Bus, bus, border, bus, taxi, boat, bus

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We woke up at 5am to a dog yowling and barking. After investigating, it turned out the the dog was just in his kennel and wanted to get out. Since we were already awake, we decided to try catching the early bus out of town. Since it was a public holiday, no-one could tell us whether or not the buses might be running, but fortunately one turned up at 6am. We changed buses at Liberia and got to Peñas Blancas on the Nicaraguan border. Going throught the border was pretty simple, - as usual there was a kid there who made money by showing the gringos where to go.

One we were in Nicaragua, we caught the bus to Rivas. After the cram-packed, cooking hot buses and crappy roads of Costa Rica, the bus was a real pleasure. It was just one of those old yellow north american school buses but the windows all opened and the happy music was cranking. The road to Rivas was straight and fast. In Rivas, we caught a taxi to San Jorge and got on the boat to Isla de Ometepe.

Ometepe is an island formed by two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, the largest lake in central america. The lake water is a scuzzy brown colour and doesn´t look that inviting. The boat was packed full of gringo tourists and the hull was loaded up with sacks of rice.

We got to the port town of Moyagalpa and jumped on another school bus to get to Santo Domingo - this one was not so pleasant since some of the windows were screwed closed.... Trish was almost passed out in the heat. The road was suprisingly good for the most part - it was entirely made out of smoothly laid cobblestones... until we got to the turnoff to the bottom half of the island. From there, the road turned to a rough rocky pathway, with potholes like craters of the moon.

We got to the beach of Santo Domingo and tried checked into Villa Paraiso, which was full so we checked into Finca Santo Domingo next door. Our initial impressions were not so great. Our room was a real dungeon and the light from the bulb barely reached the dark corners. I went for a swim in the lake for a cool off, which was nice, but the beach was infested with clouds of bugs. After the comfort of Tamarindo, our first reaction was "this place is a hell-hole, let´s get out of here tomorrow". After a while though, the place started to grow on us - as it had some great hammocks hanging under a big tree - that is usually enough to keep me happy.

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