Nica and Parts of Panama

Boat to Ometepe

It’s been awhile since I’ve posted but that’s not a bad thing, as I have been busy. I’m breaking this up into two posts just to simplify things. After leaving Granada, I took a boat to Ometepe, an island located in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is comprised of two volcanoes and the land that developed after past eruptions. I spend my first night on the eastern shore of the lake in a little village called Santa Domingo. The location was amazing; with palm trees and waves lapping at the shore but the bugs were horrendous. Apparently, I had arrived during the hatching period of a flying bug that only lived for about 12 hours. I had never experienced such a thick swarm of bugs, they say that the air is 78% nitrogen, 21% oxygen and 1% other gasses but on that day it was at least 80% bug. By the morning most of the bugs had died and littered every surface of Santa Domingo. I decided to venture to a different hostel, which had been recommended to me. I did not want to wait for the buses, which ran erratically and took two hours so I decided to walk.

A few of the bugs

The muddy roads around Ometepe

After walking for about a mile I realized I had made a wrong turn. Being stubborn and knowing of another hostel down the road I was walking on, I continued. The crushed stone road melted away into a thick slurry of mud, which I proceeded to trudge through for the next four miles. With mud up to my knees, I finally reached the other side of the island and the next hostel located in Merida. I threw my backpack into a dorm and proceeded to join a group of people who were kayaking to a wildlife sanctuary on the lake. The sanctuary was located near where I had started my walk three hours earlier. After paddling for an hour we reached the mouth of the river, which signaled the entrance to the area and signaled the weather gods to dump buckets of rain on us. Luckily the rain was brief and lifted just as we spotted a Caiman crocodile. Finished with a photo shoot of the croc, we headed further up the river until we found howler monkeys grooming themselves in a tree. We watched the monkeys pick bugs off each other before heading back down the river to catch the sunset. After an hour paddle home, I went and had a dinner of fresh lake fish.

Crocs

The following day I investigated Money Island by kayak as the monkeys did not appreciate people encroaching onto their island. After the arduous day before I decided to take it easy and relax in the hammocks that looked over the lake. I managed to knock out about half of Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand, which I think I’ll recommend once I finish it but it is a book to take with a grain of salt. I planned to hike one of the volcanoes the following days but when I woke up the volcano was under dark rain clouds so I jumped on a chicken bus that happened to be passing and headed back to the mainland.

Monkey Island

My next stop was San Juan del Sur, a formerly quaint and quiet beach town located on the southern Pacific coast of Nicaragua. I checked into the Casa Oro hostel and explored the fairly commercialized little surf community. The Pacific waters were warm and the waves were pretty good for surfing. I spent my first afternoon swimming and my third day surfing and in between I attended the notorious Sunday Funday pool crawl. Three days in San Juan was enough to get the gist of the town and I headed out the next day for two days of buses.

Reached Panama

While I would have loved to spend time in Costa Rica, I had only a few days to reach Panama City so I chose to bus through the country and visit on a later trip. I cut across from northwest Costa Rica to the southeast border where I crossed over and went to Bocas Del Toro, Panama. Bocas is a group of tropical islands in the Caribbean Sea. The tropical islands have a reggae vibe and move at that pace as well. I spent my first night exploring the main island and figuring out what I would do the following day before I took an overnight bus to Panama City. Unfortunately when I woke up the next day I realized that the bus I wanted to take was full and my options were limited, as I had to reach Panama City by 3pm to meet Beth. That meant that I had to take a bus across the country to David where I would stay the night and then head down to Panama City. I’m glad I drove during the day, as the sunset was phenomenal to watch as we climbed over the mountains.