Isla Ometepe

We left the beloved Granada and took the two oclock ferry straight to Isla de Ometepe. We met up with another Swedish guy named Joaquin on the ferry. He has been traveling for six months and hes a very cool and interesting guy. The ferry was pretty nice and not too bouncy. We arrived at dark and hiked for an hour to a cheap hostel the first night. We stayed in Hostel Ortiz, which was pretty cool and lax. Hammocks and tables and chairs for just hanging out. There werent very many travelers there but we didnt mind. Its a very quiet town so we bought a watermellon for 25 cents and ate it and went to bed.

The next morning Joaquin Ben and Pete caught the bus to the other side of the island. We arrived around 12 mid day to the beach on the opposite side of the island. We all ate a quick bite at a lady's restaurants and headed off to the trail head around 1 p.m. The trail was weird at first. It starts out at a very slow incline up through several acres of farm land. We were passing workers and horses and cows, which was slightly awkward at first, seeing as that we were starting a 8 hour hike at one in the afternoon without a guide haha. About an hour into the hike we hit the woods. We walked several minutes in the woods, wrapped our large bags in ruck sacks, and hid them in the trees. There was no way we were going to carry our heavy bags all night. While we were hiding our bags we were screamed at by several howler monkeys. Geez those things are loud.

The volcano go steaper and more wet with every hour. The first hour is somewhat like the woods in the mid west. It was relatively dry and a very nice hike, not to hot; not to cold; not raining. The next hour got a little difficult. We were begging to be very high on the mountain and you could tell the air was much thinner. It was almost hard to breathe! The wildlife and plants changed a lot, as well as the scenery. Just the view from half was was beautiful....we pushed on. The next hour kinda sucked. It was very difficult trails. I would say it was more of a climb than a hike. The incline sometimes reaching 80 degrees and slippery. The trees started looking old, creepy, and the kind with the roots that explode everywhere. Thankfully for these "creepy" trees, the roots gave us somewhere to hold onto. For the last hour I would say we spent 90% of the time climbing through the trees and on the roots.

Once we hit the cloud line you couldnt see anything. We would come to a clearing and not be able to see 20 feet off of the mountain. We hiked 30 more minutes past the summit looking for a nice place to camp. These 30 minutes were through the Dagobah System. The Dagobah system is were Luke Skywalker crashed his X-wing in the swamp and trained with Yoda. No joke, this part of our hike looked EXACTLY like the Dagobah System.

We found a relatively flat area and decided to call it camp. Total hiking ascent time=4 hours and 30 minutes. Our campsite was ridiculous but there were slim choosings up on top.

What a rough night. It started raining just after we got our tent set up. Everything was wet so we couldnt have a fire. And most of all we were extremely worried of our large packs we left in the woods at the bottom. The cold started to set in around 8 oclock. All three of us were crammed into a two man tent at the top of a rainy Volcano....cool. It kept in the heat but it was still a long, cold, creepy night.

The next morning it was all worth it. The views were amazing and we got some sweet pics. The hike down was easy and we got some funny looks from a few tour groups coming up the mountain. Three extremely dirty and tired travelers coming down the mountain that early.. they werent stupid they knew what we did... *illegal. We found our packs dry and still in their hiding spots and after getting to the bottom we ate ourselves into a coma and went to wash off in the lake. Success.

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