Day 18 - La Isla de Ometepe

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We had our last breakfast in Las Peñitas and sais goodbye to the owner of the place. Even Youppi wanted to say bye to his 2 friends but Maya didn't want to let him go.

Once I had Youppi back and we were ready to leave, we took a shuttle van from there to Granada and then to San Jorge. We got there right on time for the 2:30 ferry to Moyogalpa, on Ometepe island. 

La Isla de Ometepe, which has the shape of a big peanut of 276 square kilometers, was formed by 2 volcanoes, the phenomenal Volcán Concepción, which is still active and its little brother Volcán Maderas, which is, just like the Volcán Mombacho that we hiked at the beginning of our trip, has a cloud forest. 

The island is on the Nicaragua lake, which is the biggest lake of Central America and is located in the middle of the country. To get to the island, we have to take a ferry. The distance is only about 20 km but the boat is so slow that it takes an hour. But it doesn't really matter because we can sit and enjoy the view and the sun so it's part of the journey and we enjoyed it.

On the island, we had to stop to the ATM in Moyogalpa because it's the only city on the island with ATMs and so far, we always had to pay cash everywhere. Fortunately, there is more than one in the city because the first one didn't work. We walked to another one and withdrew money for our 4 days on the island.

We stopped by the scooter rental place and got 2 scooters. It's more expensive than in Asia but much cheaper than taxis on the island! Because they know you are on an island and it's too big to walk, they know your options are limited so they rise the prices and just to get rides from the port to our homestay and then, to our other 2 hostels the following days and back to the port would have cost at least $100. For 2 scooters, for 72 hours, it was $50 each and we were free to go wherever we wanted. And it's always cool to ride a scooter!

We had a quick bite before leaving the city of Moyogalpa, put our backpacks on our scooters and left for our first homestay. 

Unfortunately, I had started a cold the night before. Nothing big but I was not in super shape. So when we got to our room, I just went to bed while Steve had dinner to the restaurant attached to our homestay and watched a hockey game on his cellphone.