Central American Country Numero Seis

Well, we've made it to our final destination country for this leg of our journey; Mike and I will be spending the next 2 weeks in Costa Rica before heading back to the States to visit family and friends and attend my sister's wedding (so excited!).

On Tuesday morning we left the island of Ometepe and its thigh-trashing volcanoes behind (Can you believe we're still in pain 3 days later? Pathetic.). We caught an early ferry to the mainland on the western edge of the lake and began our 40 km ride south to the border. It proved an easy crossing as usual, and we continued another 20 km to our first stop in Costa Rica: La Cruz.

La Cruz provided an excellent view of the Pacific in the distance, but it turned out to be an interesting stop for a couple of other reasons, as well. First of all, there was some kind of event at the parque central featuring dances and costumes. We saw tons of cute little kids dressed up in fancy dresses and suits. The girls all had buns and flowers in their hair and the boys wore decorated straw hats. One group we saw perform consisted of kids around 6 years old, and we also saw some older teenagers in costume, though we missed their dance. I'll try to add some photos later, but it was already quite dark outside and I don't think they turned out real well. After we returned from our stroll around the park and dinner we met a German couple staying at our hotel. They, too, are on a bike trip, but theirs has taken them around the world. They've been traveling since March 2006 and have put 39,000 kilometers on their bikes. Even crazier still, the man is 68 years old and puts me to shame! Just to name a few countries, they've been through Turkey, Iran, India, Vietnam, Australia, Bolivia, Peru, Columbia, Panama, and loads more. Now that's a good way to spend retirement!

Today we battled some strong crosswinds to make it to a pretty large city called Liberia. One thing that we've noticed is that Costa Rica is a lot cleaner than its Central American neighbors -- almost sterile in comparison. We haven't seen much trash or many dead animals on the road; all of the buses have been greyhound-style rather than hand-me-down school buses; and most people we've seen have been driving 4-door sedans instead of pedalling bikes, driving carts pulled by donkeys, riding horses, walking, or piling into full-to-bursting pickup trucks. The police seem to be on virtually every street corner as well. With its more American atmosphere, Costa Rica comes with U.S. prices once more too (bummer!). Perhaps it will be good in helping us transition back to the States for a bit though -- maybe we won't go into complete culture shock when we arrive back home in two weeks.

Costa Rica has certainly been beautiful so far, and we're looking forward to a range of activities in the upcoming days. We'll head to the beaches in the northwest first, then bike east toward the volcanoes and hot springs north of San Jose. We've already seen some monkeys chillin' in the trees by the highway, and Mike caught sight of an awesome bird, so we're hoping to see some neat wildlife as well.

For now, I'll give you a taste of our hike up Volcan Maderas and a few other photos from the island. Oh, and don't miss the new poll to the left!



Crazy cloud forest trees!



The monkeys are watching our progress.



Here are some more crazy vines and trees. Can you picture us swinging through these all day?



Mike's favorite plant. Remind you of anything?



Our summit shot. It's not the best photo of the two of us, but you can kind of see the crater lake behind us.



Here's a better shot of just the lake. We were told that it only has about 2 meters of water in it, but that the mud on the bottom goes much, much deeper.



Here's a view of Lake Nicaragua and Isla Ometepe below from one of the few breaks in the dense jungle vegetation.



Concepcion, the other volcano on Ometepe. This one's active and emits toxic gases, so we didn't climb it (as if that's the only reason...).



A view of Concepcion from the west.



Say, "Bacon!" Actually, we ate at a restaurant in Moyogalpa that claimed to have the only bacon available on the island. With as many pigs as there are running around, you'd think the islanders would have lots of crispy bacon for breakfast.



"Don't mind me." This is what we had to contend with on the roads of Ometepe: lots of dirt, rocks, cows, and cow patties.

Jackie and Mike vs. the Volcano

We had a blast yesterday hiking up Volcano Maderas, but it pretty much kicked my ass. I thought I was in pretty good shape from all the biking we've done, but those muscles didn't help me hike 1300 meters up...and back down. I can barely walk. I was really dreading our bike ride to Moyogalpa this afternoon, but it turns out that my body hurts much less when I'm back on my bike. Guess that's where it's accustomed to being these days. Anyways, back to the volcano...

We got up nice and early, ate breakfast, and set out toward the volcano at 8:00. We were in the company of our guide, Manuel, and Eva, a Polish girl who helped translate some of our guide's more complex sentences. After an hour of hiking we were pouring sweat, but we were barely starting to climb. Mike paused to ring out his shirt, and we moved on. We saw quite a bit of wildlife including howler and capuchin monkeys, beautiful birds, and even crabs (don't ask me what they were doing 1000 ft. up on the slopes of a volcano). Things really started getting interesting when we made it up into the cloud forest, though. It's a whole new ecosystem to me, and the plant life is amazing. Mike hasn't uploaded the photos yet, but I can't wait to post them. The trees are so tangled and twisted, and everything is covered with hanging vines and moss. It's really wet and muddy too, which makes for a sloshing good time. I felt like Tarzan, swinging around on branches and vines. After 4 and 1/2 hours, we reached the top...at which point we began our descent into the crater.

We only went down into the crater about halfway, where we found an excellent outcropping of rock from which to view the crater lake. We sat down and ate lunch, resting up for our long hike back.

Down is always harder for me because my knees aren't in the best shape, but we slowly worked our way back to the bottom. It turned a bit treacherous when a good old-fashioned tropical rainstorm decided to dump a little water on us. Suddenly our path was a muddy, slippery river, steeply winding its way down the side of the volcano. Everyone slipped some, but luckily none of us twisted an ankle, took a really hard fall, or careened of the side of a cliff. The rain pissed off the monkeys, who became particularly vocal on the way down. Eventually, just after the sun went down, we made it to the bottom. We limped into our hotel at 6:30. Mike and I ate well, took hour-long cold showers (to get all the mud off), and went to bed early.

Today we woke up a bit sore (Ha! A bit...) and took our time checking out and leaving Hacienda Merida. This afternoon we biked halfway around the island to get to a town called Moyogalpa. I had tire problems, so we stopped to get the tube patched, but an hour later it was leaking again. By that time it was getting dark, so I just pumped it up a few more times so that we could make it to town (which we barely did by nightfall). Tomorrow we'll catch a ferry from here back to the mainland and then head to Costa Rica.

I'll be posting pictures from our epic Volcano Maderas hike soon, but for now here are our favorite pics from the dock at Hacienda Merida:



I didn't know lions could fly!



I'm a copycat, but I like this photo anyway.

One last thing: the answer to the latest poll. "One person less, one tortilla extra" is actually a Honduran proverb. The rest are Nicaraguan. Good job if you guessed right! I'll try to come up with a new poll soon!