the beasts of ometepe

It´s not that Britta and I aren´t organized. We are rather responsible and can be anally attentive to detail; however, when going to Nicaragua from Costa Rica, we didn´t make any..any..plans. We had only focused on CR with a big travel book in hand and preparations for months, but when Marcos and Sarah tempted us to the north with it´s cheaper accomodations and varied landscape, we left the travel home back in its home and got on the first local bus to Nicaragua from Monteverde. We were going to the Island of Ometeppe and Granada...we´d figure the rest out along the way.

But not before we had to cross the border. Oh goodness, no airport annoyance I´ve ever had could compare to this chaos. Exit one country with people screaming, lines curving, stamps stamping, cross an ambiguous divide where the security guy winked and flirted into the grand entrance of Central America´s second poorest country. This is where the headache began and the crowds started to feel like a mantra of every Nicaraguan trying to sell toothbrushes, throat lozenges, soda, chips, candy, whatever on the local, 90´s soft rock-playing buses--piercing, consistent, stop it I´m not buying. But we did, in fact, get through, and not throw up our hands and surrender ourselves back into Costa Rica...and immediately we were satisfied with the enormity of Volcán Concepción, one of the two volcanoes that makes its home on the small island of Ometeppe (meaning ´two hills´).

At the end of our ferry ride, a German by the name of Lennart whose profile resembled more of a Coldplay Chris Martin, and whose German obsession with being clean, organized, wearing tight tanktops and go-crazy-island shirts while he´s away from Berlin, made him hilarious. He must have seen the forlorn look we had not knowing where the heck we were going, and whisked us off with him in a taxi to the opposite side of the island in a farm hippy commune compost toilet ecological gem of a place on earth in Santa Cruz. For the next two days we refused to intentionally sweat under such a sun so we neglected the hike up either volcano. Instead, we drank smoothies, homemade chocolate liquor from the hippie compost commune, and swam in Lake Nicaragua (home to the only fresh water sharks in the world, you trivia nuts).

Our first day we met Caroline and Sebastian...they had the same beach bum plans (and vacationed from El Salvador with only their passport, surfboard, money and the bathing suit on their body), so we ate a meal for 3 hours, baywatched ourselves in the water and ate more food together. They may get the prize for the ¨whoa, you´re how old and you´ve done how many things already??¨ Both at the ripe age of 21, they just met up a couple weeks ago in El Salvador. From Quebec, Caroline took her bike down to Mexico where she rode for hundreds of miles down the coast staying in homes, beaches, restaurants floors, learning Spanish and feeling adventurous. Britta and I kept wondering what her parents thought about this...After several months there, she met up Sebastian in ES to learn how to surf (they had met on couchsurfing.com which is something that gives hope to all mankind). Sebastian was born in Norway to a native mother and Mississippian father, and spent his high school years and now college semesters (the ones he attends) in North Carolina...Boone, that is, at App State. With long curly locks, skin that has been darkened 30 times over by the surfing sun, and a smile that looks like bleached tile and sparkles like the stars under the Alabama-Quaker-founded Monteverde sky, he is right up there with Hannah from London as most adorable creature on the planet. After he graduated from high school he spent 2 months on the Appalachian Trail by himself and another 4 months in a station wagon going to every national park...he has covered 49 of the 50 states (no Alaska yet)...at 21...21. These two kids (because I feel that graduating in 2012 means you´re young) were a blast.

And so the 3 days on the island were spent per usual: meet cool folk, frolic, exercise only to a destination of laziness, and marvel at the hand of God. Since the island is primarily farmland, and the water is free from saltiness, all animals walk the sandy beaches along with the few tourists.

And it is here in Granada where we bought the remainder of our gifts, have typed willingly on the free, fast internet at our fabulous hostel, met my sole other Rebecca, from Berlin as well (I will detail her later, for sure), danced and laughed with two good-looking Argentinian men (both now live in Costa Rica...one a painter, the other the cook at our favorite cafe in Costa Rica from Monteverde...no kidding, Britta went to the cafe 3 times, myself once), and are about to leave for a day at the local volcano´s lagoon...these folks are crazy about their volcanoes.