Today I woke up in Laguna de Apoyo and ate a pleasant breakfast on the wifi platform/common area. I had eggs sunny side up, fruit, pancakes with syrup, yogurt, bacon and fruit juice for six bucks. I sat next to a guy named graham from London and enjoyed talking about life, he was in finance with music. The water turned back on and I took a cold shower, I was surprised but I guess you can't have it all for $10 a night.
After packing my bags I hopped on a "shuttle" (a normal car) to ometepe and rode with a guy from Israel. We had a lengthy discussion and exchanged perspectives, his from Israel and his time in the israeli army and mine from America and my time in the American army. He was a software engineer, we discussed computers / military, and the theory of thought and reasoning. He reminded me a lot of my cousin Sophie when he kept jumping to the end result. I really enjoyed conversing and going back and forth about ideas and why he does things vs why I do things etc. exposure to different cultures is priceless.
Before I knew it and mid conversation we arrived. Hastily we exchanged Facebook info as he was continuing to the border and then I got out of the taxi. Immediately someone approached me with tickets to ometepe. I noted the information and passed on buying a ticket, thinking it may be wiser not to buy from people harassing the taxi. I asked if there was wifi and they pointed me to a restaurant. Inside the restaurant I made friends with two women from Mallorca. The waiter had to be 12 and he saw me checking some messages on a video game and commented that he plays also and is level 10. I barely understand Spanish but I understood what he meant, and I showed him that I was also level 10 he was very surprised and we bumped fists. The ladies said they were going to wait an extra hour for the larger ferry which would be more safe. I didn't see any danger in a smaller ferry on a lake so I left them and caught the small ferry over by myself. I was very glad I grabbed a chicken sandwich and fries before I left as the ferry ride took way longer than I expected (over an hour).
Upon landing I saw someone trying to rent motorcycles and I approached one that I felt was a decent person, we exchanged a few comments and he earned my business. As we were going through the process I had some suspicions but he used the universal body language and facial expressions that allowed me to trust him. After we signed all the paperwork we were about t part ways when he saw the look on my face as I jumped on the bike. He asked if I had experience, I didn't want to tell him I hadn't ridden since I was a kid and that the one time I did I went head first over the handlebars of my buddies little toy bike. He suggested I take a practice lap and I did well enough to where he gave me the ok to take off.
I rode to the hostel and dropped off my stuff, the hostel recommended I take my time and catch sunset over on the beach. I decided against it and pushed to circle the entire island. I made my way to the other hostel which is between the two islands about twelve miles away, but the hike to the hostel was so long it took 30-45 minutes just to check it out. It was a really unique hostel with cottages and cabins secluded way back in the island. I've not seen any hostel like it, I suppose people go here to get away. Once I finished checking out this unique hostel I jumped back on the bike and ran into two guys I met earlier, I suggested they park their bike a little more seriously as they will not want to walk back down once they get up there. They thanked me and we split ways. I booked it back - after all i have been driving this motorcycle for almost two hours by now- I'm an expert at this point right? I was chasing the sunset. The sunset won with the help of about four hundred bugs in my eye. Along the way I had to stop a few times and take in some views. A fire left a huge charred open area where you could see from the island the entire bay and sunset from very far away, it was beautiful. Photos didn't do justice. Part of the drive back on the west side included driving through an airfield, the airfield seemed to run east west meaning the west side opened up more views to the sunset as it ran all the way to the water... more beautiful views. Somewhere on the trip my headphones fell out of my pocket :(
I made it back to the motorcycle return point and had to try and find someone to make a phone call for me. I met a guy named Wilber that helped me make the call- a decent translator. Apparently Wilber was here for the electronic music festival that was this past weekend and got so drunk he lost his wallet and slept in too late and now was stranded waiting for the ferry that already finished for the day. He said he was hungry and was without money. I asked how much he needed and he said 60 cordobas (spelling). I did the math in my head and rechecked my math, at 29 to 1 he was asking for $2. I gave him the two dollars for helping me make my call and he thanked me many times. While I was waiting for the bike rental manager to arrive I saw Wilber coming back with food, he sat and chatted with me for a while. He looked like he had a hard life, he said he never went to school, learned English in the streets, and worked in Costa Rica for a while but it's too expensive there. I was pretty impressed as his English was actually pretty good.
The bike rental manager arrived and everything was as expected, he gave me my deposit back and shook hands. He was a really nice guy throughout the process. I said goodbye to everyone and then went off looking for some food; I looked in the first restaurant and saw two blondes eating all by themselves. I decided that was probably some kind of setup where you get your organs stolen, so I moved to the next restaurant where I saw the two ladies from Spain and naturally they invited me to join them. We had a good meal although rather expensive ($15 for a pizza ?) and they had a salad with tiramisu. So far almost everything I've eaten has been hand made and freshly prepared-not bad even at American prices.
They helped me plan my trip to Costa Rica and Panama, as they had both traveled there already for several months. I decided to head to Manuel Antonio and then kind of take a different path through San Jose and aim for the Caribbean side due to their suggestions and wanting to end up and boca del toro.
After dinner the women refused my idea to take a taxi, I told them I was going to try to find one and if I did I would say my goodbye. Taxis were like two dollars and I wasn't trying to put myself in any situation to get robbed. There was no taxi so sadly I had to ask if they would protect me if any women tried to rape me (the department of state website has reported that many us citizens have been sexually assaulted here) since the fifteen minute walk back had a lot of unlit road in it. They promised they would. I really don't like walking if you don't have to, especially in Nicaragua in the dark with two foreign women.
We got to their hostel safely as it was closer in proximity and they insisted they had to walk me back to mine or I might not make it safely. True to their word they dropped me off and added me on Facebook, real gentlewomen. Hard to find chivalry these days but guys I assure you it exists just go to Mallorca.
The dogs here have loved me. Right now I have some kind of cute little dog sitting between my feet just relaxing with me as I write this, and earlier at breakfast I was trying to teach a dog at Apoyo to sit and catch food I threw to him. I don't touch stray dogs.. but this guy is a purebread chiwowa or something owned by someone at the hostel so I pet him a bit.
I went over options of what to do tomorrow and had one thing working against me, it's nine o'clock on a Sunday after an electronic music festival. No one is opening early tomorrow they said. I wanted to leave at 5 am to get everything in but they said 8 at the earliest, if I'm lucky. Really nice guys but they are serious about their island life, and relaxing.
I am exhausted. Lucas the bartender sat down and helped me plan out my time on ometepe. If the weather is good, perhaps I hike the big volcano. If it is cloudy there is no point to hiking and I will ride to the far volcano then climb an easy hike to the waterfall and enjoy the view there.
Everyone seems like they are recovering from this weekend and the place is rather empty, so I have plenty of time to ask questions and converse with the entire staff, I feel like I came at the perfect time.
It's almost ten pm and I'm ready to pass out. It is sad that I lost my headphones. I'm going to have to find some somewhere they are my key to sleeping when places are noisy (again, thankfully this hostel is not noisy).
Good night from Ometepe. Tomorrow I should be spending all day hiking or if cloudy, going to a waterfall and possibly zip lining - if all goes well I will catch a majestic sunset that the island is known for on my way back. I'm rather out of it and too tired to fully proofread this, apologies in advance for any errors.
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