Ometepe ( San Juan Del Sur to Ometepe by bus)

Another ridiculously hot day ensued as we packed in anticipation of another ride on the local chicken bus so left the safety of our studio accommodation and walked down to the bus stop to wait for a bus......and waited.....and waited......and waited much to the interest of the local contingent of  chicken bus passengers. The heat was intense even though we were in the shade and we could only wish our bus would have air-con but we had a sneaky feeling it would not be. Just before we both melted in the heat into puddles of British backpacker slush the bus came burping and chugging around the corner to meet us. The bus was already pretty full and was standing room only if you could get in the door. We elected the back door of said 'school bus' and our rucksacks were snatched off us and hauled onto the roof before we could even protest (sorry again Lonely Planet for not following your advice) as we wanted them inside but clearly that was not going to happen as we saw the mass of heaving bodies inside fighting for breathing space. We dithered for a split second in the mayhem and as we did the bus started to pull away with us still on the road behind it. Desperate not to lose our luggage I ran after the bus and managed to grab the rear roof ladder and get a foot on the rear platform while Kathy had grabbed the still open back door and was swinging wildly with one hand on the handle and another on the window jam legs akimbo kicking away trying to locate the bumper ledge to secure a footing while the bus gathered more speed. After securing my foothold and getting 2 hands on the ladder I looked across the doorway in horror to see Kathy with a face of panic hanging on for dear life as her feet were higher than her body as she had a death grasp on the still wildly flapping open door. The worst thing is I could do nothing because if I let go I would fall onto the road as well if I tried to help. This looked like the end of our world tour here and now. This went on for what seemed ages but I am sure it must have only been 10 seconds until the conductor/ticket guy saw we were in trouble and grabbed Kathy by her flailing arm and accompanied by what seemed like all the passengers on the rear of the bus collectively pulled her in to the safety of the inside of the bus. I received no preferential treatment and had to push my way into the the throng of people to get into the bus. I think we were only helped because they wanted to close the back door to stop more people falling out. By this time the bus was doing over 40mph and had no intention of stopping to save 2 penny pinching British backpackers.

Climbing this tree is how comfortable a chicken bus is to ride on. 

  Hearts still pounding with the adrenaline rush we elbowed a tight niche for ourselves in the mass of panting overheated bodies. We did not think it could get any hotter or anymore cramped but that just shows how naive we are. Stop after stop the bus pulled up and more and more people were jammed into the bus. I could not believe how many people they could get into this tin can. I wanted to call up Roy Castle and get him to come down to verify it as a new  Guinness book world record attempt. Somehow in the mayhem Kathy had managed to acquire the edge of a seat at the back which was mainly taken up with an old fat woman who was holding a chicken under one arm doing her best to stop the chicken from being suffocated by the other passengers. I had the undeniable pleasure of being in the middle of 2 very rotund ladies with muffin tops the size of tractor tyres being the British beef in their sandwich. Usually I would relish this sort of female interaction but this time there was no pleasure involved only sweat and pain. Kathy managed to curb her sexual impulses as she had a pair of huge breasts shoved in her face for the whole journey which was not to her wishes. After an hour of this hell, and they had the cheek to charge us £1 each for the fun of the ride, we arrived at the bus terminal at Rivas just before both of us reached our breaking point and I turned into Micheal Douglas and made my own version of Falling Down. The bus emptied, we were reunited with our bags, nothing missing luckily and looked for our connection for San Jorge where the port was for the ferry to the island of Ometepe. We could not find the bus we needed, no one else was going our way so we ended up looking stranded. We became prime targets for the Taxi mafia, and they worked us good, tag teaming with each other until out of frustration and anger we fell for it and paid what we found out later to be 3x the going rate to get us to the port.  I was surprised the taxi made it as I am sure he had stolen it from a demolition derby the day before and this one was most certainly one of the losing cars. I was glad to hand over the overpriced fee in the hope I helped him buy some suspension for his car which he clearly thought it did not need as it scraped along the road.

Kathy notices how fresh the onions looked this morning before boarding the ferry. 

   Next the ferry port. It was actually well organised, cheap at about £1 each and had no queues. We boarded a very suspect looking boat called The Grand Sultana which is a strange name to call  boat but somehow was fitting as the outside of it was wrinkled and dented so badly it did look like a dehydrated grape. After bagging seats for a change we sat down a waited for an hour for the ferry to load up with vehicles and leave and for our patience for waiting, we were rewarded with an hours worth of exhaust fumes being inhaled which with the rocking of the boat sent us off into a nice nap. Just before disembarking we awoke with the loud bellow from the klaxon, and for some reason I had a splitting headache and felt groggy. We stumbled off the ferry onto the dock and luckily my messaging the farm stay we had booked had turned up to collect us. Hooray! We piled into a very Indian looking rickshaw and 10 minutes latter we were being shown our room which although large had no redeeming features to reassure us this was going to be a comfortable stay. It was how can we say......rustic and basic.....and riddled with enough bugs to keep David Bellamy lisping with joy. This was reinforced after our first couple of hours with poor Kathy receiving 30 bites. Again I wanted to reach for the phone and summon Roy Castle off his death bed for another world record attempt. I had an afternoon nap in the hammock on the terrace and woke up with a few red welts and after a nights rest even with our mosquito net fastened up, we awoke with a few talking points about who had the itchiest and most obscure bite. This theme carried on for the rest of our stay but you get the gist.....and yes we did wear repellent. The farm also had 3 dogs that were riddled with fleas that had taken a fondness to Kathy and I, who were proving very difficult to deter. Sitting outside, bugs would randomly dive bomb us, geckos would just fall off the ceiling and midges would get stuck on your eyeball.

My favourite place while staying at the farm stay. 

 Did I tell you this Island was a protected biodiversity zone.  Basically it is a stunning location, made up of 2 volcanoes in the middle of a freshwater lake with an abundance of wildlife and a very low population density mainly due the the volcano being recently active. The island only has one paved road, only one bus route, no traffic and a nice easy going laid back feel. We hired a bike and as you drove around you would come across horses, cows, pigs,chickens,dogs, just going about their business in the middle of the road. It was all a bit random and had a feel like India but without the constant chaos or pollution/rubbish. The people were easy going and friendly and there was no problem about safety here as on some parts of the mainland.

This little chap couldn't stop laughing at my saucy jokes. 

    Next day, after a traditional Nicaraguan breakfast of scrambled eggs and gallo pinto (rice and beans....actually taste a lot better than it sounds) we revved up the bike and headed to our first destination which was called Ojo de Agua (eye of water) which was a natural volcanic spring that gushed mineral rich spring water into a massive man made pool which was perfect for swimming in. This ticked all the boxes as it was so hot here. After paying our $5 each we went in, found 2 deckchairs by the pool side and there we stayed for the whole day as it was such a beautiful location and the water so refreshing we could not bare to part ourselves from it. From there we could buy fresh coconuts to drink from and empanadas to munch from an old lady peddling her home made wares poolside, who even had homemade ice cream!

The blues sister was enjoying sucking the brains out of a coconut.

  That night we had dinner at an appalling pizza restaurant who took over an hour to cook a pizza, even then the base was raw dough in the middle, took my beer away still half full, then sulked when I asked for it back, overcharged us on the bill and when we pointed it out did not even apologise. That's one for Tripadvisor to put online later me thinks.
   Next day a concerted effort to get up early, which actually was not a problem as our neighbour likes to crank his stereo up to 11 and blast out American 80's cheesy rock from about 6am, saw us at Charco Verde lagoon to find Howler monkeys in a protected bio reserve. After half an hour of stalking through the trees we were lucky enough to find 3 and one even had a baby. Also we saw a tarantula and loads of very exotic birds which I have no idea what they were called but looked nice. They also had a very impressive butterfly enclosure with some attractive and exotic species accompanied with a background of classical music in a tropical garden. In the centre was a pond with terrapins whose little heads followed you as you walked around them. It was a good deal for the $5 we paid each to get in.

This monkey was also howling with laughter at my saucy jokes.

Now it was midday and hot,hot,hot so burned back to base to regroup and chill. Later that day we went to a beach which had a large spit of sand which protruded into the lake  producing our most stunning sunset photos yet. The locals considered the location holy and called it the point of Christ. Even better Jesus had a promotion on the cold beers being served and bottles of 45p of cold Victoria Frost's were gladly consumed with his blessing.

If Carlsberg made sunsets this would be it. 

   Next day we got lazy, maybe we had a touch of Malaria from all the bites we were accumulating or it could have been the caffeine withdrawal as it was too hot to drink any hot drinks after 6am. Eventually at midday we did strike out and tried the north of the island ring road to explore. Our farm stay owner had told us the road was in a terrible condition but we took it with a pinch of salt. That pinch turned into a mountain as the road was terrible as we crawled along on the bike trying not to wreck it, with Kathy having to jump off in places to allow the bike to scramble across the terrain. We did make it after a couple of hours of bum numbing torture to arrive at a town called Altagracia which had a town square and some roadworks but that was it. We scored a fresh orange juice off a peddling mobile stall on the square, played on the kids playground swings, filled up with gas then headed back to the same beach that we were at yesterday to take full advantage of those cheap cold sunset beers on offer again.

Here we were standing in the middle of the airport runway as the road goes straight across it being backed by a jolly smoking volcano. 

   Back at base later we had a run in with the girl of another couple who decided that our terrace furniture was quite desirable and helped themselves to it even though we paid extra to have a room with a terrace and they had a small sweaty cell out the back. We were polite to them both, the bloke was OK but the girl was a little bitch and dismissive so I just went over and reprocessed the furniture and they didn't have the front to stop me. We then locked up the furniture before we went out to dinner so they could not persist with their petty game. Funny enough, we chose the same restaurant as them, totally randomly, so as you would expect pulled up a table next to them and gave them the odd scowling glance which worked well as they couldn't eat quick enough and bail the joint.
  We decided that 4 nights was enough battling with the mossies, a battle we were losing badly so next morning we elected our next destination that was going to be Granada.