Isla Ometepe, Nicaragua

Folks,

I'm now on Ometepe, an island in Lake Nicaragua. I have come to realise that I do seem to be drawn to little islands. Maybe it's because I'm from one.

The pic of the week shows some kids in the town of Altagracia on the north of the island that insisted I take their photograph.

León
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There was no direct bus from Tegucigalpa to León, so I had the driver drop me off at the crossroads, where I got a hugely overcrowded bus for the last few hours travel. Lots of the local buses in Central America, often called chicken buses, are old US school buses. This one even had a sign up telling us to protect our riding privileges by observing the same conduct as in the classroom.

I had been told that León was perhaps the most beautiful colonial city in Central America. But, for me, it didn't beat Granada which I love. However, it does have a magnificent cathedral, which is the largest in Central America.

Granada
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I had been in Granada before, back in March. You may remember that it's where I lost my wallet. As I walked down to the lake I remembered the last time I'd taken that walk, and I could recall so clearly the rising sense of panic as I realised it was gone. And when I got to the bench I had last sat on before I realised the wallet was gone I could remember that the book I had been reading was 'The Secret Life of Bees'.

It's a beautiful colonial city, and I was delighted to have the chance to get back there before leaving Central America. There were processions and bands every night while I was there, because it's the festival of La Purisma, the 10 days leading up to Immaculate Conception.

Ometepe
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Lake Nicaragua is huge. When you're on the shore it stretches beyond the horizon, and it feels like you're on the coast. In fact, before the Panama Canal was built many people preferred Nicaragua as a location. Because the Río San Juan is navigable and links the Caribbean with the lake, and then there is just a narrow stretch of land between the lake and the Pacific.

Ometepe island is created by two volcanoes that rise up in the middle of the lake and are connected by an isthmus between them. It takes an hour to sail over, and it was a really rough crossing. In a lake!

It's beautiful here, but most of the activities centre around hiking up volcanoes, or horse-riding. So way too energetic for me. I've been taking it easy, and exploring just by taking the local buses.

Mobile
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I still have my mobile phone from Ireland. It's my calendar, organiser and alarm. But in my two and half years plus in Costa Rica it never operated as a phone; it never connected to the cellular network because there was no roaming agreement. I was quite surprised when I turned it on in Guatemala at the beginning of my travels and it leapt into life and delivered me a text message. I was then able to use it throughout Guatemala, Mexico, Cuba, Belize and Honduras, but after crossing the border to Nicaragua it lost the Honduran signal and I've had no coverage.

So I was amazed on the boat to Ometepe for it to beep with a text message received with a special offer from O2. I wondered where it was getting the signal from, and saw that the network was none other than ICE, the Costa Rican phone company. So just as I'm about to leave they've obviously started allowing roaming!
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Well, that's it for this week. I'm going into my last full week in Central America, and I have my ticket to get a bus directly through Costa Rica and into Panama for 5 days, before returning to Heredia next week for my last few days before flying home.

So until next week,

Chau,

Éamon

Wednesday's Headline in La Tribuna: Ortega gives Assembly an ultimatum.