It's been awhile since my last post, so I figured I should check in with an update. There is a fair bit to share, too, since it's been a whirlwind week. I started out last weekend in Managua, then traveled from Managua to the island of Ometepe via truck + ferry for a three day vacation, then flew from Managua to Chicago, spent a night in the city, then took a train to Milwaukee, and got a ride home to Cedarburg. Therefore, this post is technically coming from my parents' kitchen, and not Nicaragua, but I think that's okay just this one time.
The trip to Ometepe was really nice and relaxing. I went with my roommates and another one of our friends, and it was a good, laid back group to travel with. Our friend Jason had another volunteer's truck for the week, so we were able to drive from Managua to San Jorge, the port where you leave to go to Ometepe. We then brough the truck on the ferry and crossed Lake Nicaragua to the island.
Ometepe is a pretty interesting place. The lake that surrounds it is the largest freshwater lake in Central America - if I recall, it's the same size as Puerto Rico - and it's also the only freshwater lake with sharks. The island has two volcanos on it, one inactive called Maderas and one active one called Concepcion. The place where we were staying was closer to Maderas, and to get there we had to drive a good hour by dirt road. Suffice to say it was pretty remote, which ended up being a good thing since it was a peaceful trip in spite of the usual chaos associated with traveling during Semana Santa.
We did lots of relaxing on the trip - reading in the hammock at our cabana, swimming at the tiny beach down the road, eating and drinking at the hotel restaurant, and sleeping. However, on the last day there (Tuesday), I decided to be adventurous, so Kelly and I signed up for the horseback riding tour to see monkeys. It was about as wild as you'd expect for a morning riding horses in a place where helmets, safety waivers, etc. are not widely used. In fact, the lesson that they gave us at the beginning of the trek was "here's how you go left...here's how you go right...kick them to go...GO!" It turns out that the critical 4th component of that lesson - Stop! - would have come in handy because within seconds of getting down to the end of the hotel driveway, my horse decided to start galloping full-out for about 5 minutes. It was a little frightening, but eventually I got Ballo under control and it was actually a nice ride. Seeing the howler monkeys was especially cool - I think we spotted about 10 in all.
After Ometepe it was a quick turn around to get ready for the trip home. I had an early flight out the morning after we got back, so I finished the last of my packing, arranged for my neighbor who has a cab to pick me up early in the morning, and then tried desperately to sleep in spite of the heat that now stays around all night in Managua.
The trip home itself was pretty uneventful, with the one minor bummer of one of my bottles of rum breaking in my bag on its way to Miami and soaking all of my clothes in booze. Fortunately nothing was damaged though. Getting back was also a lot less shocking than I had expected. I think I'll be really glad I came home for a bit, because it's a good warm-up for the final return, plus I got to bring back all kinds of souvenirs now and can take some things from the States back to Nica too.
So far my mini vacation here in the States has been really nice and made me excited to come back to friends and family more permanently in May. I've also been doing quite the tour of my favorite foods that I've missed, including Ian's pizza in Chicago (in case you're not familiar, they make things like Mac N Cheese pizza, and it's amazing), Kopp's for a burger and Custard, all you can eat crab legs, and so much more!
Since the blog is not called Wisco Nicky, I suppose that's enough of my adventures at home. I'll be here until Monday, and I'm sure my return to Nicaragua early next week will be busy, but I'll be back with more stories (and pictures from Ometepe) soon!
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