Me boarding island transportation with TJ's pack and my canasta.
So we spent 5 days here in Merida at my site and I worked Wednesday through Friday, but each day we also managed to do some sort of fun thing. The first day we hiked to the San Ramon waterfall in the morning and in the afternoon I went to work. It is supposed to be a 3K hike, but I think that’s a gross underestimation. I saw some monkeys, but TJ didn’t. The waterfall wasn’t as big as it is during the rainy season, but it was quite beautiful nevertheless. It also comes out of the lake at the top and so if was nice and cold, which was great after hiking all that way. Unfortunately, there were no fish.
Us at the waterfall.
Not the time we ate dinner, but the place where we ate dinner.
Thursday I worked here in Merida, and TJ worked on a grant. In the evening, we went to my family’s restaurant on the beach and we ate delicious fish and had a nice dinner while we talked to my friend Erik whose a partner in the restaurant as well. TJ had been worried about me here in terms of isolation and such, but after meeting people like Erik, he was soothed. He was amazed at how nice people are here, which isn’t that unusual, as I’m still often surprised by it myself. We also saw the lunar eclipse, which was beautiful from the beach.
Petroglyphs Trevor saw at Finca Magdalena.
Friday I worked all day while Trevor went up to Finca Magdalena, which is famous on the backpacker circuit apparently. It’s also an entrance to the Maderas Volcano National Park, and so he hiked around and got lots of great pictures of animals. He also finally got to see some monkeys. I will be adding some of these photos to the Merida critters folder on Picasa as well as posting some of the better ones here. He just got a new camera with underwater case, so he took about a million pictures. Well more like somewhere around 1500 in 10 days. After I got done with work, we went and stayed in Santa Cruz, which is at one side of the isthmus between the two volcanoes.
Playa Santo Domingo, Concepcion, and a Pig
Here in Nicaragua, the isthmus of Ometepe is famous for its beautiful black sand beach, Playa Santo Domingo. It runs from Santa Cruz to almost Ojo de Agua, which is a clear water natural spring. So Saturday we took a slow cruising walk the length of Playa Santo Domingo, ended at a little resort where we enjoyed some frosty beverages, and then walked the rest of the way to Ojo de Agua. This is a natural spring that has been turned into two kind of natural pools, with some little cement ledges to aid the entering and exiting process in the shallow longer one, and then beautiful stacked stone around the deeper pool. It’s beautiful there, and much to Trevor’s delight, there were also fish. So he snorkeled and took pics with his new camera, while I swam, lounged about, and read. Turns out the kiosk there also has amazing food. As a result of all this fabulousness, I can now say that I would highly recommend this to anyone visiting Ometepe.
Fish in Ojo de Agua
The river that runs out of Ojo de Agua runs under the road that we had to take to get home, so while we waited for the bus, Trevor climbed into the river, shoes, clothes and all with his fish net, much to the delight of the growing crowd of kids who live nearby and thought Trevor was clearly insane, or at the least very amusing. Some were in the water with him, and wanted to take turns with the net. Some were up on this little bridge, shouting and jumping and pointing. The highlight was when they saw a swamp eel and Trevor was trying to catch it and the kids were acting like this was some kind of spectator sport, with much screaming and words of encouragement. It was very funny to watch and I can’t believe I didn’t take any pictures. I am an idiot.
Back of my head while kayaking - note my smashing hat.
Sunday we did laundry. Trevor now thinks I am a hardworking domestic goddess after seeing how much time and work goes into keeping clean here. We also kayaked the Rio Istian, which was amazing. You can take a kayak off the point in Mérida and follow the shore up into the river. It’s a strange river because it’s more like a depression between the volcanoes where the lake happens to run in. It’s very swampy, and doesn’t really have defined banks in most places. There’re turtles (which we didn’t see), and a very large variety of birds. Normally, I couldn’t possibly care less about birds, but the sheer diversity in this place was impressive.
Jacana
I also saw a jacana, which may not mean much to most people, but I learned about them in Animal Behavior and they have some crazy reproductive biology. The males nest guard and the females protect territories of multiple males. If a female invades and tries to take over the territory of another female one of the things they do is destroy the existing nests to free up the males to mate with her. It’s not an uncommon system – we see it a lot in nature, but here the gender roles are reversed. I love seeing stuff in the real world that I’ve learned about in books or school.
Masaya market
Monday we caught the 4 AM bus to visit my host family, whom Trevor adored. He also bought two chairs and a hammock in Masaya, and we took my host family to dinner.
Laguna de Apoyo
The next day we got up bright and early and headed to Laguna de Apoyo to see if TJ could dive. I had tried to contact the people there by phone and email, but with no luck, so we weren’t sure if this would work out or not. We both really hoped it would since Trevor had brought all his scuba gear with him and had been lugging it all over the place. It did work out, but not until the next day, and while he swam around under water I hung out at the Proyecto Ecológico, which turned out to be one of the coolest places I’ve found yet here. They are on the lip of the Laguna de Apoyo, and they are run by a Nicaraguan NGO. They have a Spanish school that works much like the Spanish training that we Peace Corps volunteers receive. In the afternoons there are ecological activities, like vivero work, beach cleanup, or working in the local schools. The place also hosts and works with researchers from all over the world and the two men who manage it are a US/Nicaraguan male duo who seem to compliment each other well. Trevor got to talk fish. I hung out with the people receiving lessons and the language facilitators, and the lunch we waited around for was excellent. Overall, I was delighted. They’re difficult to contact, but they would be a great place to stay.
Moral of the story: Come take a vacation in Nicaragua. It’s awesome. Especially my island.
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