Ometepe - the "Ecological Jewel" of Lago De Nicaragua

This weekend I headed to Ometepe, the largest lake island in the world, with Robert & Hanna (amigos de mi casa). As you have no doubt become aware, Nicaragua (and central America for that matter) is all about Volcanos, and none are more beautiful than Ometepe. It is home to two volcanos: the active Concepcion (which has recently started smoking) and the extinct Maderas.


Our target destination was the little town of Balgue, on a dirt road so bump it took an hour to cover the last 7km. We stayed at the 'rustic' Finca Magdelena, a huge converted farm house come hostel and working coffee plantation. We spent a lazy day relaxing and drinking the organic coffee, preparing for the "big climb" the next day, up Volcano Maderas. Check out our view!

From our "base camp", we set out for the 7 hour return climb. On departure we asked our guide if it would rain (it had rained pretty heavy the night before), his response "it is the rainy season"! The 1300m ascent involved a lot of scrambling, slipping and 'climbing' over boulders and tree roots. I must say the 4 hours up were pretty tough. I was concentrating so much on where I needed to place my next step, I almost missed the cloud forest and petroglyphs!

After finally arriving at the crater, a huge fluffy cloud had decided to attached itself to the top of the volcano, leaving me wondering "where is the exiquisitely beautiful crater lake"? It did have a slightly mystic (if not horror movie like) quality thought.

About 5 minutes into our descent it started to rain. When I say rain, I mean really rain! Pretty soon our little muddy path was a torrid waterfall, with no where for us to go except straight down in the middle of it. It eased up after about an hour, but the water rushed down our path for pretty much the entire way down. We were all happy to make it home without major injury - just loss of pride each time we slipped onto our butts! It certainly was an experience.