4.30am start; Walk with my backpack portered in a wheel barrow along the beach, boat, taxi, plane, taxi, bus, taxi (properly ripped off!!), boat, chicken bus, walk….travelling in these parts is tiring! Twelve hours later arrived on the volcanic island of Ometepe! Checked in to Little Morgan….rustic party hostel on the shores of the lake, (a lake so big you think it’s a sea!). From the blue Caribbean Sea to the slightly more murky but equally temperate and refreshing water a quick swim to wash the dirt of travel away. The start to three great days on this island.

In my dorm was a 21 year old guy from Norway, Freddy, he’d been travelling for 8 months including the Middle East and Africa. He was near to the end of his trip having bought a motorbike in Texas and journeyed all the way down. I don’t think I was doing anything nearly as impressive as that when I was 21! He’s not telling his mother about the motorbike bit till he gets home safe. Our dorm room was on the bottom of a very open style three tiered bamboo hut, the top being a crows nest that you could watch the sunset with views of both of the island’s volcanos….another pretty memorable spot to watch the sky turn shades of pink and red.

Next day Fredrik and I went horse riding, his first time at that. Within five minutes we were on a three mile beach galloping at full pace. We were only on the horses for and hour and half, and over half over that we were galloping flat out. We were also able to take the horses into the lake, which was all good till mine decided to go swimming and I had to jump off to save my daypack with camera in getting soaked. It’s topped my Ecuador riding day, totally amazing! BUT we both paid a price, me more so than Freddy….I stupidly wore denim shorts over my leggings, and coupled with a different shaped saddle seriously chaffed my bum. Red raw. I’ve thought long and hard and decided not to publish the photo of my wounded rear…it’s just not that pretty! We ended the trek at a natural spring which they’ve made into a huge swimming pool and the guide took the horses back. When we both first got into the water our butts stung like mad! After a long walk back along the beach to the hostal, we had time for a swim in the lake before dark were we met Juliette a Dutch girl who’d checked into our dorm also. She’s bravely hired a moped from other side of the island to get over to the hostal, even though she’s never been on one before! These kids have some guts…I need to start taking some risks and living a little!

The following morning Juliette had to return the moped, so Freddy followed her and bought her back on his motorbike. Meanwhile I’d headed to another hostal up the road with better wifi and met a fellow English lass Jade who has done pretty much the same trip as me in a different order. I took her down to the beach to meet the others, and she’d already met Juliette elsewhere. Us girls swam and soaked up some sun watching the locals cycling bikes and riding and training horses on the beach, whilst Fred fulfilled his dream of riding his motorbike through the lakeside shore (it being freshwater didn’t hurt the bike). It looked too much fun, so all three of us begged him to have ride on the back and screamed like total teenagers as we got soaked through! I want a bike now…..

We’d been told by several people of some great Pizza place, so we walked in the dark with torches to a hippy hostel for the most overpriced and salty pizza ever! None of us were impressed….

Our last full day we returned to the natural water swimming pool, us girls hired the worst bikes I’ve been on in eight months…luckily it was only half hour. We had a few hours mucking around and enjoying some Coco-Locos (fresh coconut with rum) before heading back to the beach for a final time. I made the mistake of splashing some kids with water which they took as full on declaration of war. I spent ten minutes trying to out sprint the three of them before they launched handfuls of wet and dry sand at me….I lost! We decided to cycle back along the shoreline instead of going back upto the road, and for some reason cycling along the lake with a volcano in the distance was really special for all of us. There’s definitely something a bit magic about Ometepe.

Our last supper was a restaurant that all the staff at our hostal seriously raved about, unfortunately it was a forty minute walk along a dark road….fuelled by a bit of rum we set off in an overly hyped mood following the few days of fun we’d had. This time the restaurant did not disappoint! The best curry I’ve had since I left the UK hands down. A few more drinks later we started the return journey in the dark along the road, in even more silly mood attempted to recreate the Beatles album cover, at which point the only vehicle we’d seen all night came round the corner and I had to rescue my camera from the middle of the road. We managed to get a lift with the vehicle, which turned round to drive us back to our hostal and saved us half hour walk. I have to confess both the driver and his passenger were pretty inebriated, the fact that one of them had his three year old kid asleep on the back seat indicated a slight level of responsible driving. I know not my wisest move, but we got back safe….

The following morning we left the island on the Ferry and all parted ways. I had planned on climbing a volcano on the island but after my sore bum incident whimped out and had a blast anyway. That was my last stop in Nicaragua, and was a pretty cool couple days in a beautiful place with great company. Again I wish I’d had more time for Nicaragua, but what is saw of the country was great…just means I have reasons to return.