This, That & the Other Thing: Ometepe Wrap-up (Final)

And this should be the final wrap from the island, although rest assured should anything else come to mind, we'll let you know!

Ready?  Let's go!

During our stay at Hacienda Merida we got to know a guy named Enrique.  He is from the island, lives in Santa Cruz (about 6k away) and is quite an artist.  He makes jewelry and accessories from string, cord, beads, etc. and is quite talented.  He makes the rounds to all the hotels on the island, as well as occasionally venturing off island to Granada, San Juan del Sur, even Costa Rica once in a while.  He would show up at HM a couple of times a week, bicycling in with his mochila (backpack) loaded with finished goods, supplies and pieces in progress.  Enrique has a little folding table that he somehow carries on the bike; he would set it up, cover it in a beautiful maroon-colored cloth and display his wares.  Then he would just sit and work on more pieces, awaiting customers.

We just said hello the first couple of times we saw him, trying not to get sucked in to buying something right away, wanting to take some time to see what the island had to offer before spending money.  Enrique never approached us, always just sat next to his table and worked on his craft.  But glancing over at his table got the best of me, and I started eyeballing a couple of pieces he had and chatting with him, each of us in our limited capabilities in the others' language.  Soon Bex! joined in the conversation and we got to be friends with Enrique.  

Enrique is the one in the middle.

If you've traveled in Mexico or Central America at all, you've seen the vendors selling wrist bands, bracelets, beaded necklaces, etc.  A lot of them sell the exact same stuff and I'm pretty sure it's made elsewhere and the folks at the table are just passing it on.  When I purchase this kind of stuff, especially if it's for me, I try to buy from someone I see making it, avoiding the 'middle men' if possible.  Enrique fit the criteria!

When we came down here in October, we made the decision to leave our wedding rings in a safe deposit box back home.  Mine could possibly be replaced but Bex!'s rings are antiques, hand made in the 1920's-1930's, platinum and I am sure one of a kind.  Rather than risk something bad happening, we left them behind.  Meeting Enrique gave us a great idea, however.  We approached him one evening and asked if he could make us wedding rings.  At first he didn't quite understand what we were asking.  Then his eyes got big as he said 'Possible, possible'.  After measuring our ring fingers and deciding on colors, this is the magic he worked for us!

Anillos de boda

We had many wonderful conversations with him during our six week stay.  He is a fine man and is extremely good at what he does.  He was grateful for us because we ended up sending him quite a few customers, too!

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The last day of kindergarten was a Friday and like all good schools, there was no class!  Woohoo!!  Instead, it was... Swim Day!!

What's Spanish for Loch Ness Monster?

Splish splash, I was taking a bath.

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What to say about Hacienda Merida...  

It's a former coffee plantation and the buildings were part of the operation - housing for the staff and managers.  The railroad tracks can still be seen running here and there, a reminder of the history of this site.  Rather than re-invent the wheel, read all about the hotel and its history right about... here. 

The hotel has many amenities - a small speed boat and a sailboat, both of which can be hired out for lake excursions.  They have a wide variety of kayaks and mountain bikes, too.

You've got one of the largest lakes in the world as your playground.

Like most places on Isla de Ometepe, there is a restaurant on site.  Unlike most places, however, Alvaro insists on a healthier menu than what is typically offered.  Vegetarians need not be afraid here!  Plenty of options available.  Like I mentioned in an earlier post, we got a little worn out on the food choices but we were here for six weeks, remember.  Don't get the wrong idea - the food at HM is VERY good.  They even make coconut ice cream from scratch, which I found to be even better in smoothie form when pineapple was added.

Hacienda Merida is unique in another way, especially for the Maderas end of the island, in that Alvaro has realized the importance of the English language to the future of the business.  Many of the staff here speak moderate to very good English, and do so because Alvaro and Esther have provided the means for them to learn.  They have even arranged for several staff to go to university for English language study.  Alvaro lived in the US for a while but came back to open HM.  He has a grand vision for the future of education on the island.

The Nicaraguan government neglects the island in a lot of ways, education being one of them.  The standards set by the Ministry of Education are pretty low, with the goal being to get the average child through 7th or 8th grade - this being considered a success.  And in many ways, it IS a success.  There is a lot of farming and ranching on the island, and children are often expected to forgo classes to help on the land.  We saw many young children moving cattle from one field to another, helping on the farm, and generally doing chores that most kids in the US couldn't put down their PlayStations long enough to even consider doing.

Alvaro has loftier goals for the island's schools.  "Why not 12th grade?  Why shouldn't we expect our children to go all the way through high school?  If we expect less, we get less.  And the country loses."  True, indeed.  This is one reason he has started up his own bilingual school at the hotel.  In the states, we would call this a charter school.  Classes limited to 12 students; meets curriculum guidelines for the country; mix of Spanish/English; students' parents meet regularly with Esther.  There is a little schoolhouse on the grounds of HM.  We taught here during our stay - kindergarteners as well as high schoolers and adults.  Alvaro is constantly raising awareness and funds for the school.  There is only the one classroom now and just before we left, funds had been secured to start construction on the second of what will eventually be six classrooms.  It was great for us to be a part of the first graduating class and we will enjoy seeing the progress over the years.

First graduation banner

While Alvaro is the 'big picture' visionary type, his wife Esther runs the day to day stuff.  In fact, that saying about there being a great woman behind every great man?  This is the example right here.  Esther keeps the schedule in her head, fills in teaching at the school, organizes shopping trips for the kitchen at the hotel, oversees the staff, etc.  You name it, she has a hand in it.  Esther is the first one to tell you that Alvaro talks too much, too!  Haha!  He loves to share his vision with the hotel guests, sometimes whether they want to hear it or not.  Esther calls him on it.  They are a good team.  

More about the hotel... 

This is the dock that is used for fishing by quite a few people in the village.  It's kind of a cool old dock and has been refurbished in stages over the years.

Like walking on a rickety old bridge.

There are hammocks spread around all over, with this one being occupied primarily by an Alaskan girl.  Who knew she would take to the tropics so well?!

It is my very favorite hammock.

This is a pic of the common area, where food is served and wifi is strongest.  Hacienda Merida is also the only place in the village that has back up power when the electricity goes out - a frequent occurrence.

Dave is in the picture for scale.

In addition to running the hotel and starting the school, Alvaro is passionate about conservation.  The hotel composts and recycles, the kitchen uses high efficiency stoves and they grow what produce they can on site.  He had these signs made to raise awareness of the illegal trade in turtle eggs, thought to be an aphrodisiac.  'Don't use turtle eggs!  Use Viagra!'  Haha!  There is one on the road between Santa Cruz and Balgüe.

Technically, it says "My eggs are not the solution" and either implies use of or sponsorship by Viagra.

Even though we got a little cabin fever-y during our six week stay, we would recommend Hacienda Merida as a place to stay, should you ever visit the island!

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Not much to say about these pics, other than we lived on a volcanic island for a month and a half!

Concepción normally wears a stylish cloud cap.

But occasionally she goes topless.

Ditto for Maderas.  Sorry for the tower - hard to get a good angle when you're at the foot of the volcano.

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And to close out the Ometepe wrap up, here are various pictures of the breathtaking sunsets we experienced.

Ooh la la.

Tranquillo.

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Isla de Ometepe was a rewarding experience for us.  Challenging, enlightening, gratifying, emotional.  We made a lot of friends and can't wait to go back to visit!

Or... you know... stay.

More This & That: Ometepe Wrap-up (Part 2)

Let's see, what else happened on Ometepe...

Oh, yeah!  We had the most gawd awful bottle of wine ever.  Alvaro and Esther came back from the mainland one day and had scored a case of wine from the market.  And not just any wine, but Nicaraguan wine.  Who knew, right?!  They were for sale, $20 each.  Being wine lovers and having had only beer and piña coladas since we came to Central America, we thought it would be a real treat!  So we simply had to get a bottle of it.  We stashed it til Friday night, then ordered pasta roja for dinner - pasta in red sauce, to go with out fancy bottle of Nicaraguan red wine!  Seriously, we looked forward to this change in routine all week.  You have no idea how excited we were, talking about it like kids waiting for Christmas.

Maybe we were just drinking it out of the wrong glasses.

This wine we were so looking forward to opening was made up near Esteli, north of Managua.  The winery was started as part of an Economic Development Program to bring industry to the dry regions of the country.  Planting grapes seemed like a good idea.  I think maybe we just had a bad bottle or batch, but the wine was so incredibly sweet, it was almost undrinkable.  It was beyond dessert wine sweet, was bright cranberry red, and tasted like Kool-Aid that had been made with way too much sugar.  Our first clue that maybe this wasn't going to live up to expectations was the cork.  Bex! did the honors and when she popped it out, there was only half a cork.  Damn, she broke it off in the neck.  What - wait a sec.  No, she didn't.  They just used half a cork to seal the bottle!!  One cork plugs two bottles - ingenious!!  The second, and funniest clue, was the cork itself.  It was from a winery in Chile!!  So, they were sealing their bottles with used corks from other wineries.  Keepin' it classy!

This one's for our wine buddies - Cuddlebuns and Lampchop, Dan and Tanya!

I wouldn't be opposed to trying another bottle of local wine sometime, just to see if this one was an anomaly.  On our budget, it was a major splurge, so we choked down every last drop.  Mmmmm mmmmmm!

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We actually received mail while on the island!  Bex!'s parents, Anne and Mike, had mailed a couple of business-sized envelopes with a nice hand written note from home, activity books for teaching, and two story books - one of which was one of my all-time favorites as a boy, 'Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel' by Virginia Lee Burton.  They sent one package on October 29th and the other on November 13th.  We received them both on December 7th.  We were walking to the pulperia one afternoon, the road taking us by Alvaro and Esther's house.  Esther called down from her balcony that she had something for us and tossed down the two envelopes!  Honestly, we knew they had been sent but had given up hope of ever seeing them arrive, assuming the worst.  Nicaragua continues to surprise!

Maybe they spent a week in Cabo on the way down.

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Here is a picture of the 'playground equipment at the school house.  Hacienda Merida used to be a coffee plantation and packing facility.  The railroad tracks still run through the grounds and the buildings that make up the hotel were once the living quarters for the owners and the staff.

Not sure what this used to be - the boiler from the steam engine, perhaps.  Or maybe it was used in processing the coffee beans for shipment?
To my brother-in-law, Neil - What is this?  What part of the train might it have been?  Was it even part of a train?

All aboard!

Anyhoo, the kids climb all over and inside this rusty, pitted, sharp-edged hunk of metal.  I am 99% sure that 'tetanus shot' is not in the vocabulary here.

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I tried my hand at net casting.  There were four marine biologists here for a week that were doing research on the fish in the lake.  They would go out each morning with a guide, catch a bunch of fish, bring them back to the hotel, then proceed to measure, weigh, photograph, and dissect them.  They were doing a project on parasites found in the fish from the lake.  Nice.  Sounds worse than it was because when they were all done with the science part, it was time for the food part.  They'd take the fish to the kitchen, have them cooked and then eat them.

One afternoon, they were out on the dock and we wandered out to chat with them.  Our friend, Michael, was fishing, too.  The biologists had one of those circular nets with the weights around the edges.  The idea is you sort of Frisbee it out there, it spreads into a circle and sinks when it hits the water.  Then you draw it up and it catches whatever the net caught up on the way down.

Me being me, I asked if I could try it.  I am proud to say I was successful!!  It took a few tries, of course.  You hold the cord in one hand, with the net draped over your arm so it can spread out.  You hold one edge in your teeth and another in your other hand.  With a twist of the torso and arms a'flailing, you toss it out over the water.  The first time, my throw looked awesome - until I forgot to open my mouth to let the net loose.  Oops.  After a few other errant tosses, I sort of got the hang of it.

You put your right hand in, you put your right hand out...

It's all in the wrist.

Fish in the picture may be exactly as small as they appear.

Hey!!  Not funny, caption lady!!

Here are a couple of pictures of what one could do with their catch of the day, assuming it's large enough to actually clean...

One fish, two fish; fried fish, lake fish.

Same dish, different plating

They put the whole fish (cleaned, of course) in very hot oil, which nicely crisps the entire thing up.  On bigger catch, like mine (ahem), they cut slits in the sides so the oil gets inside to cook it through.  They are quite tasty, as long as you're okay with your dinner watching you eat.  The locals eat damn near the whole thing, too, even the smaller bones.  I couldn't quite bring myself to do that.  Nonetheless, very delicious!

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The food at HM was great.  The cooks do a nice job with everything they make.  They cook on a variety of equipment, mostly wood fired plancha-style stoves.  

The breakfast menu:
Banana pancakes
Gallopinto with scrambled eggs
Veggie omelet
Fruit plate
Oatmeal with nuts and raisins

Lunch and dinner:
Pasta - red sauce or pesto
Chicken - fried or BBQ
Veggie burger
Sandwich - cheese, veggie or chicken
Crepe - veggie or chicken
Fried fish
Tortillas with refried beans and veggies

It all sounds so wonderful and it truly is.  After six weeks, however, we grew weary of the food.  Don't get me wrong - it's fantastic, but the limited menu options for 'foodies' like us had us asking for special preparations.  "Can I get the crepe, but with a mix of veggies AND chicken?"  Anything to keep it interesting.  We also ventured out a few times, more often toward the end of our stay, to other restaurants in the area.  I know it sounds like I'm whining about very good, very fresh food.  Sorry if it comes across that way.  Our running joke was me saying "Ooh, tonight, I think I'm going to order a big steak with a baked potato!"  "Um, honey, I don't think they..."  "Shhhhhh - let me have my dream."

On several occasions, the food routine was joyfully disrupted by the ever-popular buffet!  If there were enough guests or special visitors to HM, they would break out the buffet, which was always a pleasant surprise because the menu was vastly different from the normal options - and it was, ya know, a buffet.  Scratch made pizza, stir fry, casseroles, desserts.  Yum-o-rama!

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On one of our meals out, we walked up the road, then up the 'hill' (Volcan Maderas) to a place called La Omaja.  Pronounced liked Omaha (NE) the owner is an American ex-pat who married a local and got some of his buddies back home to invest in a very nice hotel in Merida.  Instead of one big building with rooms, there are individual cabins spread out around the property.  A nice restaurant, great views of Volcan Concepción and an infinity pool make this place quite nice.  

We went for lunch and had two treats:
Burgers and fries
Nica Libres (rum, Coke, lime juice)

And so we'll leave this blog post with a picture from La Omaja.  Hasta pronto!!

Bigger than infinity?  Infinity times infinity!

Merry Christmas, from San Juan del Sur!

We want to wish all of our loved ones - family, friends, blog followers - a very Merry Christmas and a safe holiday season!!

Much like Thanksgiving, we were both feeling a little homesick leading up to Christmas.  Bex! and I have developed our own holiday traditions and have all the ornaments we've collected during our lives together - sitting in a box in a storage unit in Hillsboro.  I can picture them all, and the story behind each one - why we bought it, where we got it, why it's important to us.  

In addition to 'our' ornaments, there is a large collection of hand made Christmas stocking ornaments that Bex! has been collecting since around high school, receiving a new one from her mom (Anne) each year.  In fact, last year Anne was in Portland during Christmas.  This made for a wonderful evening of mother and daughter hanging these ornaments on our tree, reminiscing about each one.  

I have my share of ornaments, too.  I have a Beatles' Yellow Submarine', courtesy of my son.  He also gave me a Homer Simpson ornament.  I have ornaments from my grandkids, too.  

Our first Christmas together, we made some ornaments which still go on the tree, even though they're a little cheesy.  Popsicle stick reindeer with pipe cleaner antlers and googly eyes, bead-and-wire sparkly twists that shimmer in the Christmas tree lights.  I remember getting the tree, tying it down to the roof of my Mitsubishi 3000GT VR4 (sorry, George!!) and bringing it to my old apartment for decorating.  I remember we had to run out and buy a bigger tree stand!  We popped popcorn and had fresh cranberries, so threaded those on string to encircle the tree.

When I was a boy, probably 8 or 9, I received a Lionel train set for Christmas - the Wabash Cannonball.  Being heavily into books and movies about America's Old West, this was the perfect gift because it matched in scale my cowboy and Indian toys!  I still have the set and it would get hauled out each year to run around the tree or, if too many gifts blocked the path, to make a few laps around the living room.  My son is holding it for me and I believe he set it up for Natalie and Stephanie to check out.

I miss all my grandkids very much!  My daughter's children call me Grandpa, so to all of you - Judah, Piper, Sawyer, Daphne and Otis - a very big hug and a Merry Christmas!!!  And for Natalie and Stephanie, Pampa sends hugs and a big Merry Christmas to you both!!

In Central America, the big celebration for this holiday is held Nochebuena - Christmas Eve.  That's when the big family gatherings occur, with tons of food and music - and fireworks.  Oh, the fireworks!  We decided to have our special meal last night, to go along with the locals.  We hit Pedro, the carnicero (butcher) at the market, for some fresh chicken legs.  When he sells chicken legs, it's the whole leg - thigh included.  We got some papas (potatoes) for rustic mashers and splurged for our Christmas meal by buying a stick of butter.  It was delicious!  We had corn, too.  I rubbed the chicken down with a mix of S&P, an herb mixture and little paprika, then fried it in some EVOO.  With Nica Libres and Toña's to drink, it was a great meal!

After dinner, we were hanging out on the porch listening to all the festivities down at the parque central.  We had traditional Christmas music playing on the computer, which both helped and didn't help the feelings of homesickness.  Bex! got her mountain dulcimer out and played a few holiday tunes, until her fingers got sore from the strings.  Feeling a little melancholy, we decided to break that attitude by going for a walk.  We made a loop along the beach, then headed to the park.  

Wow!  The park was jammed with families and music and vendors selling toys, and food; fireworks were being lit on the streets around the park.  There were lights and decorations and such happiness all around us.  It was such a good feeling to take it all in and smile.

Bex! built a snowman in the park, too.  Here she is putting the finishing touches on it:

'Heehee - that tickles!!

Notice how tan the wife is looking these days!?  Must be the good clean living.  After she finished frisking Frosty, I got a pic with him.

Frosty would put his thumb up, too - if he had one.

But then I had to break the news to poor Frosty - that he wasn't really alive, that there must have been some magic in that old top hat we found, and that since it was 85 degrees he would soon be water and making his way back to the ocean via the sewer system.  He took the news pretty well, resigned to his fate and taking heart that he provided joy - and sno-cones - while he was here with us.

Awww, man!  I'm gonna melt, aren't I?

The walkabout cheered us up immensely and we meandered back home, passing through town and back along the beach to get there.  We ran into my Spanish teacher, Gladys, and her family who were out for a holiday stroll.

Back home, we hit the sack and flipped around the channels while listening to fireworks being set off right outside our bedroom window on the street below.  Ahh, Latin America and your crazy fireworks!!  Side note:  for all the fireworks going off constantly this last week and especially today, we never saw any place that was selling them!  Another side note:  to my son-in-law, Ben Meckel, if you set up a fireworks stand down here, you'd make a killing!!!  Think about it!

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So, from San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua to you and your families, wherever you may be this holiday season, we wish you a very merry Christmas.  Hug your loved ones, enjoy family time, and count the blessings in your lives.

Hugs and kisses - 

Bex! and David

This and That: Ometepe Wrap-up (Part 1)

We're off the island now, but the blog isn't!  I'm going to attempt to rectify that with a couple of catch-all posts, covering all the random things we experienced there - people, places, animals, etc.  This post will bounce around a little, so try to focus, okay?

Let's start with this stunning picture.  I took it with my little Pentax Optio W60, a rugged little camera that I've dropped on trails and dunked in the water I don't know how many times.  My brother-in-law, Doug, told me I have an eye for capturing just the right shot and should think about an upgrade to a better camera.  I'm sure I will do so someday, but in the mean time, enjoy this.

And a polar bear picture won the National Geographic Photo Contest?

Hacienda Merida has a dock and it's open to the village, so it's used by the locals for fishing and swimming.  Each night as sunset approaches, you can find 3-5 people fishing.  This gentleman was having pretty good luck and happily let me take his picture.

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Monkey Island is a short paddle from HM.  It's a small island where several capuchin monkeys reside.  We were told they are former pets that were abused and/or no longer wanted, so they were released onto the island to live out their days.  We went there a couple of times and on the last trip I was able to actually get a picture of one!  I say this because the wind was howling, the kayak was bobbing in the waves, the trees were swaying like crazy.  I paddled upwind, turned the kayak a little, then let the wind blow me past the trees where the monkeys were hanging out as I snapped pictures and hung on for dear life, trying not to get blown over sideways into the lake.  Oy, the things I do for this blog...

"Just admirin' my opposable thumbs"

All that work and he didn't even act interested.  The nerve of that monkey.  (Note:  I bet two of my nieces, Anne and Jennifer, see the picture and say 'I want one!!')  

These  two pics were taken around the point from Monkey Island, where we were protected from the wind.

This swank kayak even had a Nalgene-sized cup holder.

What's Spanish for Selfie?

We saw this really cool dugout canoe on the shore, too!  It was carved from a single big ol' hunk o' tree.

Good camouflage job.

I kinda want to know what this thing weighs.

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I've mentioned the Teasdale's several times.  We met this awesome family from Missoula, Montana and hit it off with them immediately.  Aaron is a travel/adventure writer and Jackie is an ESL teacher, which was a great resource for us.  Their boys, Silas and Jonah, are great kids, even if they are Timberwolves fans.

I apologize if I'm repeating myself from an earlier post...  Aaron and Jackie pulled the boys from school for seven months while they travel throughout Central America.  Don't worry, folks - they are home schooling along the way.  As (our) luck would have it, among the usual travel items brought along on this trip by them, they also brought two inflatable NRS Earl6 paddleboards.  This is another sport we've wanted to try and we were afforded the perfect opportunity to do so.

Being the outdoor-sy sorts, the Teasdale's left HM for about a week so they could bike around the perimeter of the island.  Aaron agreed to do a story for the tourism board of Nicaragua.  They were kind enough to leave the paddles with us and off we went.

When I say 'off we went', I mean two very different things.  For Bex!, I mean that she took to it immediately and was paddling around the lake straight away.  For me, when I say 'off', it means 'off my paddleboard into the lake'.  I was a little tippy...

Wait for it.... Wait for it.... Kersploosh!

Don't get me wrong - I loved it.  We both did, so if anyone wishes to send us belated Christmas gifts, two inflatable paddleboards would do the trick.  This sporting equipment is on the short list of purchases to make as soon as we can work it out.

For her it's an on the water sport, not an in the water sport.

Bex! did awesome at this!  Me, I tended to fall off a lot, but mostly when trying to turn.  I can stand up and paddle a straight line but would get the wobbles when trying to turn.  But - drats, fell into the tropical warm waters of Lago de Nicaragua again.  No biggie, really.

Remember, that's two paddle boards to Bex! & Dave, General Delivery, Nicaragua.

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I think that will wrap up Part 1 for now.  Stay tuned for Part 2, coming at ya soon!

Rio Istian - Two Trips, One Post

We've made two trips to the Rio Istian, which is sort of a river that winds through the isthmus that connects the two volcanos.  I say 'sort of' because it's really a swampy lowland that looks like a river, which you'll notice in the pictures.  During the summer season, which is just starting, the 'river' dries up almost completely.  Then it's just a bog and mosquito factory.

Livingstone has nothing on us.

This area is very popular with tourists, with many of the hotels and hostels offering guided tours.  You don't really need a guide to do this trip but if you're interested in learning the names of the flora and fauna, then paying the $16 is well worth it.  Besides, if you want to see one of the rare and elusive caimans, the locals have an uncanny knack for spotting them.  

On our first trip over, we left HM later in the morning and by the time we got to the swamps, there had been 2-3 groups in ahead of us.  Some people 'cheat', too, by being delivered to the mouth of the rio by a motorboat, kayaks in tow.  That was what we saw as we approached the mouth our first time.  While the motorboats don't enter the swamps, I'm sure the sound disturbs the wildlife somewhat.

Our second trip over, we left early and were the first ones in.  In fact, we didn't see anyone else until we were on the open water about halfway back to HM.  We saw a group kayaking over, waved, and felt fortunate to have been there early.  Being the only ones on the water, gliding through the low hanging tree branches is such a great experience.

I've mentioned a local named Michael a couple of times.  He is a student in our adult class, a guide at Hacienda Merida, and he also helps on his family farm and in his mom's restaurant, El Pescadito's.  In addition to all of this, he teaches English to eager students in San Ramon, a village about 4k from here.  Plus, he's a new father!  Where he found time for that, I don't know!  Oh, and he can stand up in a kayak and paddle.  Just sayin'...

Our own personal superman.  Er, supermen.

We've hired Michael both times we've gone to the swamps - the first time it was just the three of us; the second trip was with Mary, a fellow volunteer here at HM.  It takes about an hour to kayak from HM to the entrance of the Rio Istian. 

Michael working hard, me taking pictures!

Volcán Concepción and Bex!

The first trip over we took the triple-seat kayak - one long craft with three seats.  Bex! sat up front, I took the middle and Michael steered in the back.  The second trip, we took doubles, with Michael and Mary in one, us in the other.  It was amazing how much better we did kayaking together when we were seated in the appropriate spots in the kayak!  No paddle whacking!  Yuri would be proud.

The wind was blowing quite a bit for Trip Two, so we fought a headwind all the way over and, strangely enough, on the way back, as well.  We found our double kayak zigging and zagging quite a bit, due to both our (lack of) paddling technique and the strong winds.  It was difficult to maintain a straight line.

When you enter the swamps, you're transported to a different environment.  It gets very quiet, the air is still and you can hear all the birds.  We saw a wide variety of them - all different shapes, sizes, colors.  Herons, egrets, ducks, bug eaters, fish eaters.  We saw turtles, too, sunning themselves on tree branches.  Although we heard monkeys, we never saw any.  We've seen a lot of egrets and herons back home, but we didn't recall seeing them in trees; instead, almost always flying or perched on something low and near the water.  Here, these guys hang out way up in the trees!

"It's Chirstmas and I'm the tree topper."

We were able to glide right up to this guy.  He just stood there, watching us.  We got within a couple of meters.  He stood about three feet tall or so.  Very cool!

This ghostly aura seems to indicate the stillness might have been deadness.

We tried to get close to this one but he took off as we approached.  I wasn't sure I got the picture until I checked the camera later.  As graceful in flight as they appear, they have very  inelegant and funny voices, like an attractive person with an unattractive laugh!  

And the Russian judge awards a perfect 10 for style.

Some of the trees here grow right out of the water.  The roots are above ground and extend down below the water.  Pretty cool looking.

Anyone else reminded of Bartholomew Cubbins?

Of course, the prize animal to spot in the swamps is the caiman.  We saw one each time.  Michael told us there are only 15 or so here, and they make themselves scarce when people come through.  We felt lucky to see them!  This first pic is from the first trip.  He was back in off the water a bit, so I zoomed in and was able to catch this shot.  He looked to be 4+ feet in length.

See you later, alligator!

On our second trip, we saw what Michael said was probably the grandaddy of the caimans.  He was up on a bank in the grass, soaking up the morning sun.  He was pretty big around the middle and was 6+ feet, easy.  You can see his head on the right and see his right back leg behind the leaf.

After a while, crocodile!

These trips on the water were a lot of fun and provided a much-needed break from our work at the school.  It's always nice to get away for a while.

Now, where are those caimans?  'Here, caiman, caiman, caiman!'

Gringo toe snack?

Bikes, Balgüe and Petroglyphs

We grabbed a couple of Yuri's finest steeds from the bike shed and headed out for the day.  Our target location:  Finca Magdalena in Balgüe to see ancient petroglyphs.  A petroglyph is defined by da Weeki as "a pictogram or logogram image created by removing part of a rock surface by incising, picking, carving and abrading."  In other words, the ancient inhabitants of the island - the Chorotega, the Nahuatl and the Mayans - used small rocks to scratch pictures in other bigger rocks.  The Ometepe petroglyphs are thought to be anywhere from 800 to over 2,300 years old.

These ancient stone carvings are scattered all over the island, with a large concentration located at Finca Magdalena, a coffee plantation co-op.  You can read up on their full operation here.  This plantation is also one of the three starting points for the excursion up to the top of Volcan Maderas.  As you can surmise from this sign, we chose to stay at the lower elevations!  Four hours to cover five kilometers of UP?  No thanks!

It's like an optical illusion.  The longer you hike, the further away it looks.

The bike ride to Balgüe took a little over an hour.  We find we can cruise over the crappy road from Merida to Santa Cruz, having done it a couple of times.  We know the lines to take so covered the distance quickly.  Check out the map of our awesome speediness here.  We knew the road was paved to Balgüe but weren't sure how far it was to town.  Distances down here are sometimes estimates.  4k could be 3k or 6k.  In this case, we were in Balgüe before we knew it.  In fact, we rolled in and Bex! said "Oh, this must be it.  I heard about that restaurant" pointing at Café Campestre, "and I know it's in Balgue."  Well, that was quick!

We biked through town and noticed that we were seeing more gringos in one location than we'd seen in a very long time.  Because the road is paved on this side, there are more ex-pats living here which equals more money.  Or maybe that statement should be reversed.  Maybe it's because of the money the ex-pats bring that the road got paved ahead of other areas on the island.  Either way, we couldn't help but notice the nicer buildings, painted store fronts, cleaner streets.  

On the far side of town we found the sign for Finca Magdalena and made the right turn to head '1 kilometer' up the rocky road. As luck would have it again, the distance was accurate and soon we had parked our bikes and found the reception area.  After chugging a bottle of cold water and sitting for a few minutes, we paid the 50 cordobas each to enter the grounds.  We were told to walk up the path about 100 meters to a roundabout, and from there we would see signs for the path to the petroglyphs.

We got to the roundabout and checked out the signs for the four trails that ran from here, like spokes on a wheel - the access trail from the reception desk; one to the top of Maderas; one to the coffee plantation; and the trail to the petroglyphs. 

'Where Does the Trail Go?'  (to the tune of "What Does the Fox Say")

We started down the well-groomed trail and enjoyed this sense of being in such a surreal place, here on this tropical island in Central America.  The first petroglyph we came across is known as Piedra Magnifica - Magnificent Rock.  It is pretty spectacular.

Paris road map??

"I think Bath & Body Works is right here, next to Nordstrom and the food court"

There are a couple of other small petroglyphs right next to this big hunk o' rock.  We saw several spirals this day.  In fact, Ometepe is known to archeologists as the 'island of spirals and circles'.  These guys aren't sure what significance the spirals hold - perhaps they represent the island itself or the cycle of the sun.  Two spirals together are thought to represent the island.  Volcan Concepción represents the night, the dark; Volcan Maderas signifies the sun and light.

A person, perhaps?

The ever-popular spiral

As we were taking these pictures, trying to get the best angle in the tricky sunlight to best highlight the petroglyphs, I found myself standing on a big flat rock.  It was mostly covered in leaves and sticks.  I noticed what looked like a bit of a pattern so started brushing off the surface.  Sure enough, it was another petroglyph, this one equal in size to Piedra Magnifica.  Because it lies flat, it has suffered much more erosion, but here is a picture of it anyway.

I named this one 'Piedra David Super-Magnifica'

You can read into these whatever you want.  Some are more obvious, like animals, people, spirals, sun and moon.  Others, with intricate patterns and designs, ... who knows.  With no record of a written language from the early inhabitants, we can only speculate.  Archeologists have found calendars, though, showing 18 months with 20 days each, for 360 days.  Close enough.  They obviously had a pretty good sense of the sun, moon phases, seasons.

After shooting pics here, we hit the trail toward the rock fields where we would find a large concentration of petroglyphs.  There were two 'piles' of stones, separated by about 50 meters or so.  Not quite sure what we were looking for, we walked right by the first group and started circling the second, taking pictures whenever the light worked just right.  It was interesting to note that some petroglyphs weren't very pronounced to the naked eye but through the camera viewfinder they popped right out.  And in other cases, it was the opposite - obvious to the eye, we just couldn't find an angle that captured the image.

I see a face.  What do you see?

Blog fodder collecting in action.

After getting all the outer facing shots, we gingerly climbed up into the pile and found a bunch more.  It's hard to tell if these were placed here as a sort of gallery or if they were moved here by workers when the plantation was built.  Maybe rain washed them all down the slope.  We got all the shots we wanted here.  I walked back toward the group we had passed on the way in while Bex! studied a few rocks.  I looked up to see her walking briskly toward me, looking over her shoulder.  Intrigued, I walked back down to meet her.  

"Monkeys!"

Awesome!!

We hurried over to see two howler monkeys in the tree overhead.  They make a deep grunting noise, a kind of warning or acknowledgment that they know you're there.  It was this sound that startled Bex!.  We had heard howlers many times but hadn't seen any yet, so this was incredible!  In addition to the grunting noise, they are known for their spine tingling, blood chilling howl which we've heard a couple of times, once while on a bike ride, from very close in the trees right overhead.

One monkey, two monkey.  Red monkey, blue monkey?

Having grown up in a large family, I figured I could interact a little with these primates.  I gave it my best shot and if you listen closely (earbuds work best) you can hear them respond!

The monkeys got tired of me grunting at them and stopped paying attention, so we went back to looking at rocks.  In the second group, we found these cool petroglyphs.

I think this is the sports page from the Ometepe Times, circa 600 AD

The two round areas (lower right) were deep wells.  Significance?

View from top, straight down; this 'glyph covered the entire rock - top and sides

With the sun being overhead, it caused issues with getting some pics.  For this next one, I had Bex! try to shade the rock for me...

...and while I had her in an awkward pose, I tilted the camera up and took this one.

What Does the Fox Say?

And since we've alluded to it twice, it's time for a brief interlude, for those of you NOT in the know:

Back to petroglyphs!  This one looks like a depiction of the sun:

Sun, sun, sun... here it comes!

And this has to be the earliest known conceptual drawing of none other than Mr. Spongebob Squarepants:

"Barnacles!"

Now, this next petroglyph will probably cause some controversy.  It's quite unusual and we had differing opinions of what it represented.  Bex! said 'eyeball' and I said 'spaceship'.  What do you think?

We couldn't come to a conclusion, so we got our new friends, Aaron and Jackie, involved.  With four of us, it all became clear.  It is obviously an ancient representation of this:

Which is, of course, the logo for the Flying Spaghetti Monster, the deity of the Church of the Flying Spaghetti Monster or Pastafarianism.  This movement was started as a means to counter a push to teach creationism and intelligent design in Kansas schools.  In a nutshell, the Pastafarians say that if schools are going to teach creationism, then they also need to teach Pastafarianism, whose beliefs are that the world was created by a giant omniscient flying spaghetti monster.  Their argument:  if you're going to teach one theory that has absolutely no physical or scientific evidence, then you have to teach another.  Anyway, read about them here.  It's all very tongue in cheek but was also started to make a legitimate point about what is and is not taught in our schools.

Anyhoo, after getting all the pictures we wanted, we walked back to the reception office, remounted our faithful bikes and road down the hill into Balgüe.  It was lunch time and we were heading to the restaurant we passed on the way in - the Café Campestre.  This turned out to be a winner of an idea.  The food was great, largely because it was so different than what we'd been eating for five weeks.  Bex! had a savory curry and I had fresh made chorizo.  Amazing!  After you drool over these pictures, check out their website. 

Something besides pasta and chicken! 

Good use of all the pigs we see wandering around.

We hopped on the bikes to head back to Merida, happy that we would make it back in time for our 3 PM class.  We didn't know how long we'd be gone so we had Mary (another volunteer here) set up to cover it.  Still, it would be great to get back to attend class.  (Hey, look at us!!  We feel some ownership and obligation for our students!)  With one stop on the way back to buy a refreshment, we were looking on schedule - that is, until we hit rush hour traffic.  This held us up for a bit until we could get past the traffic pinch point.  Since we were at a complete standstill, I got a picture of it.

Can you BELIEVE this DAMN traffic?!