Day: August 7, 2024

Monday, March 18, 2024: On Monday morning, Mike and I took a walk after breakfast down and then back up Volcán Maderas, from our bungalow at Totoco to the main road and then back up again. It was rough. After three times doing this, I decided that was it. From then on, we would take our walks on the beach, where it was nice and flat.

Second-hand clothes shopping & Punta de Jesús María

Monday afternoon, after Maria made us a delicious tilapia lunch, we went clothes shopping for the girls at Luna Boutique, a secondhand clothing shop. Then we drove on to Moyogalpa where Adam and Maria shopped for some housewares and a large fan for their bedroom. The whole way in the car, we wanted the air conditioning on but the girls, who aren’t used to air conditioning, wanted the windows open. We couldn’t get the bluetooth to play any playlists from our phones, but we somehow got “La Island Bonita” by Madonna, which we played on a loop during our drive the whole day!

After our shopping expedition we went to Punta de Jesús María, a sandy point that stretches out into Lake Nicaragua. It was an excellent spot to see the sunset but better yet, it had impressive views of Volcán Concepcion in the waning light. We enjoyed hanging out with the family in that beautiful setting.

It was a long day driving all the way to Moyogalpa and back, so we ended up at Café Campestre in Balgüe at 7:10 pm. The place was packed, so it took us over an hour to get our meals. This made for some very grumpy little girls.

Again, I had the green chicken curry, which was as good as it was the first time I had it. I gave a bite to Cristy and she ran around like a wild banshee fanning her mouth and looking for water because it was soooo spicy! So funny, because to me it was just right. I loved it.

Steps: 13,203; Miles 5.6. Weather Hi 92°, Lo 76°. Mostly sunny.

Finca Magdalena

Tuesday, March 19: On Tuesday morning, we dropped by Adam’s house to pick him up. We found Andrea sporting one of her “new” outfits on her way to school.

Adam thought we might like to have a coffee and check out Finca Magdalena, one of the oldest coffee farms on Ometepe. The main building of the plantation is a humble affair – wooden and old, with peeling paint and creaking floorboards. Murals and artwork are painted onto the exteriors, adding charm to the place. One of the buildings serves as part of the coffee business and hosts a cafe out on the porch deck. The porch, high up on Volcán Maderas, offers sweeping views across Ometepe and Lake Nicaragua. We enjoyed mugs of hot coffee and walked around to see the drying areas for the coffee beans, the murals, and the very rustic hostel lodgings.

Ometepe meanderings

After dropping Adam at home, Mike and I took a mile walk from Santa Cruz beach toward Santa Domingo and back.

We had lunch at Büstavö, a Mediterranean cafe where you order your food from the kitchen, which is in a bus, and then they serve it to you in the shady cafe. I had a falafel sandwich in a soft warm pita and a Pink Panther, a smoothie with coconut milk, ginger and pitaya (dragon fruit). Mike had shaksuka and falafel on a plate.

We chatted with a young woman from the Canadian side of Niagara Falls and she (like me) was not coping well with Nicaragua’s unrelenting heat. She had plans to go to Corn Island; a number of people we met were heading that way.

The café was owned by a young Israeli man who is expanding the café to build a large oven and a large gelato bar.

We spent all Tuesday afternoon at the pool at Totoco. It was super relaxing. We met a couple from Philadelphia, Ryan and Siobhan; he was originally from South Africa and she from Ireland. We all shared stories about our travels, and groused about the horrible presidential candidate (Trump of course) in this year’s election, and lots of other things. They gave us some ideas for our September-October trip to Bali. Then we went to our room to take showers and prepare to go to Adam and Maria’s for dinner.

At the last minute the dinner plans with the family fell apart and we had no explanation as to why. To be honest, it seemed disrespectful. All that has to happen with people is that they communicate clearly things that are going on. Later we found out that Maria had been called to an “emergency session” at church; she was called because her older sister, who she hadn’t spoken to for years, wanted a reconciliation. She hadn’t even communicated to Adam where she was.

Anyway, Mike and I had to find alternate dinner plans at the last minute. We tried Pizza Mediterránea for pizza but it was closed. We’d already been to Cafe Campestre the night before and didn’t want to arrive late and have to wait an hour for food. So we stopped at a shady little spot called Isla Bonita and I enjoyed a fish fillet with French fries while Mike had grilled pork with rice and beans. The salad and vegetables were tasty too. It was a nice atmosphere but it was a bit disappointing not to have had our family dinner plans. I think we’ll keep our visits here to 5 days from here on out; 7 days are too many especially as our presence is disruptive to the girls and their school attendance and other plans.

We leave the island on Thursday morning for Managua and then on to Bogotá for the Colombia 🇨🇴 part of our trip.

Steps: 10,202; Miles 4.33. Weather Hi 92°, Lo 76°. Partly cloudy.

Wednesday, March 20: After breakfast this morning, we took another walk on the beach. We found kite surfers plying the air currents over the lake.

We spent our last afternoon relaxing at the Totoco pool because the family makes a giant pot of beef stew that they sell on Wednesdays; María had served us some of the soup for a late lunch. There was too much fat and gristle in the meat for me, so I just ate the vegetables which were mostly starchy: yucca, potatoes, etc. The broth had a wonderful flavor. The family was busy with that all day and Mike even helped them out with some deliveries.

When we went by to pick up the family for dinner, we found the girls dressed up in the second-hand dresses we had bought them on our shopping trip on Monday. We would have bought them new things but there really are only second-hand clothing shops on Ometepe (so says Adam).

We took the girls in the car to Pizza Mediterránea for dinner, while Adam and Maria joined us a bit later on their motorbike.

We had a farewell dinner there, as we would leave on Thursday morning. It was a nice evening where we all shared our happiness at meeting one another. Mike and I enjoyed a delicious broccoli and chorizo pizza, Adam and Maria had a 4-cheese pizza and the girls had their favorite, pepperoni. We took them home and said our goodbyes to the girls.

Steps: 10,236; Miles 4.34. Weather Hi 90°, Lo 79°. Mostly sunny.

Thursday, March 21: We ate our final breakfast at Totoco and then checked out of our room.

Altagracia

Adam asked if we’d drive him to Altagracia so he could buy two 100 lb. bags of rice for the dogs, the pigs and the chickens. We stopped for fresh fruit smoothies in the colorful town.

We made another stop to get Adam some water filters and then we stopped at a bakery, Pan de Mama, for coffee and sweets. The bakery is run by Adam’s friends Rachel and Trevor who have been on Ometepe for 12 years, involved in various projects.

After dropping Adam at his house, we made our way slowly to Moyogalpa. Of course, we were stopped by police on our last day (just like the last time we were here) and they wanted to see our insurance card and circulation card. We couldn’t find either in the rental car and we were in a panic until they pointed out the compartment above the rearview mirror. We kept trying to explain it was a rental car but they still wanted to see the documents.

Luckily we found the documents and they were in order, so they waved us on. We wondered if they were just trying to get a bribe out of us (we paid them one last time we were here when they wanted to confiscate Mike’s driver’s license on a Friday and keep it until Monday).

Moyogalpa, taking the ferry to San Joge, and on to Managua

On the way to Moyogalpa, we stopped briefly to take a picture of Volcán Concepcion at the end of the island’s only private runway.

We arrived in Moyogalpa early and turned in our Toyota Rush rental car. Then we ate lunch at the Cornerhouse while we waited for the 2:00 ferry. I had an omelet with cheese, tomatoes and jalapeño, while Mike had a roasted veggie and cheese sandwich 🥪 .

We caught the 2:00 ferry to San Jorge. Luckily we had much calmer seas today. On the hour-long ferry ride we had some nice views of the volcanic island of Ometepe.

Dani picked us up at the ferry in San Jorge. We drove with Dani for 2 hours from the ferry in San Jorge to the Best Western Las Mercedes, directly across from the Managua airport. We immediately ate a dinner of shrimp with garlic and a fish fillet so we could get to bed early. We had an early 5:25 flight to San Salvador and then another flight from there to Bogotá.

Steps: 5,528; Miles 2.34. Weather Hi 91°, Lo 78°. Mostly sunny.

Leaving Managua for Colombia via El Salvador

Friday, March 22: We woke up at 2:45 a.m. Friday morning and took a shuttle to the Managua airport for our first Avianca flight at 5:25 a.m. to San Salvador. Lucky for us, everything proceeded without a hitch and the short (40 min) flight took off right on time.

We flew into San Salvador from Managua on Avianca at 6:10 a.m. on Friday morning. The rosy sunrise was magnificent on the surrounding clouds.

Here’s a short video of the beach in Ometepe, driving up and down Volcán Maderas to Totoco Eco-Lodge, and flying into San Salvador.

We had over a 3-hour layover in San Salvador, so we ate breakfast at a jammin’ cafe, Café Tapacun. People were lively and noisy here! We both had arepas with scrambled eggs and shared a cappuccino.

At 9:30 a.m., we caught another Avianca flight to Bogotá, which would arrive at 1:10 p.m.