First Day on Ometepe

Our taxi driver, Jose, was able to convince the guard at the port gate in Rivas/Puerto San Jorge to let him drive us all the way down onto the dock.  I think he said something like 'Do you SEE all the bags these gringos have?!'   The lancha we loaded onto was called the Santa Martha.  While we waited for them to prep the boat, we asked one of the locals to help us contact our pre-arranged island driver, Aura Muñoz, to let him know we were headed his way.  He dialed the number on his cell phone and after a couple of attempts to connect, Bex! talked to Aura.  Phone conversations in a new language can be hard but he spoke pretty good English.  As it turned out, Aura couldn't meet us but he had another driver all lined up for us.  Sweet!

The lancha chugged us across Lago de Nicaragua, slow and steady.  Like I said in the last post, we were the only ones riding topside in the sun.  There were a bunch of people riding below deck.  And there was a small covered area in the front of the boat crowded with the smarter folks staying out of the sun.  We noticed them sneaking curious looks at us and our pile of bags. 

The Santa Martha (maybe descended from the Nina, Pinta or Santa Maria?)

Our approach to Isla de Ometepe was a little surreal.  We were going to be living on this island for six weeks - and this island was made up of two volcanoes, one of which is active.  Skies were clear on this day, so we had a full view of our new home.  In fact, as I write this, we've been on the island two weeks now and the two 'hills' have been enshrouded in clouds almost constantly every day.

Concepción is the active one.  If Hollywood designed a volcano for a movie, it would look exactly like this one.  Sloping sides that gradually get steeper the higher up you look, an almost perfect cone shape.  It's a pretty amazing sight.

Volcan Concepción

(sound of brakes screeching, fingernails on a chalkboard or a stylus scratching across a vinyl LP)
Important note to our followers:
As our third week on the island comes to an end, we realize we are now three weeks behind on this blog!  We're trying to provide a detailed account of our experiences, painting a picture that can be thoroughly visualized by you.  Well, we're switching from oil paints to finger paints for a while.  
The posts we've put up have each taken a fair amount of time to prepare.  Even this very post was actually complete as of yesterday afternoon.  Unfortunately, when we were trying to add pictures and captions, we somehow deleted everything that we'd written describing our arrival on the island, the drive to Merida and our first night there.  Trust me, it was awesome!!  But it's gone now.  

So, in the interest of getting caught up to the current date so we can stay on top of this thing, you're going to get the Reader's Digest version of the last three weeks - short, sweet, highlights, pictures.  If you want more detail, buy a plane ticket and come visit!

Dave - out

(back to the blog)

As the lancha approached the dock in Mayogalpa, we saw a guy holding a sign that read 'David/Rebecca' - must be our driver.  It was - Miguel.  As the boat was tied off, several people appeared from... somewhere and started handing our bags to other folks on the pier, our luggage dangling over the water as it changed hands.

Yo ho, yo ho, I forgot to bring any rum

We tipped the porters who helped get bags to Miguel's rig, bought some water and hit the road.  Miguel pointed out sugar cane and tobacco growing on large farms.  Looked good to me - rum and cigars!

Here is a link to the GPS data from our day.  Bex! has a Garmin which provides a lot of data for such a tiny device.

GPS Map to Merida 

We circled the Concepción end of the island in a counter-clockwise direction unit we reached the lowland isthmus that joins this side with the Volcan Maderas end of Isla de Ometepe, where Merida is located.  The roads were great, just like the others we'd experienced in Nicaragua.  We noticed that here on the island they don't use blacktop and only use concrete in the spots where the rains flow heavily down the volcanoes.  Most of the road here is made of paver blocks, like what we would use in the US to build a patio or a walkway.  I guess it's cheaper, faster and doesn't require heavy equipment. 

We were curious why we were told we'd need a four-wheel drive vehicle - the roads seemed fine.  The need became clear about a kilometer past Santa Cruz - the road just sort of ended.  In fact, it would take just about as long to cover the last 5k as it did to cover the first 30k.  A lot of it was fine - just 'regular' gravel/dirt road (except the rocks were bigger).  There were some areas that were washed out, too.  And then there were stretches that were pretty steep and torn up badly, where Miguel picked his way through.  He made it look easy.

The wheels on the bus bump over the rocks, over the rocks, over the rocks.

After about 45 minutes or so, we arrived at Hacienda Merida.  This would be our home for the next six weeks and would be where we would teach for the first time - ever!  We knew the director of the school/hotel was off the island, so we weren't expecting to be greeted.  Miguel helped unload our bags and get us to the desk to check in.  This 'desk' is really a big counter in the common area of the place - where people check in, check out, pay their bill, order food and drinks, eat, use the wifi, hang out, drink beer, nap in hammocks, etc.  We couldn't help but notice the no-see-ums flying all around our heads and, well, everywhere.  It was kinda insane.

We were met by Eugenio, one of the young adults who work here.  As he looked up our names in the spiral notebook that was thew reservation log, I noticed something, well, gross.  Every inch of the counter was covered with dead gnats.  In fact, every surface I could see - tables, chairs, shelves - was littered with bugs.  Ugh.  I looked at my hand, the one that had been resting on the counter.  Yep.  Ewwww.  It was like we had arrived smack in the middle of a Stephen King novel.

Eugenio grabbed a room key and showed us to our room.  Since there weren't many guests we scored a nice upstairs room - private bath, deck, hammock, rocking chair.  Okay, maybe - maybe - this could make up for the bugs.

Or not.

These little bastards were everywhere.  It was a little freaky.  I was wondering if six weeks of this would be possible!  We unpacked, chilled out for a bit with some hammock and rocker time.  Bex!  grew up in Alaska but she is made for a hammock.  We noticed a pretty large gecko population but apparently there weren't enough because the insects had them outnumbered about a gajillion to one.  After a bit, we walked back to the common area to order food.  Bugs, bug and more bugs.  We ate and tried to take it all in - where we were, what we were doing, the excitement and anxiety.

Don't get me wrong - even though the bugs were weird, we were still excited to be here and starting this part of our adventure.  After our busy travel day, we decided to turn in early.  We went back to the room, where we made a couple of mistakes.  First one was we turned the room light on.  This attracted about umpteen thousand insects to our room.  The second mistake also involved a light bulb.  Bex! wanted to hop in the shower to rinse the day off but had to make it a super short rinse due to the bugs that were attracted to the bathroom light.  Oy.

Our bed was outfitted with one of those cool, 'Out of Africa' romantic mosquito nets hanging from the ceiling, draping over the bed.  Except these bugs weren't stupid - they got inside.  So we went to bed, lights out - me, Bex! and about a thousand of our closest friends.  We finally fell asleep, in spite of the almost constant slapping, brushing, swatting.  Thank goodness these things don't bite.  I dreamt of how quickly we could pack up in the morning and get the hell out of here.  Or maybe the erupting volcano would consume all the gnats and mosquitos.

Escape route this way.  Yes, when you get 12 kindergardeners together they look like a volcano.

We woke up early the next morning, after a crappy nights sleep.  We showered and walked over for breakfast.  There was a lady with a bucket and rag, scrubbing the counters.  I couldn't deal with this every day!  As I write this, I'm happy to say that we haven't had a bug problem since that first night!  Odd, but we're not complaining.  We had breakfast and watched as our first students started rolling in for breakfast.

The kindergarteners!!