Day 6: Fly back to Managua and head to Ometepe

We were told that we should get to the airport by 6:30 to guarantee a seat on the direct flight as they were going to have two planes, one of which would fly to Bluefields and then to Managua later. Our flight was an hour late, leaving at 9am and arriving in Managua at 10:30. Unfortunately the guys at La Costena broke one of the clips on the straps for my backpack but it was till usable and they gave me a piece of wire to make it functional again.



We had previously arranged transportation with Adelante Express to San Jorge for $65 and they were right there waiting for us as we exited the terminal. The driver spoke good English and told us to wait while he went to go get his vehicle. Since we didn't have any breakfast we purchased some yummy pineapple pastries from a sidewalk vendor. The driver then pulled up in a ratty taxi - NOT the air-conditioned van they advertise on the web site. But he was nice enough so we didn't make an issue of it. It was about 1.5 hours to San Jorge - we got there just as a small boat was getting ready to leave but our driver said the water on the lake was pretty rough and we would be better off waiting for the larger ferry.



We went into a restaurant and had some beers along with chips and salsa and played some cards to pass the time. We then paid a 10 cordoba tax to enter the dock and boarded the ferry and sat inside on the second deck where they showed some pretty suggestive music videos consisting of scantly clothed women bumping and grinding, one even bordering on porn with a women giving simulated oral sex to another guy - not that I minded the eye candy but probably not best to be watched by younger kids. The ferry was 60 cordobas each and there is a guy to come to collect the fares once the ferry is underway.


The ride to Moyogalpa took about an hour and we took a $25 taxi in a nice 4x4 to Little Morgan's on the Maderas side of the island. The ride was about an hour and the driver pointed some things along the way passing fields of corn and tobbaco and even stopping for us to see some monkeys in the trees and take some pictures.

The roads on Ometepe were in good condition until you leave Playa Santo Domingo where they become really bad. The drive took about an hour and we arrived at Little Morgan's at about 4pm. We were taken to our cabana ($30/night) and were disappointed to find that the room had jumping spiders inside along with ants and various dead bugs all over the floor and there were thousands of ants swarming about the toilet. It obviously hadn't been cleaned prior to our arrival. Since we were exhausted from our long day of travel we were too tired to make an issue of it and crawled under the mosquito net on our bed and took a nap.

After waking up a few hours later we were famished and headed to the bar/restaurant only to find it completely packed with nowhere to sit. We ordered a quesadilla and had to eat it while standing. I found Morgan and told him about the insect situation and asked if he had any bug spray to at least get rid of the ants since we couldn't even use the toilet without ants them coming up our legs and bitting us. He told us that the ants would probably be gone by the morning and if it was a problem to use the toilet we could hike down and use the shared toilets in the hostal area. This really put me off since we were paying extra for a private room with toilet. If it wasn't after dark we would have probably left and found somewhere else to stay.

Finally some people left the bar/restaurant and we were able to sit down and ordered a yummy spaghetti with chorizo tomato sauce. We met the rest of the staff who were quite friendly. The drinks they pour at the bar are HUGE - 16oz+ rum and cokes for 50 cordobas. After eating and having a few cocktails we were feeling better about everything and having a good time.