The Three Muskateers conquer volcano maderas!

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Our time to set off to Ometepee had arrived and we set off on the Wednesday Morning....unfortunately this was the first ay we had had in a long while of it being really hot and we were going to have to spend it travelling! Bum out! Anyway, we got the taxi to the ferry and then headed across lake Niaragua all on board the boat! The Views of Ometepee were outstandingly breathtaking! The two volcanoes soard into the sky amidst clouds and the still waters were gleaming beneath them.

Whilst staying in San Juan, we had seen a pposter in the hostel of the hostel El Zopilete in Ometepee that was at the base of Volcano Maderas. We thought this sounded pretty ace as it was an eco farm and they made their own chocolate and other foods so being the fattys that we are, that obviously enticed us to there. We got a taxi to this hostel when we arrived in Ometeppe, this was probably thebumpiest experience yet to date in central america...Ometepee is basically made up of just one long road along the island and the majority of it is just made up of boulders and rocks so is definitely not for the travel sick! When we arrived at the hostel, we had to amble up a pretty windy path for a little while as the hostel was literally in the middle of no where. It was a pretty awesome place.....everything was recycled and the showers consisted of stone walls with glass bottles embedded in them. The toilet was a pit loo which was an experience to say the least and when we got shown to our dorm we found that there were no proper walls or wwindows and no way of hangng mosquito nets......eeeek a bit of an issue as the way ELlie and I are getting malled at the momen by the bugs is not good!

Anyway, we thought it would be fine and decied to head on down to the lake for a much needed swim and cool down. The lake was beautiful and so so warm. We all felt very lucky at this moment in time, the views were spectacular and it felt so blissful! We found a little shop as well to buy our food for the 8 hr hike up the volano the next day and then found a place to stop for dinner on the way back to the hostel.

The fun was all about to be encountered when we headed back to the hostel! Luckily my head torch was going to come in very handy at this place as lights were definitely lacking. When we got into our dorm we realised that there were gigantic spiders next to some of the beds, no jokes, actually nearly the size of our hands! We were at this point in time really not looking forward to staying here! After deliberating for about 20 minutes on what t do, bearing in mind that it was now pitch black and we had to be at the hostel at 6.30 in the morning t meet our guide for the hike, we decided that we would take the chicken opption of attempting to move to a different hostel for the nights sleep. Feeling pretty embarassed about our afraidness of bugs, we went up to reception to ask about other hostels. I think they thought what idiots but lluckily one of the guys who worked there, mike we think his name was said that they had some other rooms that had proper doors and walls and a huge mosi net over the double bed....BRILLIANT! Why didn´t we think of this before, so instead of moving hostels we managed to upgrade to a much better, safer rooom! haha.

A stiff drink was deifintely needed so we hung out wit the staff for an hour or so drinking their homemade liquirs of rum and honey......very deliciosu if i do say so myself! We then hit the sack to prepare for our expedition the next day!

We awoke at 5.30 on Thurday morning and got changed into our walkin clothes. After our huge bowls of porridge we finally met our guide, a local nicaraguan called Jo......well, his name was something else but thats what he said we could call him. He didn´t speak any English so our hand signs and poor attempts at spanish had to make do. The volcano climb was cool, definitely more of a climb than a hike at times with huge boulders to climb up and down. The rain started nearer the top and the ground started to get incredily slipppy and muddy, needless to say numerous falls occurred and i think the word ´desheveled´doesn´t even quite cut the look of us by the time we had finished. The feeling when we reached the top was incregdible, it was so clear and you could see the whole crater with the lake in the middle. We had saved our littl bars of homemade chocolate for the top, needless to say, chocolate has never tasted so good! We wanted to go for a swim in the lake, the guide had warned us that it is quite squishy. We stripped down to our bikinis yet failed at the swim as ater one step into the lake, we were sinking to a pretty deep depth! also plus the huge tadpoles in the water, us being the squeemish people that we are at bugs and creepy crawlies decidd that the ground was a safer placeto stand! Our guide just laughed at us.

The rin was still coming down as we began to descend...the descent was definitely harder than the ascent. The factthat the rain had been pretty heavy did not help as the path was so so wet now. However, eventually we made it down despite ellie losing her sunglasses on the journey. We headed to the view point where we soaked up the most spectacular views of the other volcano and the island. We felt pretty chuffed with ourselves and found it hilarious when our guide joked about with us saying that we had to go back up the olcano from the veiew point to get to the hostel.....luckily none of us had a personlty failure at this point! We didn´t have to go back up, we just continued to head down where we even got to pick mangos from a tree and eat them.

We finlly arrived back at the hostel afte 8 hrs, collapsing down at the table, covered in mud and not wanting to move at all. We had planned to go back to the main town that aevening after having homemade pizza at the hostelas we wanted to get the early ferry baack to the mainland in the morning. However, Mike managed to persuade us otherwise and we decided to stay another night and get a taxi in the morning. The shower that afternoon was probably the most needed shower ever and the pizza was so yummy! We were all so shattered and just spent the rest of the evening chilling out wth mike sampling all the different liquors available....an eveining of free alcohol, well we were definitely not complaining.

Mike was a funny chap to say the least......a definite hippy that seemed to be quite pleased to have our company to say the least! We couldn't quite put our finger on him especially as we thought he was far too hippified for only beingout herefor4months! Oh well, it was a funny night and he even decided to wake us up in the morning with fresh coffee!

Oh yes,andanother thing we discoveredin the jungle was that ant bites kill!!!!!! Helen and I obviously got caught in the lineof ants whilst attempting touse the toilet in the pitch black...needless to say all Ellie and Mike heard was a hug amount of screaming as the ants continued to attack me and helen! PAIN PAIN PAIN! So not only have i now attacked by mosquitoes and sandflies which I'm telling you make me look like I have leprosy but also killer ants! Brilliant....oh yeah, and we also saw tarantulas! Maybe the eco farm wasn't the best option after all! haha

Friday morning we got a taxi to the ferry....needless to say helen was very unfortunate as shemanaged toslip on the walk down from the hostel getting covered in wetmud! Not nice! Also, when we got to the ferry,we realised that we had missed the 9am oneand had to wait another 2hrs. Oh well......Hels got cleanedup and we headed to get some breakie! We found a nice little american restairant where we had waffles and cinammon toast......yummy! The guy working there also advised us not to go to Masaya. We had wanted to go to Masaya to do a bit of shopping but apparently there wsa a huge sale goingon there and with the way we were feeling.....iewe were so tired and it was so so hot, we decided that the best bet would be to head staright to leon to see our lovely marines!

We let them know via facebook that we were headingto leon and so once we had got the ferry to the main land we managedto get a taxi driver to drive us for 3 hours to leon. We felt pretty lazy at this point andprobably hsould have got one of the chicken buses but theyy would have taken 6 hours and it was scorching!!!! So Leon here we come!!!!!

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