The two volcanoes of Ometepe
The island of Ometepe is actually the creation of two volcanoes, one active and one dormant, emerging from lake Nicaragua. You have to take a ferry ride of about an hour to reach its shores. When I set foot on the island it was clear that the atmosphere had already changed to much more tranquilo. My first night there we hopped in a jeep with my buddy Zac's host family and headed to the other side of the island where my good girlfriend Noelle resides in Altagracia. It just so happened to be Altagracia's fiestas patronales which is basically the celebration of the anniversary when the town was founded. Matt, Noelle's man friend from the states was also visiting which was a real treat meeting him. We also ran in to Noelle's friend who she studied abroad with in Argentina thus adding Hank and Liz to the group. We proceeded to join in on the festivities which in my opinion were really well done considering the props you see below came to the island on a ferry.....
Thursday night's gang
The equivalent of a Nica rave
The next day Noelle's host family insisted that we all celebrate Noelle's birthday together at Ojo de Agua which is a beautiful natural spring. Her family treated us to lunch and cervezas as we chilled in the spring's cool waters. The island had a perfect vibe of welcoming foreigners, but yet not too touristy which was refreshing. You could buy a coconut to drink its water and then find a nice local with a machete to chop it open to eat the meat after.
Ojo de Agua
The next day on the island was a mix of trying to catch a bus to hike a waterfall that just never came, typical Nica transportation and exploring our options on the island. We ended up finding ourselves in Charco Verde which is a natural reserve where one can visit the lake's shores and see the lagoon for which it is famous. We took a little hike where we encountered some monkeys and an amazing view of the lagoon and the far off main land of Nicaragua.
Lagoon at Charco Verde
Pre-race night rolled around quickly and the eleven of us running bunked up in a funky hostel in the port town of Moyogolpa where my buddy Zac lives. The highlight of that night was the beautiful sunset over lake Nicaragua.
Sunset at the port
Race day was like unlike any other organized racing event I've been to in the states, but lets face it, I am in Nica on an island in the middle of an enormous lake. The race that was supposed to start at 7 am finally commenced sometime after 9 when they finally drove everyone out to the various starting lines in cattle trailers. I'm not going to lie and say that I rocked it, because quite frankly my lack of training and constant dehydration here led to a slow race. The course was approximately 7 miles of Nica back country with cows in the road and motos zooming by handing us water bottles. I did get to run by the larger volcano Concepcion during the race where a few volunteers camped out to snap photos of us running in front of it. Over all it was a lot of fun and we raised some good money for Zac's youth group in the Moyogolpa community. Looks like I'm going to have to start training nice and early for the Jinotega half marathon coming up in February.
Volcano Concepcion
These next couple of weeks are jammed packed as I head to Managua to enjoy Thanksgiving dinner with an Embassy family and then a yoga/surf retreat in San Juan del Sur. I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and can't wait to see you all in the states in about 3 weeks!
I'm in the PCV group coming to Nica in January and definitely want to run some races. I've only heard of the Fuego y Agua Ultramaraton series in Nica, are there other ones? I'd love to run my first marathon out there! Congrats on your race and happy holidays! :)
ReplyDeleteGood morning how are you?
ReplyDeleteMy name is Emilio, I am a Spanish boy and I live in a town near to Madrid. I am a very interested person in knowing things so different as the culture, the way of life of the inhabitants of our planet, the fauna, the flora, and the landscapes of all the countries of the world etc. in summary, I am a person that enjoys traveling, learning and respecting people's diversity from all over the world.
I would love to travel and meet in person all the aspects above mentioned, but unfortunately as this is very expensive and my purchasing power is quite small, so I devised a way to travel with the imagination in every corner of our planet. A few years ago I started a collection of letters addressed to me in which my goal was to get at least 1 letter from each country in the world. This modest goal is feasible to reach in the most part of countries, but unfortunately it’s impossible to achieve in other various territories for several reasons, either because they are countries at war, either because they are countries with extreme poverty or because for whatever reason the postal system is not functioning properly.
For all this I would ask you one small favour:
Would you be so kind as to send me a letter by traditional mail from Nicaragua? I understand perfectly that you think that your e-mail is not the appropriate place to ask this, and even, is very probably that you ignore my letter, but I would call your attention to the difficulty involved in getting a letter from that country, and also I don’t know anyone neither where to write in Nicaragua in order to increase my collection. a letter for me is like a little souvenir, like if I have had visited that territory with my imagination and at same time, the arrival of the letters from a country is a sign of peace and normality and a original way to promote a country in the world. My postal address is the following one:
Emilio Fernandez Esteban
Calle Valencia, 39
28903 Getafe (Madrid)
Spain
If you wish, you can visit my blog www.cartasenmibuzon.blogspot.com, where you can see the pictures of all the letters that I have received from whole World.
Finally I would like to thank the attention given to this letter, and whether you can help me or not, I send my best wishes for peace, health and happiness for you, your family and all your dear beings.
Yours Sincerely
Hey Carli,
ReplyDeleteWe have a half marathon coming up the first weekend in March in Jinotega. It may be difficult to attend with your training schedule, but there is always next year too!