Ometepe Island, Lake Nicaragua, NICARAGUA

SEE UPDATE BELOW IN RED

Only 7 hours north of San Jose, Costa Rica, and my Tica Bus halted at the town of Rivas, Nicaragua. From here I took a 45 minute ride in a very old squeeky wooden boat (read = scary) to the village of Moyogalpa on the western shores of the Island of Ometepe. This island, located in Lake Nicaragua, is formed by two volcanoes, Conception (active), which rises 4,430 feet above sea level and Maderas (dormant) at 3,833 feet. Conception is regarded as the most perfectly formed volcano cone in Central America, and the highest and most active volcano in Nicaragua.

The old school bus ride to my current base, Altagracia, on the north eastern shores of the island, was excitng to say the least. The views of Volcano Conception and Madeiras were stunning, and the locals live a very basic life. Homes are generally built of mud, dried palms, and palm thatched roofs. Friendly people indeed!

Tomorrow I am scaling the Volcano Conception and hope to catch a blimp of the sulphur vents and constant small explosions inside this active crater. The climb should not take me more than 5 hours up (starting at 5am), and I expect to roll back down...which should be fast!!

I trust to be back safely in my guesthouse tomorrow night!

UPDATED 24 HOURS LATER
I started the climb up Volcano Conception (1,610 meters from the base at sea level) with a Dutch guy, Dutch girl and Swedish guy....and our local guide. At the base of the volcano, the vegetation is mainly banana plantations. As we went up through the bananas plants, we climbed through an area of rain forest, followed by cloud forests (with many flowers and orchids), and then reached the area of smaller bushes around the 1100m level. Then came an area of mud and decomposed ferns (destroyed in a recent eruption) and the last 100 meters was just gravel with no vegetation at all. In this area, we were covered by clouds and the wind was blowing at about 200km per hour right towards the summit of the crater. If it wasn´t for the strong wind, I doubt we would have been able to climb or crawl up the last 100 meters. In this fiercely blowing wind, it was obviously very dangerous to get too close to the crater....so I had to crawl closer to peek inside but due to the cloud cover, visibility was limited. Strong fumes of hot sulphur gasses blew into my face and the small stones around the crater was very hot. As I really didn´t want to push my luck and become a few boiling bones in a sulphur lake (or worse....a lava lake), I retreated. THIS was the most hostile environment I have ever experienced! The sulphur smoke, hot stones, hurricane strength wind, clouds which limited visibility to 7 meters....this must be what a bad day at the summit of Mount Everest must be...except we had no snow and ice. My two fellow climbers (the guys) got separated from us at the summit and we feared they were blown into the crater!! After a long and hellish search (and a few spectacular falls) we found them about 150 meters below the crater rim -- lost in the bushes!

The walk down was not any easier than going up and all of us had several spectacular falls! With no broken bones and deep wounds, we arrived back at Altagracia village.....and drank about all the cold drinks available in town! This, was a great day in my life!

The locals are very friendly...and here on this volcanic island with the two beautifully coned volcanoes (Concepcion and Madeiras), people still live very basic lives. I would guess a family of 4 would live on no more than US$5 per day.

This afternoon I´m taking the ferry to Granada on the north shores of Lake Nicaragua.