Monkeys, monkeys, everywhere

After a quick stop in Liberia, which didn't turn out to be as pretty as the guidebook said, we decided to make a dash for Ometepe for Matt's birthday. Omotepe is an island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua composed of two volcanoes, one active, one not.

We arrived in Rivas, got a taxi to San Jorge and got the afternoon ferry across to Ometepe. We got a huge room with ensuite which was being rented out by a local couple, and set about making the most of what was left of Matt's Birthday. We headed down to the water with a half bottle of wine we'd picked up in Peru, and watched the sunset. It was absolutely magical, so beautiful. Then we wandered back up and took the couple's recommendation for local food, had some great chicken, gallo pinto (rice and beans), salad and plantain chips for about $2. Then we wandered back to a very cute bar we saw on our way to dinner to round the night out with a few drinks. At 80c for two cocktails, we may have had one or two too many.

The next day was very relaxed. We chilled out and watched movies while recovering from Matt's Bday celebrations.

Our third day on Ometepe we decided to explore the island and do some swimming. We hired a scooter and set off. We met some local kids at one swimming spot who kept hunting out pippis for us to eat. Apparently, it's all about lime, chilli and salt. We finally convinced them that they wouldn't last in our bag as we scooted around the island all day, and they took them home to eat themselves.

We headed over to the other great beach spot on the island and chilled out for a bit. Mostly we just really enjoyed zooming around the island. It was great seeing the plantain farms, little colourful towns, beautiful blue birds everywhere, and occasional road blockage from locals moving their cattle. We also headed down to the port for the boats which stopped off between San Carlos and Granada to get a final answer on whether they were running over Semana Santa. The answer was no! Damn!

The next day we got up bright and early to hike up the active volcano. It was at this point we realised our host (and guide for this tour) was probably an alcoholic. Apart from the smell of alcohol, he'd also stuffed up the bus timetable which meant we walked the 3kms to the start of the hike. It wasn't the end of the world but didn't give us a huge amount of confidence. The hike itself was great though, we saw soo many monkeys: at least three big groups of howler monkeys and two groups of cappuccino monkeys. We got most of the way to the top but couldn't go quite all the way because of the wind. It was incredible, you really did feel like it would push you off the volcano!

The following day we said goodbye to Ometepe and got the 6pm ferry across to San Carlos. We paid an extra 30 cordobas to set ourselves up ourselves up outside on deck chairs. The moon on the water was beautiful and once I pulled out my sleeping bag to keep off the wind I was incredibly comfortable and slept like a baby.