seats,” says the only other Gringo on the bus.

There has to be 200 of us packed into this former American school bus. And without a ticket, this means we’ll be standing for the two-hour haul over the mountains to Matagalpa. This is our first time on an “express” bus, opposed to the “ordinario” or “chicken” buses which do not require an advance purchase or have seat numbers.

The overhead luggage racks are loaded, children are sitting on laps, the central aisle is filled with standers. Our bags have already been hoisted up to the roof-rack and secured under a tarp. As we wait to pull out, sweat drips down my face and most everybody else’s as well.

We’ve spent the past day-and-a-half in the colonial city of Leon—church hopping and museum visiting—making this the first time we’ve done any traditional sightseeing.

Nearing sundown and already into the higher elevation, a cool breeze blows in the window. About half of those on the bus have gotten off, so we’re properly filled now without any people standing. From the window, Emolyn points out the vegetables in the street stall that we’re seeing for the first time: beets, carrots, potatoes, green onions. We roll through Sebaco and let a few more passengers off; the bus driver’s assistant lowers a bicycle and some wooden furniture from the roof down to a girl below.

At twilight we pull into the mountain town of Matagalpa. Within ten minutes we’ve checked into the Hotel Alvarado, a family-run guest house with adequate $10 rooms. For a little city, Matagalpa is lively: the sidewalks are crowded and music is pouring out of almost every shop. We head to Cafe Artisano right away, which our guidebook describes as “the bohemian hang of choice”. Dehydrated from our bus ride, we opt for a cold pinolillo—a toasted, milled corn drink with pepper, cloves, and cacao—over a beer or coffee drink.

For dinner we move on to a comedor, an inexpensive cafeteria-like restaurant that serves out plates of typical Nicaraguan food. We fill up for $2 apiece. For a beer we head to Picoteo Cafe, a packed bar/cafe with wooden paneling and a low ceiling. It is smoky inside. A litro bottle of Victoria costs less than $2 and lasts the two of us the entire evening. A three-man band including a guitar, bongos, and a giant bass-like guitar are playing tunes for different tables. I´m wondering if they´re playing for tips or hired by the bar when Emolyn adds “they´re like a jukebox.” The tables pay them in advance for requested songs.

At 7:40 the next morning we´re back on the big yellow bus headed for San Ramon, a village 12 km to the east. Gifford, the general manager of Finca Esperanze Verde has agreed to meet us and take us up to the farm. FEV is a working farm, an eco-lodge, and a non-profit. At 1,180 meters, its 100 plus acres have hiking trails that wind through a steep second-generation cloud forest.

Shortly after arriving, as we’re having a cup of FEV’s finest organic coffee, two men and a women arrive in a truck from Managua. Within minutes, the guy with the huge Nikon hanging around his neck asks if he can take our photograph for the Nicaragua Tourism Association. After all, we are the only guests here and we look relaxed, sipping our coffee looking out to the spectacular mountain view.

He snaps away and then we follow him down to the small coffee bean processing area of the farm and he continues photographing. The model, a woman in a dress, poses with a big smile and glides her fingers sensually through the green coffee beans drying on a rack. But we are more interested in the processing. The beans are picked shiny green and red around December, then de-pulped, fermented for 40 hours, soaked in water and stirred with a wooden paddle, and dried on site. Further down in Matagalpa they are sun dried longer, sorted again, graded, cupped, and shipped out.

FEV sells about 10,000 lbs. of coffee per year and get about double the price of conventional beans because they’re certified organic. They export directly to Counter Culture Coffee, based in Durham, NC which sells it as Café San Ramon.

We enjoy our two days at the lodge: hiking in the rain, reading and writing under cover of the pavilion, drinking coffee in the mornings, trying to stay warm at night.

Sunday morning we pass the butterfly research center as we pull out from the farm, and start down the hill in the extended cab Toyota pickup. Just then we hear a loud, deep howling from the trees. Giff slams on the brakes and points into the forest—it’s a Howler Monkey. We get a good look at him and continue on our way.

At the bottom of hill, we get out to the main dirt road, and Giff gets out. He’s playing a game of the Nicaraguan national obsession today and hoping the afternoon won’t be as rainy as the morning was. Yes, it’s baseball day today, and half the team is already standing in the back of another pickup dressed in miss-matched nylon jerseys, ready to play.

Another employee of the farm hops in the driver’s seat and shuttles us the 18 kilometers down to San Ramon with beautiful mountain views the whole way.

Posted by Stephen Bugno, Dec 2009

San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua

Blog of a Modern Nomad

It’s been one week since we were robbed at knife-point in San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua. Since then I’ve had a multitude of emotions and feelings: anger, frustration, forgiveness, vengefulness, regret.

As a traveler or tourist you expect to get your pocket picked on a crowded bus, you expect to get your purse jacked in a bar, you expect your hotel room to not be completely secure.

Perhaps I was a bit naive, but I did not expect two teenagers to come down off the hillside, observe us taking pictures, wait for us to come around the bend, pretend to ask us a question while cornering us against the cliff face, put their shirts up over their noses, and produce foot-long butcher knives out of thin air.

I remember saying hola and making brief eye contact as I would do passing anyone. And within what seemed like a second, I had a knife in my face and was being pushed back by the fear of getting cut up. Emolyn was in the same situation but knew enough to say “bag…they want the bag!” after they mumbled “bolsa“. We both threw our bags to the ground, Emolyn got out of the way, and they were still inching towards me with the knives. I had no idea what else they could want since my bag was already theirs and my tee-shirt was with the bag. Eventually they picked up the bags and scurried around the edge of the cliff where they could no longer be seen.

This all took place on the rocks, at the end of the beach, under the mountain with the statue of Christ on top. On our way out, we passed families spending the day in the sun. Our guidebook described it as a good day hike: rockhopping the northern curve of the bay and around the point, minding the the tides and bringing plenty of water. Done and done. What about the kids with the knives?

The night of the incident we were pretty shaken up, and even for the first few days afterward I was still angry. We looked back on the situation a million times and went through every possible what-if. I don’t know how much of a threat these chicos were. Were they prepared to use force to get what they wanted? Were they as frightened as we were? Had they done this a hundred times before? Was it their first time?

I couldn’t believe the utter disinterest in the police about the case. We had run a half-mile on the beach to the nearest bar to make the call. They arrived quickly, but had no interest in radioing over to another officer who might dart to the scene of the crime, or to the road which was the only escape out.

The situation could have been much worse if we lost a passport, a major sum of cash, my camera, or got sliced in the stomach. But these hijos de puntas did get some good spoils. Some, like our handmade journals and Spanish notebooks, had value to us and none to them. With a week’s worth of notes, we planned to study from these for the remainder of our trip.

They got a nice camera from Emolyn and an IPOD mini. A hat, two pair of sunglasses, a watch with alarm, a flashlight, and a Moon Nicaragua Handbook: things that make life on the road easier. My father’s copy of Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley and Herman Hesse’s Demian are now theirs. In a country like Nicaragua, good books in English are hard to come by. Add to that a blue metal water bottle from Quechua in France. They even got the tee-shirt off my back!

I still don’t regret choosing Nicaragua over other Central American countries like Costa Rica, Honduras, or Guatemala. Here´s what my up-to-date Moon Nicaragua guidebook (I had to buy another one in Granada) says about the topic: Believe it or not, Nicaragua is, for the moment, still considered one of the safest countries in Latin America. If you´re traveling south from Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala, you should notice your anxiety level drop noticeably.

Although I doubt I’ll be racing back to any one of these Central American countries anytime soon: almost every person we met had a similar story about themselves or travelers they had met who got robbed somewhere between here and Mexico

Posted by Stephen Bugno, 16 Dec 2009

Emolyn´s Travel Snapshots

Isla de Ometepe, Nicaragua

We got a fresh start on December 1 out of San Juan del Sur, juiced up at Margarita’s restaurant and hopped on the chicken bus, like in the movies, right as it pulled out of town. We slumped into a sticky plastic seat and low and behold, our Japanese surfing friend was sitting across the aisle. ¨Hey! How have you been?¨ He asked. ¨Well….¨ We told him what happened during the twenty-four hours since we had last seen him. ¨Oh. I´m sorry to hear that,” he said. “Did they let you keep your memory card?¨ Somehow it´s so easy to cross between serious and comical and his comment was just enough to push us over into laughter. The memory was still too fresh in my mind and I flashed back to the terrifying moment the men advanced on us, covered their faces with their t-shirts, and flashed the foot-long butcher knives. ¨No, surprisingly they didn´t give us that option.¨

In Rivas we got off the bus in the middle of what I see as chaos, but is actually the open market. ¨¿Donde esta la iglesia?¨ The answer came in the form of “4 north, 2 east” which meant we responded by going in the direction where he pointed, and turning in the direction where he pointed. Once in front of the church we marveled at the activity surrounding the square. The open church stood empty and upon entering I felt like a ghost in an unattainable story. An ocean scene depicting sinking ships and crying people adorned the dome. We found no material to read in order to make sense of it or of the history which radiated from the dilapidated building.

In San Jorge we boarded a ferry to Ometepe and sat in the first place with air conditioning that we´ve found other than the bank. Going without air conditioning is preferable to me and really, why should we have the choice anyway? Outside the window, the island became larger, and soon the view enticed me more than the soap opera on TV. I understood more of the story line, for that I give credit to my wonderful Spanish teachers in San Juan del Sur. I didn´t learn the right vocabulary for the show, however, but the actors repeated things more than once which lowered the comprehension level. ¨Te amo! Te quiero!¨

After we pulled in to the port, we got on a bus in Moyogalpa that was headed for Merida. Three hours or approximately twenty miles later, depending on how you want to look at it, we had circumvented the island and arrived at Hacienda Merida. For most of the drive, the bus was packed, chaotic, and hot. But as evening approached, the horizon turned a fiery red, Spanish rock music played on the radio, for once not too loudly, and the driver hustled the retired American school bus down the dirt road into the sunset. It was a few minutes of peace in the long day of travel. Houses and life of the land swept by, and I was no longer sweating, just sticky almost to a fly-paper degree. At the end of the drive, the bus driver waved us back into our seats while he turned the bus around and backed it up into a little alley way. Then they shooed us out the backdoor. I had a moment´s thought. We were approaching unknown territory once again and I hoped someone or something would be there to take care of us.

The sun rises at 5 a.m. and we rose at 6 with the birds. Before long, with a pack weighed down by water and sweet biscuits from a small roadside tienda we were saying hello to the pigs, chickens, dogs, horses, and children as we walked towards Cascada San Ramon. We were on the lookout for hmmm….a yellow? gate? Feeling one-half tourist, one-half investigator, we found it and on we went up into the mango and citrus orchard.

I could hear the water but couldn’t see it around each bend and nook. No water. Eventually we approached a river bed and snaking through the dusty rocks was a black pipe. Could it be, the whole river was being piped down to the village? We followed the pipeline until the trail crumbled into the river bed where, trickle trickle, came the stream. The sides of the mountains steepened and the river embedded deeper into the ground. Soon we were traipsing in a fern valley. At the fall, the water hurdled 56 meters off a smooth black rock wall into a small knee deep pool, more like a large puddle. On either side, ferns, moss and green goo grew under the mist. We waded in the moment.

Posted by Emolyn Liden 10 Dec 2009

buses in Nicaragua

The border crossing at Peñas Blancas is the typical chaos: money changes with huge wads of cordobas, dollars, and colones, a mother and son beggar team, long lines of tired Nicaraguan laborers, and a nun asking for offerings.  Before and after the 200-meter Noman’s Land one tractor trailer after another is lined up, most with goods, some overfilled with scrap metal. The authorities of both countries, with aid from the U.S. are trying to make this a transportation bottleneck to keep drugs coming up from South America. A young Nicaraguan going home leads us through the confusing Costa Rican out-line and on to the Nicaraguan in-line and finally out through the last gate into the even more chaotic mercado/bus station area.

Immediately swarmed by eager taxi drivers, my instincts keep me walking through to the only bus waiting. Bound for Rivas in fifteen minutes we sit patiently inside to the blaring Nica music. We are sitting on an American school bus. Still painted yellow, it’s been modified with a roof rack, a high exhaust pipe, and interior luggage racks. This is the way nearly all Nicaraguans get around their country; by sitting on the buses that we rode to school twenty years ago.

San Juan del Sur is a lively beach town with plenty of foreigners and Nicaraguans on holiday, lots of beachside bars, and a beautiful crescent-shaped harbor and beach. The sweet surf breaks keep young Australians, Americans, and Canadians here for weeks at a time. Cheap hotels are seven bucks per night and fantastic beaches line the coast north and south of town.

We’ve come here to study Spanish. We were hoping the surf wouldn´t be too much of a distraction. And it hasn´t been. There are at least four schools that offer week-long classes and full room and board packages. We opted for Rosa Silva´s Spanish School and have had no problem showing up at 8am the past five mornings for our four-hour lesson. My teacher Oscar and I have been reviewing basic Spanish grammar and practicing basic conversation as well. Rosa put us up at her friend Margarita´s place. Either Margarita, her daughter, or her son-in-law cook us three meals a day downstairs in their cafe. Full week-long tuition, room and board is $180.

What do we do with the rest of our day? On Saturday I tried surfing for the first time. The Lopez brothers from Arena Caliente Surf Shop drove about 10 of us in their packed van five miles down to Remanso Beach. With surf board piles high on top we bounced our way on the winding dirt road. Their buddy Shaggy, a real Nicaraguan surfer dude, gave me an hour-long surf lesson. On the beach he taught me jump to my feet and then 15 minutes later I was catching waves and standing on my own.

Besides surfing, there are evening trips to La Flor Beach Wildlife Refuge to see sea turtles laying their eggs in the sand, a zip-line canopy tour just outside town, and plenty of beach bars in San Juan del Sur with ice cold Toña and Victoria beers for $1.25. Most nights we watch the sunset from chairs in the sand at The Pier bar while enjoying a cold one.

And there’s always reviewing the days Spanish notes and doing homework to prepare for the next morning’s lesson.

Stephen Bugno,  03 Dec 2009

We have been lucky in many ways so far in Central America, the first being that my Costa Rican friend, Jorge, picked us up from the airport.  I guess because I was raised in a small town, I noticed quickly how houses had fences around the properties securing them from the street and people passing outside.  I couldn´t help but wish it didn´t have to be this way, though it led me to enjoy the feeling of discovery once inside my friends house even more.  Other worlds existed behind the simple appearance from the street.

The first morning, Jorge´s mother, Maria, took us to a park to see flora and fauna of Costa Rica.  To get there we walked on the skinny shoulder of a main road where cars were driving from San Jose in to Heredia.   “The Costa Ricans have pledged to take care of the wildlife here,” Maria said while cars zoomed by on the hot black road.  It seemed to me that she was not afraid of anything.  She continued the talk while dump trucks down shifted and pulled up the hill.  We approached a bridge and the luxury of a sidewalk.

Maria stopped us for a moment on the bridge and we looked below at a shack.  All I could see was a rippled tin roof and other pieces of metal puzzled together, in the tropical bushes.  Then directly under me, I saw hands reach out, pick up a plastic bowl, and begin washing it in the tub of water.  I was standing in the exact spot as this person, but on the level above, and the hands that were reaching from under the shade continued washing.  They dumped water from one tub to another, over the bowl, then scrubbed it with a sponge, and dumped rinse water over it.  “This man is from Nicaragua,” Maria said.  “The police come here and take people away every few days.  It is empty for a while, then another person is living here.”  She clarified that those who occupy this hut do not have papers and they come to Costa Rica for work.   Is this situation better than in Nicaragua?  They have left the place that I am about to travel to.

In the biological park Maria spoke with wisdom once again.  When an iguana pooped on my friend she said, ¨You are lucky cows don´t fly.¨  We left San Jose the next day in a downpour.  In moments the streets filled with water and rivers gushed in the ditches.  ¨We have two big problems in Costa Rica,¨ Maria had said, ¨trash and pot holes.¨  Now in the car, Jorge dodged the pot holes as best he could on the way to the bus station.  The windshield wipers swooshed back and forth at the highest speed.

Just over the border we got off the bus headed for Rivas and waved down a taxi that was going to San Juan del Sur.  I saw two passengers already sitting in the back seat and thought there wasn’t room for two more.  But, how silly of me! The driver popped open the trunk and made room for our two backpacks in amongst the stacks of eggs he was also shuttling.  I scooted in beside the two others and my friend took the front.  We arrived in the center of San Juan del Sur in ten minutes, while I learned about taxis ¨collectivo¨ which seems to be a great idea.

Four days into the classes we were cheerful.  We studied in the morning and by twelve each day we were off to one of the many options for site seeing.  Surfing is the most popular activity, besides drinking during sunset at restaurants that line the beach.  Shuttles run back and forth to the nearby spots where surfers write their names in the waves.  Other businesses offer a canopy tour, similar to a high ropes course; the turtle excursion; booze cruise; and then plain old hiking in the mountains on the northern and southern points of the coast.  Anytime a tourist leaves the pack however, they must always be aware of their surroundings because they are putting themselves at risk.

Day one we walked the town and sat on the beach.  Day two, my friend surfed at playa Remanso while I guarded our bags and swam in turn for breaks.  Day three, we trekked up to the statue Jesus Cristo, who peers down over the beach.  At night the gigantic statue is well lit, constantly reminding us all to think about our choices.  From there we could see all life below.  Day four, we walked out to the rocks on the coast, also near the statue.  We sat in the sun and took some pictures, like most content visitors would.  I am sad to say though that our happiness was cut short.  Before we knew what was happening, we were at the mercy of two young men — at knife point, and they literally ran off into the sun set with our bags.

Nicaragua is a beautiful country.  Here they have beaches, mountains, volcanoes, and wildlife in flying colors.  It is a wonderful place until those few decide to steal, illustrating how we are all at the mercy of others.  It effected my mood to say the least.

Posted by Emolyn Liden, 03 Dec 2009