After three nights in San Juan, we made our way towards the island of Ometepe, home to those two active volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua – Volcán Concepción and its sister, Volcán Maderas. Volcán Concepción is still active, having last erupted in 2010 while Maderas has never been active.  At 1600m tall, Volcán Concepción is the 2nd tallest mountain in all of Nicaragua just behind San Cristobal, and is known for its perfect cone shape.  Madereas, while shorter, is home to a laguna inside its crater.  It’s also where they grow coffee and cacao!!!!

From San Juan, it was a $25USD taxi ride to San Jorge, followed by a boat ride.

I am NOT sure how I felt about getting on these boats.  They were…somewhat…rickety.  The fare was like $1USD a person, and they gave everyone a life vest that looked like it had first been run over by a bunch of trucks.  Given that this lake is home to bull sharks, I just hope this boat doesn’t fail and we end up in the lake.  On the positive front, we didn’t.

Our ferry  ride took about an hour, after which we headed into another taxi towards the eastern side of the island near Altagracia.  My bud mentioned something about being nervous because he never heard back from the hotel he was booking from, but we arrived to what looked like a picturesque banana plantation that opened up into clearing where a colonial compound sat.  And this compound had a sweet lake view.  Nice!  And they were expecting us!  Even better!

This was our view right outside of the bedroom.

My bud and I found a hammock and we settled in nicely.

Evening came and we had to talk plans for the next day.  Nicholas had planned a surprise activity involving a guide who then showed up to give us a brief.

“Tomorrow will be strenuous.  We will be hiking up to the top of Volcán Concepción.   The hike will take between 8-10 hours.  Make sure you pack a lot of food, as well as 4L of water per person.  It will be cold and windy.  Make sure you bring a jacket.”

“Just how strenuous is strenous?  how windy?  I didn’t bring a jacket.   I wasn’t prepared for this” says Pokin.

“Pretty strenuous.  We start at 6am”

“I think we better start at 5,” says Pokin.  “Also, we didn’t bring food.”  She did not say that.  I’m not getting up at 5.  What do you mean we don’t have food?

“Sure, we’ll be here by 5am.  We can pick up a couple sandwiches for the each of you.”

“What did you sign us up for?” says Pokin to Nick.  He wisely says nothing.

I think it’s time to change the subject.  Oh and look dinner is here!  Because we are in a pretty remote little compound, we didn’t even think to look elsewhere for food.  There was a cook on the compound who made breakfast, lunch and dinner every day.  Breakfast was included, lunch was $6 and dinner $9.  Because Ometepe has rich volcanic soil and pesticides are expensive, a lot of foods are actually organic.  My bud tells me the food is delicious.  I’m just looking around wishing I knew what a cacao plant looked like.

Well, with our early start, we’d better head to bed.  No gaming for this bear.