Detoxing and my first ever volcanos.

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After a manic two weeks of pretty much non stop liver abuse I decided that it was time to head to the beach for a bit of R&R and no drinking. An Aussie called Adam that I had met in San Jaun del Sur and I headed off to a hostel at a semi-secluded beach that was about a 30 min shuttle ride from SJdS and then a 20 minute walk with our packs along the beach to the hostel.



Spending three nights doing absolutely nothing was certainly what my body (and my liver) needed in life. The hardest decision that I had to make one day when waking up was deciding whether I wanted to go for a swim in the Pacific Ocean, which was about 10 steps from the entrance of my hostel, of if I wanted to eat breakfast - Such a hard life.



The only excitement that we had the whole time that we were there was the array of critters that we found in our dorm. On the first night after watching Drive (a movie in which the Gos wears a sweet jacket with a scorpion on the back of it) I looked down at my bed to find a fairly large looking scorpion running around on it. My reaction was to laugh although apparently I should have been more concerned. Adam was there trying to figure out how to kill it without missing it and just making it angry while I was there asking him to hold on a moment so that I could take a photo.



After three nights of R&R we headed to Ometepe which is an island in the middle of the lake of Nicaragua that has been formed by two volcanos - one of which is dormant and the other which is still going but has not erupted since 1959. After arriving at our hostel Little Morgans and meeting up with Oskar we heard about how painful the 8 hour return trip was up the smaller of the two volcanos so Adam and I decided that it was too much effort and instead spent the afternoon with a group of people drinking beers in the lake and watching the sun set behind the volcano, which was absolutely stunning (and made me wish for the 78th time since January that I had not lost my waterproof camera).



In order to make up for our lack of volcano climbing the following day we did go on a hike to a waterfall and back. Although the hike was mildly painful and due to the sunscreen in this continent being made of paint I looked like I was sweating milk, we eventually made it to the top and were rewarded with a stunning waterfall that actually had cold water in it. For you Australians this may seem like a very logical temperature for water to be, but considering that at no point in the last two months have I been in a pool or an ocean that was actually refreshing it was a very exciting prospect.



Our last night at Little Morgans was spent at the hostel bar where Oskar took part in the drinking challenge that you get to do for free if you stay there for four nights. Basically there is a different challenge for each letter of the name of the hostel. 11 of those challenges are drinking based and two of the challenges are pharmaceutical based and consist of things that you cannot buy over the counter in Australia, but you can over here. Needless to say Oskar was the drunkest man alive and I was very glad that I opted not to partake in it (see mum I don't always need to binge drink!). Whether he would actually be getting up for our expected departure the following morning however was another question...

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