1 hour "chicken bus" from San Juan del Sur to Rivas. 10 minute taxi to San Jorge. And then finally an hour ferry ride across rough open waters to Isla de Ometepe and then arriving at our hostel (all for about $3). So was our journey to the "beautiful" island, just for more rain and clouds! It was pretty bleak and even though we were planning on hiking the volcano, an 8 hour hike through rain and clouds with no view didn't exactly sound like our idea of fun. Needless to say, we only spent one night there before deciding we missed SJDS and have since returned -- only to find the rain has followed us here! Oh well...
However, before we left the island we rented an ATV and explored the island, checking out "El Ojo de Agua", a collection of natural volcanic mineral water springs which were beautiful. Some of the cleanest water we've ever swam in, you could see straight down to the bottom which was 6-7' deep!
Our journey to and from the island also allowed Amber to experience her first two (harmless) scams! The first, we were charged an absorbent amount for the taxi to San Jorge from Rivas -- in my naivety I thought the drive was much longer than it was and this seemed like a fair price. Of course the true value of the ride was about 1/3 as much; oh well. The second and much more obvious scam was in the taxi from San Jorge to Rivas on our return, in which the taxi driver tried to convince us there weren't any busses to SJDS that day, and wanted to charge us $20 to take us there. (The bus was $1.) Laughable in its own right as the most obvious and likely scam, it was made even better as (one of the many) busses to SJDS passed the taxi as he was saying this. In the end, not wanting to wait another 45 minutes for the bus we shared a cab with two other travelers to SJDS, which we had now haggled down to $3/person (a pretty good deal since it was a 20 minute cab ride instead of the 1 hr and $1 bus ride).
Now in SJDS, we spent the following morning trying to find some petroglyphs near town, which we failed miserably at. We did however succeed at a 3 mile loop hike with a free shower from the heavens thrown in.... All part of the experience!
Tomorrow, we are participating in a "pool crawl" involving a shuttle taking us from hostel to hostel all with pools and cerverzas. Yes, we are on the beach -- but sometimes trading the salt water and sand is a nice alternative!
On Monday we will head to Leon, north of Managua, before making our way across the border to Honduras and Tegucigalpa (yes mother, probably on Monday).
¡Chao!
However, before we left the island we rented an ATV and explored the island, checking out "El Ojo de Agua", a collection of natural volcanic mineral water springs which were beautiful. Some of the cleanest water we've ever swam in, you could see straight down to the bottom which was 6-7' deep!
Our journey to and from the island also allowed Amber to experience her first two (harmless) scams! The first, we were charged an absorbent amount for the taxi to San Jorge from Rivas -- in my naivety I thought the drive was much longer than it was and this seemed like a fair price. Of course the true value of the ride was about 1/3 as much; oh well. The second and much more obvious scam was in the taxi from San Jorge to Rivas on our return, in which the taxi driver tried to convince us there weren't any busses to SJDS that day, and wanted to charge us $20 to take us there. (The bus was $1.) Laughable in its own right as the most obvious and likely scam, it was made even better as (one of the many) busses to SJDS passed the taxi as he was saying this. In the end, not wanting to wait another 45 minutes for the bus we shared a cab with two other travelers to SJDS, which we had now haggled down to $3/person (a pretty good deal since it was a 20 minute cab ride instead of the 1 hr and $1 bus ride).
Now in SJDS, we spent the following morning trying to find some petroglyphs near town, which we failed miserably at. We did however succeed at a 3 mile loop hike with a free shower from the heavens thrown in.... All part of the experience!
Tomorrow, we are participating in a "pool crawl" involving a shuttle taking us from hostel to hostel all with pools and cerverzas. Yes, we are on the beach -- but sometimes trading the salt water and sand is a nice alternative!
On Monday we will head to Leon, north of Managua, before making our way across the border to Honduras and Tegucigalpa (yes mother, probably on Monday).
¡Chao!
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