So some of you might remember my really well figured out plan to take a river boat to the Caribbean coast. Well plans change. On the way I got to know briefly the island of Ometepe. While leaving from the island I met two Finns and an Austrian. After that plans changed. We ended up to the islands of Solentiname where we stayed for 3 days. It’s hard to come any closer to early-August-Finnish-summer-night in Central America. Beautiful islands in the middle of the lake. Fresh water to swim in, Finns around you and few beers. The biggest difference to Finland was that we don’t have bull sharks in our lakes.

If Ometepe with two volcanos was nice Solentiname was great. I bumped into a big group of old Finnish people who were traveling together. I panicked and tried telling all of them “hola!” (“Hi!” in spanish) but I think they knew where I was from. After dozen of spanish greetings one man said “Terve!” (“hello!”) so confidently that I knew my cover had been compromised. I ran back to our lodge as fast as I could hoping the old folks wouldn’t follow.

After doing pretty much nothing for some days in Solentiname, which was great, we returned to civilization and started heading down river. At this point our Finnish girl left to Costa Rica so it was just me (Que Chevara), Sandianista and Dr. Gonzo.

After a loooong boat ride we ended up to a river village. No names this time. There are some places I want to save just for me and this is one of them. If you really want to find out where I was it wont take a lot of detective work.

We saw monkeys, river, locals, river, jaguar prints, river, boats, a few travelers and river shrimps.

We also kind of got stuck to that place and never made it down the river. Plenty of reasons for that but the most important was that we didn’t feel like going down. It was time to change the country. On my second last day in Nicaragua I wanted to fullfil my long dream of eating ´gallo pinto´ for breakfast, lunch and dinner. The plate consists of fried rise and beans. It’s usually served with tiny salad, cheese, maybe a tortilla, eggs and hot sauce. After those three strikes I was out.

This adventure would have a lot more to write about but already knowing how people react to certain things, subjects, opinions and generalisations I find it a lot easier for everyone to just let the photos do the talking. Thank you so much M&M&P for the company during this lake/river trip, it was awesome! :P

It’s a bit long photo gallery but if you’re not in a hurry sit down and see what river and lake life in Nicaragua looks like.

You know who was free? The fish that got away. He only had a hook in his mouth as a reminder.

The hike up a volcano starts from the bottom.

Few more interesting facts about this island on Lake Nicaragua (Lake Cocibolca). It’s 276 square kilometers big, it’s got 35 000 people living on it and the 2 volcanos are 1610 meters (Conception) and 1394 meters (Maderas) high. The island hasn’t yet blossomed in the touristic sense. So here is the controversial phrase you’ve heard thousands of times: I recommend you to come here before it becomes really touristic and the prices and atmosphere changes significantly.

We woke up at 5:30 a.m to start climbing up, two Austrian girls, a swede and me. 2 liters of water, some moldy sandwiches and my camera equipment were backed ready the previous night.

The hike started of easy by walking through cafe plantations and passing through huge trees where you could see howler monkeys sleep. Of course our hikers made so much noise with their feet and mouths that many of the animals on the way heard us miles away and ran or climbed away.

Soon the clouds of the mountain surrounded us and it started raining. The wet micro climate of the volcano made it possible that the volcano had a beautiful cloud forrest with many different trees and plants. As the rain picked up the path got muddier and muddier. Little did we know how bad it would get on our way down.

Three and half hours later we had climbed over the highest point of the volcano and had reached the bottom of the crater. There was a gorgeous small lake and we decided to take swim. Nicely fresh water was perfect. The only problem was getting to deep water since the bottom of the lake was so muddy that I was almost up to waste in mud when there was only 10 inches of water. Still it was worth it and after the swim and light lunch other people started pouring into the crater. Luckily we had left early and were the first ones there and had the place for ourselves for the first hour. Noisy people aren’t really my cup of the tea.

On the way down the 20+ elephants on the trail had pretty much turned the whole trail in to a gigantic mudslide. It was slower to go down than to go up. Our swedish member of the crew had only flip-flops for hiking and those things were pretty much useless on mud and rocks. He ended up walking almost the whole mountain up and down barefoot. :)

Howler monkey

Half way down my left knee started hurting. The old battle injury had returned and I was limping down the volcano and only the crazy Swede was slower than me. Eventually we got down, ordered big plates of food for 4 dollars and congratulated ourselves for a great hike by saluting our beer glasses. Everyone was happy but quite tired. Little did we know that police, fire department and volunteers were searching for the barefooted crazy Swede who people thought was missing on the other volcano on the island. More about that on my previous post.

Volcano Concepcion

Some hikers got a bit muddy on the way down

Island dog