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!

Island Life

We got up early on Thursday so that we could spend a little time exploring Granada before catching a ferry to the island. Granada is a very pretty colonial town with many interesting churches and a nice central park. We walked around so that Mike could take pictures and we even went inside a couple of the churches. Although they're quite elaborate and pretty on the outside, they are awfully barren on the inside. They do contain some interesting statues though. Most of the statues are several hundred years old and are made of wood. They're painted, and some of them are clothed and bewigged as well. It's a kind of creepy effect: curly doll hair on an old wooden Jesus dressed in purple crushed velvet. You can judge for yourself from the picture below.



The yellow building in the distance is one of the Granada churches.



This is another of the churches.



A (creepy) wooden Jesus statue dressed in purple crushed velvet and a curly doll wig. The shepherd Jesus holding a stuffed lamb was fun too, but Mike didn't get a picture of that one.



Cigar rolling at a shop in Granada.

In the afternoon we boarded a ferry for the 3.5 hour boat ride to Ometepe Island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua. The island is made of two volcanoes -- one active and one containing a lagoon in its crater. Our first night on the island we stayed on the north side by the active volcano in a town called Altagracia.



In the distance you can see Concepcion, the active volcano on Ometepe Island. The view is from our ferry as we docked just outside of Altagracia.



The sunset from the dock on Ometepe Island.

The next day we biked around to the opposite side of the island. The roads are dirt and are therefore rather bumpy, but they make things interesting. We saw lots of wild-ish pigs, cows, and horses (I say "wild-ish" because although I am sure they belong to someone, they don't look particularly well cared for and they roam about anywhere they please), and we spotted several really pretty butterflies and blue birds with long tails. Halfway to our destination we stopped at a tourist trap called Ojo de Agua. It's basically a pool filled with natural water (read: "not chlorinated and a little dirty") equipped with a rope swing. It was a nice stop on a hot day, but nothing too exciting. We hopped back on our bikes after an hour or so and biked the rest of the way to a town called Merida.



Pigs chillin' by the side of the road.



A pretty butterfly -- it's kind of hard to tell in the picture, but the top half of its wing is translucent.



The pool and rope swing at Ojo de Agua.



Plantains are big business on the island (and I think that's what these are).

Hacienda Merida is a nice hostel complete with loads of hammocks, wi-fi, a dock on the lake, buffet-style meals, kayaks, etc. It also serves as a great base camp for the island's outdoor activities. Today we rented the kayaks for a bit and paddled out to the two "Monkey Islands" nearby. One island contains two spider monkeys and the other contains a hoard of capuchin monkeys. All of the monkeys were rescued from abusive pet owners and placed on the islands to live in freedom. They're supposedly really aggressive, so we were advised against going too close; apparently, they have pretty sharp teeth. They're cute from a safe distance, though. Tomorrow we are thinking about hiking to the top of the volcano with a lagoon in its crater, so hopefully I can fill you in on that trip soon. In the meantime, here are some more pictures:



A lot of the motels in Nicaragua rent their rooms by the hour. Although they may be difficult to read in the picture, the hourly rates are painted on the side of this motel.



A team participating in the Tour de Nicaragua. You may recall that we ran into this event a few days ago while on the road ourselves.