Island of Two Volcanoes

Last week was Semana Santa, or Holy Week, and is the biggest vacation time for Nicas. I decided to go to Ometepe, the island inside Nicaragua’s biggest lake. It’s the biggest lake island in the world and as of last year is now a UNESCO Heritage Site by the UN. To get there, I took a ferry with my friend James(Diego) and then another bus to get to the town, Altagracia, where my friend John(Juan) lives.  Our first day on the island, we went to Ojo De Agua, a natural springs about 5k from Altagracia. Beautiful, tranquil, and a great Bienvenidos to island life.

Day 2, we climbed Volcan Concepción, the active volcano on the island. We left at 5:30am with a guide and Juan’s host brother Juancarlos. On the way, we saw and heard tons of Howler monkeys, passed through tons of vegetation, saw an egg with a dead baby bird in its nest, climbed rocks after rocks, and were fortunately under cloud cover the whole way up. We arrived at the crater a little before 10:30am. We couldn’t even see across the crater because there was so much smoke coming out of the crater and it was super cloudy. The rocks and earth around the crater were warm because of the activity. It was still pretty cloudy when we reached the top, but as we waited, we would get amazing views that lasted a few moments. On the way back down, the clouds cleared up and we had spectacular views of Maderas, the dormant volcano, Altagracia, and the mainland on the other side of the lake. It took us another 5 hours to climb back down, with me bringing up the rear again.

My third day on the island, I went to Altagracia’s beach with Juan, and then headed with Diego to the other side of the island by Maderas, the other volcano. Diego had heard of this permaculture farm on the island called Project Bonafide(www.projectbonafide.com). Project Bonafide is a really beautiful experiment in organic farming; they use various plants to provide nutrients to the soil, compliment other plants, etc. Nothing on the property is wasted; food scraps are used to make compost or feed the pigs, and rather than your basic latrines, they have composting toilets. Yes, exactly as it sounds. Volunteers pay to go work, but it covers room and board. The money goes to maintaining the farm and paying its local, full time staff. I was really inspired being there, so we’ll see how I can incorporate some of its philosophy into my work.

My last day on the island, I left Diego at Project Bonafide and met up with Juan at the most touristy part of the island, Santo Domingo. It’s a stretch of beach with hotels and restaurants next to each other. Juan and I swam around and then had fish with lots of refreshing Toña. An excellent way to finish an amazing trip.