Nicaragua
Trip Start
Feb 28, 2010
1
66
67
Trip End
Oct 15, 2010
Granada, Nicaragua
Monday, September 27, 2010
Another of the islands is inhabited by monkeys. The island is not the monkey's natural habitat, and they depend on the tourists for food. Knowing this, I brought some bananas with me. I excited leaned over the edge of the boat throwing banana pieces to them when one of the monkeys jumped into our boat! I ran to the back of the boat and he went straight for my bag. Brian attempted to rescue my bag (while videoing the whole time) and the monkey bared his teeth at him. We were saved by our guide who grabbed his monkey stick and chased him off the boat.
After several days in Granada, we took a bus to Laguna de Apoyo. This is a clear blue lake thermally heated by the Apoyo volcano. We were the only people at our hotel and enjoyed a beautiful day of swimming and kayaking.
Our next stop was the Masaya volcano. Unfortunately the day we tried to visit the volcano was closed to visitors due to excess noxious gases. So we continued on the chicken bus to Isla Ometepe. Ometepe is an island of two volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua. After a long ride there (chicken bus to Rivas, then taxi to San Jorge, then boat to the island, then chicken bus to Santo Domingo), we settled in at Hotel Itsiam. We met some other travelers planning to hike the Madera Volcano the next day. We hadn't brought our hiking shoes (we left them at Jon's house) but the guide offered to bring us some. We agreed and the next morning he arrived with some smallish boots for Brian and some large-ish boots for me. After 15 minutes of walking I had a blister and cut on my foot so I decided the hike was not going to happen for me. Brian continued on for the next 8 hours and returned with some seriously bruised feet. I went to a thermal spring called Ojo de Agua and spent the afternoon floating in the pools.
