Missing Days, Vol I: Laguna de Apoyo, La Isla de Ometepe

First, I must say that it is FREEZING back here in SF. 55 degrees--wtf?

Oh, and photos have been posted!! http://www.flickr.com/photos/jeanniemm

After another night in Grenada in a different hostel but still with the same city-wide power and resulting water outages (read: electricity going out at night, resulting in no water in the morning, and coming back mid-day all sticky and nasty in hopes of finally showering, only to find the water still not back up and working), we grabbed a cab to the Laguna de Apoyo. Water!

A little walking, grabbing another cab down the hill, and more walking found us at the Monkey Hut on the laguna, where we hung out with some other backpackers for a while, went swimming, and set up a taxi to San Jorge and lodging for our first night on Ometepe. A minor issue with the taxi company left us waiting for a bit, but we made it to San Jorge in time for the last ferry to Ometepe.
(Calvin waiting outside for our taxi)


The ferry from San Jorge (close to Rivas, see map below) drops off at Moyogalpa on the western end of the Volcan Concepcion half of the island. Took a taxi to our hotel/hostel in Merida.



In our various planning stages, we had been keeping the option of hiking one of the volcanoes open, depending on how we felt. However, as the ferry crossed the lake and Volcan Concepcion kept getting bigger and bigger, we knew that wasn't gonna happen. 10-hour hike? No thanks. The smaller of the two, Volcan Maderas, is an 8-hour hike, which we also passed on.

Instead, we decided to do the hike to the San Ramon waterfall. The entrance to the trail was about 4km down the road from the place we were staying and the hike up was supposedly 3 km (though that last km was more like 2) and was much steeper than I had expected. If I didn't know it before, I do now--I am not cut out for hiking. But, it was worth it: