Oh my, Ometepe

After a great week settled in one place (what a luxury!) it was time to say goodbye to Granada - a brilliant little city. Not ones to look back, it was time to look forward to Ometepe - a twin set of perfect volcanic peaks joined by a tiny isthmus, in the middle of Lake Nicaragua, a lake 100 miles long with a surface area of over 3000 square miles. A big boy.

With that in mind, we upgraded our ferry tickets to Premier Class and spent an extra dollar for the three hour voyage to rent a deckchair (it was that or sit on the wave soaked metal deck!)

Honeymoon upgrade!

The views as we crossed the lake were stunning, but marred a bit by the 2m high swells  coursing across the freshwater lake. An odd feeling!

Bye bye Granada

But over the three hour journey this beast loomed ever higher and higher above us, Isle de Ometepe.

Rangitoto's Big Brother

Piling off the ferry an hour later than planned due to the weather, we commandeered a pick-up truck with some other travellers and found our way to our accomodation, a banana farm on the quiet volcano. Not everything went quite as planned (though no Japanese conversations this time!), as everything was shut up and I found myself wandering through a banana plantation by torchlight trying to find the farmhouse whilst Sarah hid behind a wall. Scary enough, until you swing the beam around and a hundred green sparkles shine back at you. Closer inspection showed every sparkle to be a spider as big as a child's hand. RUN!

Arriving somewhere like this in the dark is an odd experience, the only way to adjust is to hang your hammock up in the morning and reacclimatise.

It's a Guatemala hammock, darling.

The farm was small, busy and filled with a mad artistic owl-painting family. And chickens.

Thanks for the wake-up calls

And bananas, growing the right way up.

Not quite ripe for the picking

With four nights on the island, it was time to get exploring. Day 1 was a lovely walk along the isthmus connecting our 'little' volcano to the big one, alongside this lake which looks far more like a sea...

Two laps of that? No Matt.

Always prioritising hydration, we found a bar on the beach at the far end - complete with a pet rabbit that we had to save from some stray cats...

Cuddly! (the rabbit)

But some of the local wildlife was a lot less fluffy...

Grim.

Day 2, and after a lot of talk about how you could do a great triathlon on the island, we rented bikes and circumnavigated our volcano with no gears, no brakes, no seat cushioning and a few sweaty grumbles. The fizzy drink ban of the trip was broken with gusto.

Our kiwi bikes Mirry and Willy were missed!

So it was back to the hammocks with glee at the end of the day...

Tuts.

Learning our lesson from exercise not being at all worth it, we rented a scooter to explore the big volcano.

Don't worry Mums - low speed at all times.

In fact it was nearly impossible to pick up speed due to roadblocks such as the airport using some of the island's only road for the rare incoming plane...

Waiting our turn.

Or a herd of cows round the next bend...

Mooove it.

But it was great fun nipping around the island, exploring the side streets, little beaches and trying to find the petroglyphs - ancient, pre-Columbian rock carvings.

Lunch with a view

The frigates zooming overhead

After circling the big volcano, Sarah had had enough of being
bounced around - so I headed off on our cycle loop again!

After a great day, we headed uphill by foot to find the sunset and the local pizzeria. Accessed through another banana plantation of course.

The one and only going out outfit.

Top of the hill was a great little lookout

With a great big view

And with belly's full of pizza, it was time to pick our way back down the mountainside - desperately trying to not look any spiders in the eye(s).

Rabbit in the headlights

With recharged batteries, it was time to say goodbye to Ometepe - but not without one more lovely sunrise.

And an amazing cloud display as we waved goodbye back to the mainland...