Cascada de San Ramon

Another weekend and another outing to do something cool on Ometepe.  On this day we decided to visit Cascada de San Ramon, the waterfall named after the tiny village of the same name.  Or vice versa.  Or they're both named after the river.  We figured this would be a fun day spent in the jungles of Nicaragua.  And it was only 3k from San Ramon to the falls.  How hard could that be, right?  Um... yeah.

We asked Darwin, one of the staff here at Hacienda Merida as well as a member of our adult English class, what the hike was like.  "It will take you maybe one and half hours."  Got it - two and half to three hours.  One thing we've learned is that Nicaraguan's underestimate - time and distance, mostly.

Our original plan was to grab 'our' bikes from 'Yuri's Bike Shop' and ride to the village of San Ramon.  Then we could park the bikes, hike to the falls, ride back.  Except there happened to be large group from Germany staying here at HM and they had reserved all the decent bikes, so we were out of luck.  There were other bikes in the shed but the rides come in two styles - functional and non-functional.  To be classified as 'functional', a bike will have one of the two brakes work, gears that might shift, and will have air in the tires, with the amount of pressure varying from bike to bike, tire to tire.

Before we go on, let's flashback one week:
We had taken bikes out the weekend before on a ride to Santa Cruz, a small village about 5k away.  That morning we walked over to the shop where the bikes are stored and found Yuri.  Yuri is from Russia, somehow ended up on Ometepe 4-5 years ago and can't wait to get the hell out of here.  I'll do a post on him later - interesting dude.  Anyway, we told him we wanted a couple of bikes to ride to Santa Cruz so he showed us the fleet.  Of the 20 or so bikes, he pointed out four.  "Good.  Good.  Good.  Good.  Rest - no good."  We eyeballed the  choices and picked our two steeds.  They were rideable, which is all we really expected.

The ride to Santa Cruz was fun!  It was great to be on a bike again.  The road is just treacherous enough to make things interesting.  Riding with no helmet and using platform pedals was a little anxiety inducing, too, but - when in Rome!  Woot woot!  My 'good' bike had a non-functioning back brake and a front one that worked if I squeezed hard.  Of the four bikes available, I grabbed the biggest frame but it was way too small for me.

Who is that handsome circus bear?

I tried shifting once and the chain moved up one ring, but after that I couldn't quite get it to stop skipping around the gears - shouldn't have messed with it.

Bex!'s ride seemed a little better than mine.  Riding on this road was great for the mountain bike skills.  Picking a line through the ruts, washouts and rocks required continuous focus.  Even on the stretches that were in pretty good shape, we reminded each other to take it easy.  One fall with no brain bucket could spell the end of our adventure.   We reached the paved part of the road, which meant we were almost to Santa Cruz.  Woohoo!  Once we got to town, we stopped to chat about what to do next.  Options:  a] turn around and head back; b] go left toward Playa Domingo on the isthmus; c] turn right to head around the north end of Volcan Maderas toward Balgüe.  

Moo-ving right along.

We opted for [c] and enjoyed the rolling hills.  The road was good - more paver stones and in great condition.  We've asked around and found out that when the government paved the road to Maderas several years back, they had to make a choice when they hit Santa Cruz:  pave toward Merida or pave toward Balgüe.  Well, since there are many ex-pats living around Balgüe (i.e. - more money) guess which stretch got paved?  

Lake Nicaragua is HUGE.  Looking west from Merida, where we're staying, we can see the mainland.  But as we pedaled around the north end of Maderas toward Balgüe, the road rises and we had spectacular views from above.  We eventually got to where we were looking out north and east, and there was no land in sight!  Lake = big.

Como se dice 'big' en español?

We didn't make it all the way to Balgüe.  We turned around just past the little village of Madroñal.  When we got back to Santa Cruz, we parked it at a pulperia and enjoyed a cold drink - Coca-Cola for me, Fanta for Bex!.  After our short break, we savored the last bit of paved road before we got back on the crappy stuff for the ride back to Merida.  We made it to the barn without incident.  It was a very fun day on bikes!

Now, back to our San Ramon tale:
So, with no bikes left to choose from, we opted to walk from HM.  We figured it was only about 4k to San Ramon, then the 3k up to the waterfall.  That would put our day at 14k or about 9 miles.  Piece of pastel (cake).  We filled CamelBaks, sunscreened up, switched comfortable flip flops for stoopid trail shoes and hit the road.  It was hot and humid, but we were in good spirits.  Off on another adventure!!

Our adventure turned into 11+ miles and over 2,000 feet of elevation gain.  Here's the Garmin map and data for the day.

The road is up and down for about a kilometer, then it hugs the lake and is in pretty good shape.  Being on foot allowed us to enjoy the sights, stopping to look at swarms of butterflies, cool houses and views across the water.  We could make out the dock at San Ramon so knew we were getting close to the village.  San Ramon is small - a couple of restaurants, a pulperia and one hostel.  The biggest - and only - draw here is that it is the entrance to the waterfall.

Lots of rich people docks in San Ramon.

The Biological Field Station located in San Ramon is part of the Maderas Rain Forest Conservancy.  You can read all about the work they're doing to preserve this pristine piece of jungle here .  We paid the 75 cordobas each ($3) and the guard told us there were bathrooms about 150 meters up and that the trail started up toward the left.  Perfect!  We were ready to go.

Are we still in Nicaragua?

The road from the entrance up to the bathroom and restaurant was - unusual.  Manicured lawns, treelined road, immaculate gardens.  Much different from the organized chaos we've become accustomed to here.  We knew we were in for a special day when we were joined by this guy:

Every adventure needs a good spirit guide to lead the way.

What could possibly go wrong with an albino German Shepard leading the way?  He and another pooch, a heavy-breathing bull terrier led us up most of the way, stopping at each corner until we caught up to them, then bounding ahead.  Waiting for gringoes, bounding ahead.  This pattern repeated for a while.  After a time, I couldn't hear the difference between the terrier's panting and my own.  We were apparently meant for each other.

The first couple of kilometers took us along a 'road' - kind of a Jeep trail - and through some groves of fruit trees.  The climb was steadily up and afforded us fantastic views back down toward the lake.  

We're smiling so this pic must have been on the way up!

There are signs along the way marking the kilometers, informing us how far we'd come.  Of course, I read them as 'how far I still had to go'.  Huffing and puffing, we came around a corner and saw this guy standing in the middle of the road.

Clearly, we should have turned back at this point.

This couldn't be a good omen.  Where the hell was our spirit guide, anyway!?  

At about the 2k mark there is a hydroelectric plant, a small one, that I imagine generates a bit of juice.  It's catching the flow of water that runs downhill from the waterfall.  At this spot, there is a small parking lot.  People who don't want to walk the entire distance can get a guide to drive them to this point.  From here it's about 2k to the top.  See, do the math: the 3k climb had now become 4k-ish.   

Lies, all lies.

This is totally it.  Right?  I mean, right?

We walked past the parking area, waved at some of the drivers who had brought less enthusiastic (re: smarter) hikers up in vehicles then we started up the trail.  A couple of the drivers started shouting at us, so we looked back and they were pointing us in another direction.  Apparently, the trail we had started up led to the top of the volcano.  We wanted the right fork, the path to the waterfall.  So thankful they caught us!  We fired the spirit guide on the spot.  Not sure what became of his partner, the canine heavy breather.

I'm waiting for the pterodactyl.

The trail from here was narrow and very steep in spots.  At one point we had to scramble over rocks around a bend in the river to pick up the trail again.  We took our time, stopping for breaks as needed - Bex! to take pictures, me to breathe.  Eventually we saw glimpses of the waterfall through the trees and soon enough - the top!  It was a relief to make it up.  I was one tired sweaty hiker.

Because there's no one to sue.

There were 8-10 others there already, enjoying the cool spray off the falls.  We hung out for while, took our shoes off and soaked our feet.  It felt good to get the damn shoes off!  The waterfall drops about 50m and the flow varies greatly during the year, from 'roaring' during the rainy season to 'barely a wisp of water' in the dry months.  We hit the sweet spot.

Waterfall spray - better than air conditioning

After about hour and with clouds looming, we headed back down.  Since it took longer than we expected (shoulda known better) we were hungry and low on water.  We walked along in silence, mostly.  Just wanted to get to the restaurant and eat!

No such luck.  When we got to the bottom, the place was empty.  The door was unlocked so we were able to refill packs.  But it didn't help the hunger situation at all.  On the verge of a meltdown, we walked down to the guard shack and asked where the nearest food was located.  He pointed us into San Ramon, about 300 meters.  It was the opposite direction we needed to eventually go, but it turned out just fine.  We ate a late lunch at Karina's.  

She (I assume it was Karina) came to our table, recited the menu options to us and waited for our order.  I ordered cerdo asada - stewed pork - and she immediately shot me down.  It would take too long, she warned.  The fastest dish would be fried chicken, she nudged.  So that's what we ordered, along with a big bottle of ice cold water and glorious Cokes!  During lunch, we watched as all manner of livestock wandered right by our table - chickens, pigs, cows.  Even a horse got pretty close.  I'll never scoff at dogs in restaurants in the states again.  As we ate and people rolled by on bikes, we joked about how much we would pay for their ride.  And how much a taxi could make off us if one happened by!

After re-fueling, we started the hike back home.  We were feeling better, yes, but just wanted to get home.  Walking along quietly, enjoying each others company and feeling pretty thankful that we were almost done, we knew we would be okay when we saw this painted on a community center:

With all the honey he would be Mead Pooh.

Come on, we've all had the 'wine poo's at some point, right?

We laughed and joked about this the rest of the way back.  Our day was longer and harder than expected, more stressful then we would have wanted.  But one little silly sign had our spirits rejuvenated and we finished the adventure walking hand in hand.

Finally back home, we soaked our feet in the lake, enjoyed the cold showers and hit the dinner buffet with healthy appetites.  Mmmm - pizza!! 

Good night!