Scooters on Ometepe

We woke up to a short power cut this morning, the reason we woke up being that the fan stopped working and the intense heat woke us both up. It turns out that these power cuts are quite common and don’t last long.
Anyway we had decided today that we were going to rent scooters and go for an exploration of the island. We wanted to get one each and our host Gio sorted us out with a place to get them from. We were warned about being scammed and conned. We were also told to make sure we didn’t crash the scooters as we would be charged a fortune to repair them (there wasn’t an insurance option)!
Anyway we were both pretty excited and after sorting out the formalities and being shown the Men at Work song “down under” a few times we were off! Well we were off to breakfast of beans and rice, scrambled eggs and tomatoes. Actually pretty delicious and filling.
The scooters were so much fun and it wasn’t long before we got the hang of them and Sarah was insisting that we go faster! There was hardly any traffic on the road, the main things we had to watch out for were horses, cows, pigs, oxen, chickens or dogs which were all wandering free around the island! Luckily we escaped without crashing into any wildlife!
It was just a great way to travel around the island and a great start to Nicaragua!! The roads were fairly decent and some of the villages we passed through were fantastic. The main road was paved but the roads off of it were just dirt roads and they were lined with small huts with loads of trees around providing shade. Everything was open to try and take advantage of any breeze available and most of the time people were sat in rocking chairs outside the front door. It was all quite romantic.
We interrupted our “Easy Rider” experience to visit a nature reserve called Charco Verde. We had no idea what to expect but set off for a wander. There were loads of lovely flowers and butterflies to begin with and we were having a great time.
15 minutes into the walk Sarah spotted a monkey and we soon noticed a couple more. We followed these guys through the trees for a while and they eventually met up with the rest of the troop!! Suddenly we were surrounded by at least a dozen monkeys in a huge mango tree. It was just us alone able to wait and watch them all. Just an incredible experience.
The whole island was teeming with wildlife both domesticated and wild, we were really starting to get taken in by the place.
Even with the wind in our faces as we were cruising around we were still getting hot and decided to go for a dip at a lagoon called Ojo de Agua. It wasn’t quite the natural lagoon we were promised, more of a swimming pool. The water was cold and fresh and we enjoyed a cool down but the place was pretty busy and we were having such fun exploring so we decided to set off again.
We stopped at a beach for lunch which unfortunately was terrible. We were trying to experience some Nicaraguan food but for the second time now we were only able to find a selection of western options badly executed. Still I have complete faith that things will get better. The location for instance was fantastic and we spent the rest of the afternoon cruising around in between dips in the lagoon!!
We finished the day by watching the sun go down at Punta de Jesus Maria. The best bit about this place was that you could do your best Jesus impression by walking on water!! The sand banks were just the perfect depth and while we would have liked to spend longer there we wanted to get the scooters back before dark.
By this stage we were exhausted and set off to find a cold beer and some dinner. On the way we had the local drunk latch onto us and insist we had a beer with him. We said thanks but no but he followed us around anyway and even came to sit with us while we had a beer!! We managed to get rid of him after a while and both had a good laugh about it.
We couldn’t believe what a great first day we had had in Ometepe and were really looking forward to the rest of the trip around Nicaragua!! T