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!