Again my disclaimer is that this keyboard is whacked....so do not judge my grammar, spelling or punctuation.
We are currently in Ometepe...a small island south of Grenada. The travel here was interesting and hot. We left our hotel with backpacks on...and two Isreali girls asked to walk with us to the bus. I had little time for the large rolling suitcases they brought with them....although they did a great job of keeping up through the streets of Grenada...dodging chickens, mopeds and people doubled up on their bikes. I was SO curious about the rolling suitcases I did ask them later why they chose those over backpacks... and her exact answer was "because we never have to lift them." And I can vouch that while we travelled from bus, to taxi, to ferry that day...it was in fact true...they never did lift these large bags. I guess, people do not like to see two skinny girls trying to lift their 120 lb. bags above their head...but seemed less concerned when we have ours strapped to our backs, sweating endlessly.
The walk to the bus was typical of many walks I have had while searching for bus stations....you are searching the streets, walking along and all of a sudden everyone starts screaming at you in Spanish which way you should go..."Rivas! Rivas"....clearly, we look out of place and that is the only reason five white girls (two with rolling suitcases...can you tell I am stuck on that one?) walk down these specific streets. So...like other times, we find the bus-no problem. The bus is hot and packed and we quickly learn we may be standing for the next 2 hours....or squished 3 people deep in the smallest bus seats ever. But the people watching is amazing...and the views even better...and we just bounced along with most of Nicaragua packed on our bus. We then transfered to a taxi...that eventually took us to a ferry. I generally throw up on ferries...or boats...so, I was prepared...but it turned out only to be an hour long- bouncy ride to the island of Ometepe. We did mature things like pretended we were Kate Winslet from the Titanic from the front of the ferry, and encouraged other passengers to do the same while we snapped their photos.
Ometepe is a tiny island and we had decided to stay in a town called Santo Domingo...which was another taxi ride away. After looking at four hostels or hotels we settled on one that seemed nice enough..we have a friendly gecko in our room that has not showed his face...but does make a loud noise here and there. At least we hope it is a gecko.
The "thing" to do in Ometepe is to hike a volcano...you have two choices of volcanoes...which I guess is nice. Both take eight hours to hike. We met a woman here who is from Colorado and looked way more "Coloradan" than us...who said the hardest volcano was in fact daunting and REALLY hard. We decided on the easier one. One of the roller-bag Isreali girls asked to join us...and we got a guide. Now...all of us have hiked before....we have all done really hard hikes before...but NOTHING like this. Basically, we went straight up for 4 hours....Jess ran most of it (in my opinion)...and Ang was close behind. I might be the slowest hiker ever....I mean...in the whole world. But...I always make it to the top. Today, I was not sure I was going to. But, somehow....we all made it to the top to be met with a cloudy view of nothing...and to have lunch on an even cloudier lagoon. Now...if the hike up was not enough...we then had to come down. Please remember that we are hiking in a rain forest...and it is pouring on us. We slipped, slid, crawled and I fell at least twice. At one point praying that the volcano would just explode and this would all be over (kidding...but not at that moment). Our guide was sort of an exaggerator of time....ie) he would tell us it was going to be one hour more...and maybe it was 2 hours more. All of us have complained of different ailments during and since the hike...Ang, her knees....Jess, her back...and my hip. I claimed at one point I may need a hip replacement. But in some strange way...we are all glad that hiking is what we spent our day doing...and we had some good laughs...BUT...our lesson is the subject line of this blog.
We are staying in Ometepe another night...mostly because we could not walk anywhere if we wanted to. We will be leaving for San Juan Del Sur in the morning.....taxi, ferry, taxi, bus and we should be there! Hoping to do some surfing and hanging out on the beach.
We are currently in Ometepe...a small island south of Grenada. The travel here was interesting and hot. We left our hotel with backpacks on...and two Isreali girls asked to walk with us to the bus. I had little time for the large rolling suitcases they brought with them....although they did a great job of keeping up through the streets of Grenada...dodging chickens, mopeds and people doubled up on their bikes. I was SO curious about the rolling suitcases I did ask them later why they chose those over backpacks... and her exact answer was "because we never have to lift them." And I can vouch that while we travelled from bus, to taxi, to ferry that day...it was in fact true...they never did lift these large bags. I guess, people do not like to see two skinny girls trying to lift their 120 lb. bags above their head...but seemed less concerned when we have ours strapped to our backs, sweating endlessly.
The walk to the bus was typical of many walks I have had while searching for bus stations....you are searching the streets, walking along and all of a sudden everyone starts screaming at you in Spanish which way you should go..."Rivas! Rivas"....clearly, we look out of place and that is the only reason five white girls (two with rolling suitcases...can you tell I am stuck on that one?) walk down these specific streets. So...like other times, we find the bus-no problem. The bus is hot and packed and we quickly learn we may be standing for the next 2 hours....or squished 3 people deep in the smallest bus seats ever. But the people watching is amazing...and the views even better...and we just bounced along with most of Nicaragua packed on our bus. We then transfered to a taxi...that eventually took us to a ferry. I generally throw up on ferries...or boats...so, I was prepared...but it turned out only to be an hour long- bouncy ride to the island of Ometepe. We did mature things like pretended we were Kate Winslet from the Titanic from the front of the ferry, and encouraged other passengers to do the same while we snapped their photos.
Ometepe is a tiny island and we had decided to stay in a town called Santo Domingo...which was another taxi ride away. After looking at four hostels or hotels we settled on one that seemed nice enough..we have a friendly gecko in our room that has not showed his face...but does make a loud noise here and there. At least we hope it is a gecko.
The "thing" to do in Ometepe is to hike a volcano...you have two choices of volcanoes...which I guess is nice. Both take eight hours to hike. We met a woman here who is from Colorado and looked way more "Coloradan" than us...who said the hardest volcano was in fact daunting and REALLY hard. We decided on the easier one. One of the roller-bag Isreali girls asked to join us...and we got a guide. Now...all of us have hiked before....we have all done really hard hikes before...but NOTHING like this. Basically, we went straight up for 4 hours....Jess ran most of it (in my opinion)...and Ang was close behind. I might be the slowest hiker ever....I mean...in the whole world. But...I always make it to the top. Today, I was not sure I was going to. But, somehow....we all made it to the top to be met with a cloudy view of nothing...and to have lunch on an even cloudier lagoon. Now...if the hike up was not enough...we then had to come down. Please remember that we are hiking in a rain forest...and it is pouring on us. We slipped, slid, crawled and I fell at least twice. At one point praying that the volcano would just explode and this would all be over (kidding...but not at that moment). Our guide was sort of an exaggerator of time....ie) he would tell us it was going to be one hour more...and maybe it was 2 hours more. All of us have complained of different ailments during and since the hike...Ang, her knees....Jess, her back...and my hip. I claimed at one point I may need a hip replacement. But in some strange way...we are all glad that hiking is what we spent our day doing...and we had some good laughs...BUT...our lesson is the subject line of this blog.
We are staying in Ometepe another night...mostly because we could not walk anywhere if we wanted to. We will be leaving for San Juan Del Sur in the morning.....taxi, ferry, taxi, bus and we should be there! Hoping to do some surfing and hanging out on the beach.
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