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Published: February 17th 2013
Blog time again, Its Ben this time, Shelly is on Photo duty. I thought i'd better get cracking before my memory starts fading again. Well its been two weeks now since we left Nica Spanish School with our Pidgeon Spanglish to help us on our travels! We are definately alot more able to make ourselves understood but when they answer the question or ask one, this is when the problems begin, usually because they talk so quickly and miss the endings off most words!!! Paul Whitehouse doing the impression of the Spanish weatherman comes to mind!!!!! El Scorchio!!!!
So, we finished our last week at school and we were both chomping at the bit and raring to be back on the road again! We decided to head to Ometepe which is a small island in the middle of Lago de Nicaragua, which is actually more like a small sea. Its the biggest fresh water lake in Latin America and only second to the Great Lakes in North America. Nicagarua is only about 50,000 sq miles smaller than England and the lake covers 15% of the country, an impressive sight. We said our goodbyes and headed to Rivas, dropped our big
backpacks off at Esperanza's house taking just our day packs with a few essentials and went to catch a taxi to San Jorge and then a ferry across to Ometepe. The crossing was really rough thanks to the seasonal January winds that sweep in from the East and Shelly was feeling a bit Queasy so we were glad to get off it after the hour crossing. We'd booked a room on an Organic Coffee farm, Finca Magdelena, most of the way round the other side of the island, so after 2 hours on a Chicken Bus and 20 minute hike up the foothills of Volcano Maderas we finally got to our destination. The place was beautiful, set way off the road up a track nestled in the foothills surrounded by lush rainforest and the sounds of Parakeets and Howler Monkeys and various other birds, frogs and Cicadas. We booked a guide for the following morning to Hike up Volcano Maderas, the slightly smaller of the two Volcanoes on the island, the other being the active and barren Volcano Concepcion. We had a shower and ate at the little restaurant/kitchen at the farm and chilled on the huge Veranda watching the
sunset and the chorus of the various animals getting ready for bed or just getting up, including the ever impressive sound of the Howler Monkeys roaring and bellowing across the canopy! (we were told by the guide at Tikal, Guatamala that during the making of the film 'Jurassic Park' they mixed the roar of a howler monkey and a Lion to get the roar of the T-Rex. I don't know how true that one is but i can believe it when you hear them in full song). We hit the hay at about 10 and had pretty fitful sleep due to the intermitent power cut and the fan turning on and off as a result. Then at 1.30am i found my self wide awake and realising something was crawling up my leg on top of the cotton sheet we were under. It felt quite heavy and in the pitch black guessed it was either a wayward Gecko or a very large cockroach which we had seen quite a few of in Nicaragua. It proceeded up my leg and past my knee which is when i decided it was becoming a little too friendly so as quickly as possible lifted the
mozzie net and grabbed the indruder and threw it across the room. It was quite cool to the touch and after laying there for a minute decided to put the light on and satisfy my curiosity. To my shock and absolute horror i was met by the sight of a very pissed off Scorpion that probably had a headache after just being bounced of the wall! I couldn't believe my eyes and Shelly thought i had been dreaming until i showed her it under the bed with its sting up in the air ready to strike. It's a good job it was pitch black or i would have freaked out if i'd have seen that crawling up my leg. I Google it and it was a fairly venomous Bark Scorpion that apparently occasionally visit the houses in search of Geckos that are attracted by the lights. I caught it in our plastic soap dish and went back to bed for an even more restless sleep until the alarm at 6.45 to get ready for the trek. I had a look at the Scorpion and he was looking a bit sorry for himself so i cracked the lid of the soap
dish to give it some air and we went for some breakfast before releasing it in the forrest. To my horror when i got back it had shifted the lid of the soap dish and got away IN THE ROOM. but as there was big gaps under the door and wooden partition walls i was satisfied he had scurried away under the wall out of the room. God knows how it'd gotten through the mozzie net apart from through one of the few holes half way up the net. Needless to say that night we tucked the net under the mattress all the way round and plugged the holes with toilet paper....and i counted myself lucky i didn't get a nasty sting which apparently leaves you bed ridden for a few days with a fever and feeling very ill!!! We set of at half seven with our guide, a young fit nineteen year old lad that did the trek 3-4 times a week, at a fast pace. As we ascended the forest got wetter, the ground muddier and all the rocks, logs and trees covered in slippery moss and slime from the continuous damp conditions. After an hour and a
half we were half way up the Volcano and into the low cloud that usually shrouded the volcano. There was constant dew dropping off the trees and plants and the track had turned into an ankle deep slippery nightmare. We were covered in mud and soaking wet, the upside being the significant drop in temperature which was a refreshing change from the sweltering humidity. After 3 1/2 hours we had reached the rim and over it and descended for 20 minutes to get to the lake in the crater that had formed since the Volcano had been inactive. It hardly seemed worth it as we could only see 20 feet or so due to the thick cloud and we had left most of the wildlife behind in the dryer foot hills. We did watch out for Salamanders that were fairly common but mainly nocturnal and the Orchids which we spotted growing out of the branch of a big tree! The climb was quite treacherous but i thought worth it for the satisfaction of getting to the crater. We had half an hour to eat a sandwich and rest before setting of back along the track we had climbed. Unfortunately only
one path in and out! After an hour back on the trail Shelly started getting the bad pain in her knee thats been troubling her on long treks for a while, so we took it very steady back down which was the only way really as the treacherous mud seemed even more slippery on the way down. Even the guide had a big fall, slipping off a log, doing a triple lutz before landing on his back. I think his flattened sarnies saved him from being severely wind or possibly a couple of broken ribs. So four hours later we arrived back at the farm tired, blattered, sodden and more than ready for a shower and a beer! We headed off the island the next day on a much calmer ferry crossing and caught a crammed express bus to Managua followed by a shared taxi to the Airport and a 1 1/2 hour wait for our flight to Quito, Ecuador. We arrived in Quito at 12.30 am and paid over the odds to get to our hotel 5 minutes from the airport and after a taxi to another hotel as that one was full we finally crawled, exhausted, to bed
Ometepe, Nicaragua
Nobody else seemed to be quite as muddy as me!at 1.30am. We woke at 7 am for a taxi back to the airport which we shared with Pat, an American lady who was on the same flight to the Galapagos. We got on the plane hassle free and 5 hours later stepped off the plane on Baltra Island, the airport/airforce base on a tiny island just north of Santa Cruz Island where we were staying. After a couple of hours of bus-ferry-bus we found an adequate hotel for $25 a night and dumped our stuff and headed out for some food. We decided to just have a little expore the next day and headed out on the 45 minute walk to Tortuga bay where Green Turtles nest and Marine Iguanas are abundant. The Galapagos are Volcanic and relatively barren with a lot of Cactus Trees and scrub type trees which all seem to have huge thorns of some decription. We also noticed the strength of the sun which was unbearable for more that 10 minutes at a time, resulting in us both getting slightly sunburned for the first time on our trip. We got to the huge beautiful white sand beach of Tortuga Bay and walked along the waters
edge taking pics of all the Iguanas basking or wandering down the beach. The first thing that hit me about the wildlife of the Galapagos is the lack of fear of humans. You can walk right up to the Iguanas and most of the various birds, big and small without them batting an eyelid! We had a snorkel and layed out on the sand for an hour being entertained by the finches that were actually climbing into our bag to steal the crisps from the packet inside. I'm sure that one would have landed on me if i'd have been still enough! We left the bay and headed back to Puerto Ayora, the town and main port of the island we were staying on and headed for the Charles Darwin Research Centre that had all the history of the various conservation programmes for the various animals on the islands including a breeding programme for the different species of giant tortoise which we could view at the centre starting from 2-3 year olds to the huge 150 year old ones. Marvelous....and very sloooooowww.
The next day we booked a dive/snorkelling trip to Seymour Norte, a small island of the north
coast of Santa Cruz and set of at 7am the next day. We headed out on Nautilus, a 70 foot twin masted sailing yacht. We got to our first dive site and headed out in the tender with our gear. The dive was fantastic, hardly any coral but the amount of life down there was incredible. We saw Hammerhead and White Tip Sharks, schools of eagle rays and about 6-7 green turtle which would quite happily allow you to swim right along side them. We saw schools of Jacks, Baracuda and Tuna along with tons of other fish including the biggest Puffer Fish i've ever seen, almost 2 feet long. Towards the end of the dive i saw a huge Bowhead Hammerhead, about 9 feet long, the biggest shark i've seen! It was fantastic if not a little hair raising. The current was very strong and we drifted along at a fair pace. I also noticed the sudden, huge differences in the water temperature from time to time. This is the result of two huge currents, one warm one cold, coming together around the islands and dragging huge amounts of Plankton and other tiny animals up from the depths which
in turn attracts the massive amounts of marine life from the Baitfish to the Whale sharks.
The next day i went for another two dives, alone this time as the strong currents and choppy water was too much for Shelly to snorkel in. We headed out to Gordon rocks, a set of three huge rocks jutting out of the sea, the remnants of an extincy volcano that had blown itself to bits but with a fully intact crater under water. The sandy crater doubles as a huge cleaning station for some of the larger sea creatures and we had a good chance of spotting schools of Hammerhead Sharks and Manta Rays, we didn't see any schools but did see three Hammerheads and a huge Manta that flew past about 10 metres above us. Me and Lucas, an Austrian lad i was buddying with were down to minimum air at about the same time so we told the guide and made our way up but with a combination of bad visibility and really strong currents being bottlenecked through the rocks we were swept off about a hundred metres from where we were supposed to be, luckily i caught the eye
of one of the other divers before we were swept out of sight behind the rocks and ending up about 300 metres away from the rest of the them. The next dive was much the same apart from the end of the dive when we bumped into a group of california Sea Lions and as we did our safety stop at 5 metres they came to play for a while whizzing around us just out of reach and inspecting us very closely. The huge male that was with the smaller(i'm guessing) females was less friendly and he was barking underwater, probably telling us to bugger off and leave his ladies alone! Shelly went on a tour of the outer bay area of Puerto Ayora where she saw Sea lions, Marine Iguanas, Blue Fotted Boobies and loads of other wildlife but unfortunately not the baby sharks that were 'guaranteed' in some small natural channels in one of the bays!
We booked onto a trip that night to go to Floreana the following day. We were up at 7 for the 2 hour boat trip south to the island. The journey was uneventful and we were glad to get off and
stretch our legs. We took a small hike up towards a viewpoint walking through a Giant Tortoise reserve that had about 40 medium to large tortoises. Its now mating season so we were treated to two males fighting and one male trying to mount a female, unfortunately we only had four hours on the island so we didn't get to the climax!!! boom boom... We headed on up the hill to the only fresh water sourse on the island, a trickle of water coming out of the rocks. Close by was a great viewpoint of most of the south of the island. Also there were some caves which were used by pirates and also the first settlers in the early 1800s. We treked back down and into the only restaurant on that side of the island for chicken and rice. We then went to a nearby beach to let our meal settle before getting back on the boat and going round to a nearby bay to do a spot of snokeling. As Shelly and i ventured off away from tyhe boat we struck lucky. after about 20 minutes we came across 4-5 stingray on the sand bottom, and shortly after
spotted a huge Green Turtle that we followed for 5 minutes, we also followed a Golden Cowray for a while and saw loads of other fish including a huge shoal of Bluetailed Surgeon Fish and some Baracuda. We got back on the boat and started back round the coast of the island into a small inlet onlyu accessible by boat where we spotted a Galapagos Penguin sat on the rocks watching us and soon after a Blue Footed Boobie nesting 10 feet up on the cliff face. A great day for wildlife spotting!!!
That night the rain came and it rained almost none stop for the next two days day and night so we chilled out, did our laundry, played scrabble and drank some beer,....of course!
We flew out of galapagos on the Monday, (on a rather important flight. Due to the impending elections at the weekend the current president Rafael Correr had been visiting the Galapagos on a rally. As we waited for the plane in the shed that they called a departure lounge, a military chopper flew in and dropped him, his wife and son off and they ended up on the front row of our
Ometepe, Nicaragua
This sharing out beer lark is a serious business... plane, 4 rows infront of us!!! So for the last 40 minutes of the flight 80% of the people on board poceeded to queue along the aisle for a picture with him!!!) and headed back to Quito where we booked two nights in a lovely hotel on the outskirts of Old Town and the next day went exploring around old town which had a really nice feel and loads of History including some magnificent churches, Royal Palaces and a very impressive Basilica del Voto Nacional. We went in and climbed a tiny spiral staircase right up into the bell town for an awesome view of the whole city. We also walked to the less impressive and touristy new town but all in all Quito was a great place. We were up early on the wednesday to catch a bus for the two hour journey west to the highland town of Mindo. A small place surrounded by rainforest/cloud forest and home to around 400 species of birds and hundreds of different butterflies. We found a nice hostel on the edge of town and armed with a map and plenty of advice from the landlord we set off on the 4 hour
hike up to the 6 waterfalls across the valley. We heard loads of strange bird calls but saw hardly any birds. the ones we did see was a vivid yellow one and a big black and Yellow Choco Toucan which obligingly posed for some pictures in a tree for us. We made it across a very rickety old cable car that took us high above the valley floor to the waterfalls on the other side and treked a while longer to reach the first waterfall. Shelly's knee was playing up again so i quickly did the other half hour up to the other falls, took some pics and we met back at the cable car. We made it back across and luckily hitched a ride in the back of a jeep on its way down. We even made it back to town to watch most of the Real Madrid v Manchester United UEFA cup match....result. The rain started again just before nightfall which made our minds up to move on the following day. we were up at 6 to catch the bus to Santa Domingo and onwards to Pedernales, a buzzing little seaside town with a nice beach, some great
Santa Cruz, Galapagos
My little backpacker!! surfing waves and plenty of seafood resaurants which lovely big grilled Prawns. We explored the first afternoon and had a full day on the beach reading the next day and today we caught the 10.30 am bus for the 2 hour journey to Canoa, a slightly more touristy but cleaner seaside town with miles and miles of beaches and some pretty big waves, its a slightly more expensive $20 a night here and the food is a bit pricier too, down to the tourists that are here, mainly Gringos, as the locals call them. We've decided to move on tommorrow, but haven't decided yet, its a toss up between further down the coast or Guayaquil to head for the Peruvian border. Hmmmmm.....so i am gonna sign off now and see if Shelly has put all the photos on successfully....oh oe last thing, there is a ban on alcohol being sold in any shop or bar for three days due to the national elections being held this weekend, dunno where the connection is there......damn you politicians.......
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Lorrainne Burnitt
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Great Blog
Brilliant blog yet again, sounds like you are having a ball, loved the photos, especially those of the beach while we are having -3 degrees.