Molly and Chelcy go to Ometepe and San Juan del Sur!!

What started as a weekend excursion quickly turned into a weekend full of adventure...

Day 1:Saturday

Our adventure began with a 5 am stroll to the bus stop. It was still a little dark out and I was still pretty much asleep until I took one wrong step, slipped in the mud and before I knew it I was sprawled out in the middle of the nasty muddy curb grim in the middle of Granada. I got up covered in nasty, probably disease invested, mug all over my legs and a bleeding knee! We quickly laughed in off and tried not to call to but attention to the little incident. Luckily a taxi driver came around the next corner, and took us to the bus stop, and he cleaned up my knee with a little rag he had! The best part was that the bus stop is directly in front of the clinic that Chelcy is based out of, so the snuck me in and cleaned up my knee and bandaged me up before the bus came!

One thing about Nicaraguans is that they can fit an incredible amount of people and things in one very small space. They packed SO many people into our bus to Rivas, Chelcy had to stand for about 30 mins before she got to sit down. It was a very pretty bus ride through the countryside of Nicaragua! From Rivas, we got in another Taxi to the ferry, took the ferry to Ometepe and another taxi to our hotel! The whole trip took about 5hrs! Ometepe is a beautiful but very isolated island made up of two really big volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. So finally after a very very bumpy ride, which is an understatement, from the ferry we made it to our hotel!

We had a quick snack we headed to Ojos del Aqua, which is a amazing natural spring with crystal clear, 70 degree water! Oh, I should mention that we got to the spring on horse back, wearing flipflops and shorts! We rode through fields of plantains, rice, corn and wheat, and through the forest to Ojos del Aqua! We swam around for a while, as our horses waited for us, and tried to soak up as much of the cold water as we could! It was a very nice change since it has been in the 90s since we got here! Of course all the locals stared at us, as always, and the little kids ask their parents why our skin looks so weird! It think they are referring to our freckles, because they dont really have freckles here! After enjoy the cold, clean water we jumped back on our horses and headed to the beach!

As soon as we hit the sand of the beach the horses took off running as fast as they could! It was such a rush! The sand was beautiful and the volcano was directly in front of us! I tried to slow down a little for Chelcy and her horse to catch up, but every time my horse got a glimpse of them getting closer she would get a burst of energy and run even harder. It was so amazing because we were literally flying down the beach! Once we got back, I could barely get off the horse! Shorts, wet legs and leather do not do very well rubbing together for long periods of time! So up to this point my injuries include: busted up knee, skin-leather chaffing on legs and ankles, blisters on the hands from trying to not lose my camera on the ride, and back pain from my backpack full of 3 liters of water smacking down on me the whole time...but Chelcy and I both had the biggest smiles on our faces! We were a mess but we were so happy! We went back to our hotel an laid out on the beach overlooking the volcano thinking about how lucky we are to be there!

We finally got up the energy to walk down the beach to his little vegetarian restaurant we spotted! It was the cutest little beach cabana and the food/smoothes were absolutely AMAZING! There was this parrot there that talked to us in spanish throughout dinner! He was awesome!

After relaxing and eating we went back to our hotel to sleep and recover from our day...

Day 2: Sunday

We started our adventure on Sunday at 7 am, so we got to sleep in!! We met up with our guide and headed by truck to the base of one of the volcanoes! We drive about 5 miles an hour because the roads were SO rough, it was literally chuncks of rocks we were driving on! We drove through lots of little towns on a road lined with mango trees. Our guide talked to us about all the different types of plants and trees and about the lifestyle of the families there. He noticed that Chelcy and I would get really excited every time we saw a pig, so he explained that every pig has it{s purpose...one is the birthday pig, ones the Christmas pig, the independence day pig and so on...We didnt really like hearing that! I try to forget that the reason why they have so many animals is because they are dinner! :(

So we finally made it to the base of the volcano and started our hike!! Ive done my fair share of mountain climbing before and this one was pretty intense! It was a very interesting hike through the forest and around dried up rivers. When we first started we heard these loud howling, yelling noises! It sounded like huge gorilla noises! Luckily they were not gorillas, but they were howler monkeys! When we were hiking we looked up into this tree and there was a whole pack of them sitting in the tree above us just watching us. They were very relaxed and seemed to just be trying to figure out what we were! Theres just something about monkeys thats always really cool, especially when you run into then in the wild! We also saw lots of colorful birds, and we saw this big line of army ants moving together in this big unit! It was pretty neat! After our pretty intense hike we finally made it to the waterfall in San Ramon! It was a pretty high waterfall, but unfortunately the pool at the bottom wasnt very big, since were in the dry season, so no swimming for us! We probably sat up there for about an hour admiring its natural beauty and it was so calming up there, I never wanted to leave! I didnt realize how steep the hike was until we started down. Chelcy only had a slight slip and fall on the way down, which is pretty good considering the steepness.

After an exhausting day we collapsed on the beach as soon as we got back to the hotel! I probably should have mentioned earlier that we had a slight dilemma...on the way to the island we got completely ripped off and ended up paying 30 US dollars for a taxi! The problem is that that was pretty much more than half of the money we brought, since everything in Nicaragua has been so cheap so far. We were not prepared to spend 30 bucks on a taxi! And this island only has one ATM machine on the complete opposite side of the island, and theres probably a good chance it doesnt work. So we figured out that we had exactly enough money to get back to Granada, but we werent allowed to eat out or get the amazing smoothies we were craving! Luckily we could eat at the hotel because we could put it on the room which we paid for by credit card.

So we decided we were going to wake up at 4 am, catch the 4:45 am bus and head home...

Day 3: Monday

So apparently while we were off on our hike, swarms of ants decided to infest our room! So we tried to sleep but we keep getting covered by ants and it was horribly hot, with only a single fan trying to circulate air in the whole room...I think I probably only got maybe 2 hrs of sleep. Ive never been so excited for the alarm to go off meaning we can get out of there! So there we were excited to get out of our room, waiting in the dark, listening to howler monkeys, waiting for the 4:45 am bus. So...we come to find out that the 4:45 bus only comes SOMETIMES and we had to now wait for the 5:30 am bus. I m not one to complain but I was absolutely exhausted, ants were climbing out of my backpack, we had no money, bugs kept flying into me and Ive never wanted to get off an island so bad! This negative attitude only lasted about 10 minutes because as soon as we got on the school bus there were of course no seats. So there we stand hanging on to the bar in the middle of the bus, full of Nicaraguans staring at us and we were literally swinging back and forth because the road was insanely bumpy! Chelcy and I both looked at each other and couldnt help but to start laughing hysterically at the situation. It felt like we were on a disney ride the whole way back to the ferry!

So we were sitting on the ferry and I swore that I kept hearing chicken noises. So finally I located the sound and realized 1. yes those were chicken noises 2. and the sound was coming from a potato sack an the ground next to me...this was one of those moments that i just laughed and couldnt believe that im are still surprised by these things!!

So we were definitely being watched over this weekend, because as soon as we got to Rivas we were able to find a working ATM machine! I have never been so happy to see money in my life! Since it was only about 8:30 am and we now have money, we jumped back in the cab and headed to San Juan del Sur!

San Juan del Sur is a cute little surfer town right on the beach about 45mins from Rivas. So we spent the day walking around, laying on the beach, eating Italian food and ice cream! After a rather stressful morning we ended our mini vacation on a good note!

But our adventure was not yet over! As soon as we got back to Rivas, we had to literally run and jump in the back of a moving bus back to Granada! We were all settled in when the bus stopped and was the driver told us that we were at Granada and we needed to get off. We looked around, realized that the bus had stopped on the side of the road in the middle of nowhere. We both looked at each other confused and made it clear that we live in Granada and this was NOT Granada. They assured us that this was Granada and made us get off the bus. We saw some motortaxis on the side of the street and after negotiating prices between two drivers we were now on a motortaxi headed home! We keep laughing about how we had no idea where exactly we were and then we realize that we are getting pulled over by a police man on foot! So we sat in the back as the police officer talked to our driver and then asked us a whole bunch of questions about who we were, what we were doing in Granada, where we were living and so on...I{m not exactly sure why we got pulled over, but I think our driver got a fine for driving a motortaxi into the city? So the police let us go and we finally made it back home!!

It was a very eventful weekend and we literally looked like dirty hippies as we walked back to our houses! It was one of the most exciting and fun weekends Ive had!!

And Ive never been so happy that we had running water when I got home!

Chelcy is putting up pictures on her blog, since my computer shuts down every time I try! The link to her site is in the top right corner!