We’ve arrived in Nicaragua now. Our first stop is the volcano island of Ometepe that is located in lake Nicaragua. Since travelling by public busses takes quite some time in Central America we stayed for one night in Liberia and the next morning we headed to Penas Blancas, the border crossing between Costa Rica and Nicaragua, again by public bus. Shortly before we reached the border the bus was stopped by the police who checked the passports of all travellers. Two people who appeared to be locals were not allowed to go further and had to leave the bus on the stretch of dirt beside the road where we had been stopped. We didn’t know why and asked ourselves how they would get away from there?

A few minutes after that we had arrived at Penas Blancas with only a rough idea of how the act of border-crossing really worked. We had only read some general remarks on the internet e.g. that there were no signs or anything and we would have to figure things out ourselves. Had we taken a more expensive bus from a private company like Tica Bus instead of the public bus all the formalities would have been handled by somebody else for us. We knew that but we went for the cheaper option anyway.

The whole process was a bit confusing but summarized shortly we had to do the following things:

1. Pay 8 $ dollars departure tax per person in Costa Rica
2. Get a departure stamp in our passports
3. Walk 600 meters across no-mans-land
4. Show our passports to costa-rican police officers
5. Show our passports to nicaraguan police officers wearing surgical masks
6. Go to a makeshift tent and have our body temperature checked by people with surgical masks and rubber gloves
7. Show our passports to masked people, answer some questions and receive a scrap of paper
8. Pay 1 $ each and receive another scrap of paper
9. Show our passports at a counter to a nicaraguan official with a surgical mask, hand over the papers, pay 13 $ each and receive an immigration stamp
10. Show our passports and the stamp to officials with surgical masks and walk through a small gate in a rickety fence
11. Arrive in Nicaragua

There we were immediately “assaulted” by taxi drivers and other people who wanted us to buy their wares or services. We said “No gracias” about a thousand times and finally got herded into a waiting bus after we had uttered our destination Rivas. The buses in Nicaragua are not owned by public companies but by private persons or small enterprises. They are mostly old school buses from the USA but most owners paint and decorate them really nicely. Even so you’re happy to arrive in one piece with a lot of them. Buses like that are called chicken buses. From Rivas we shared a taxi ride with a dutch couple to San Jorge where the ferry to the Isla de Ometepe left.

The weather wasn’t too nice and the volcano island showed itself like this:

The ferry ride was an adventure since the boat was tiny and there was strong wind that caused some notable waves on the lake. When you looked out of the window during the ride the view would bop up and down several meters while the little ferry churned through the waves. It was good fun but made us feel a bit queasy in the end.

After we had arived in Ometepe we were beset by taxi drivers, tour guides and people offering accomodation again and no-graciased our way through the little town of Moyogalpa. We spent the first night there in a shitty hostel which we had found in the Lonely Planet guide where it was described as the best value option. The only good thing about that accomodation was that we discovered a truck camper standing in the yard. We had seen quite a few pictures of those on the internet since we intend to buy one as soon as we reach the USA but this was the first time we had actually stood in front of one. We were a bit shocked how huge it was! Later that day we met the owners who turned out to be two very nice people from Switzerland – Angela and Claudio. They had come more or less the way we intend to take north and they  endured all our questions good-naturedly and offered some very useful hints and insights.

The next day we fled from Moyogalpa to the eastern half of the island were we hoped to find a nicer and more quiet spot with better accomodation than Moyogalpa. We succeeded and found another little piece of paradise named “El Zopilote”. We made it our base to explore the island but first we had to wait for better weather. After a few days the rain let up and we had the first really sunny and hot day. We rented a scooter right away and set out to discover Ometepe. It was also the first day we were actually able to see the two volcanos which had hid themselves behind clouds the days before.

We also went to Moyogalpa to buy some groceries and other much needed things and the road there crosses the runway of the island’s little airstrip.

There’s only a few cars on Ometepe but a lot of people own bicycles, scooters and motorcycles. Even so the traffic is so scarce that dogs lie sleeping in the middle of the road here or there. Also everyone seems to at least own one pig, cow, horse or a few chickens and dogs which run around everywhere. Apart from that there’s also the occasional rider or horse-drawn carriage. Oh and one snake crossing the road! It’s funny when you’re going for a walk and hear grunting from the shrubbery at the side of the road everywhere. Also the grazing pigs, cows and horses have to be shooed away from the football fields first before there’s a game.

On our way back at the end of the day we came upon a pickup truck parked at the side of the road that had a load of bananas in the back. A group of chapucine monkeys had discovered it and quickly caused a commotion of people taking pictures of them and laughing at their shenanigans.

To finish the day we went for a bite to eat at a “comederia” at the beach of Santo Domingo. There were two parrots there and while one of them distracted us with talking and laughing all the time the other one sneaked up on us to steal some food.

Here he’s devouring a piece of my patacones he had snatched.

After that he went for some garlic salsa and then found every single rice corn I had left on the plate. Then he tried to bite me.

That’s it for the moment from the island of Ometepe. There’s one last thing to mention – apparently my name is not Martin anymore but “Marting” since everyone here calls me that.