Thursday 20th & Friday 21st April 2006 – OMETEPE ISLAND, NICARAGUA

Ometepe Island is a few hours journey from San Juan and we ventured there with the purpose of climbing one of the two volcanoes which make up the island. Ometepe means ‘two hills’ in Nahuatl and it was the Nahuatl people who first inhabited the island. Ometepe Island is completely surrounded by Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) and insulated from the rest of the country. Ometepe Island is dominated by the two massive volcanoes that make up the bulk of the island, Volcan Concepcion (1610 meters) and Volcan Maderas (1394 meters) and it was Volcan Concepcion that we decided to climb.

We took the Ometepe Ferry from the port of nearby San Jorge to get the island and shared the Ferry with a rather large bull which took the locals a long time to force on to the Ferry!
Ometepe Island is a few hours journey from San Juan and we ventured there with the purpose of climbing one of the two volcanoes which make up the island. Ometepe means ‘two hills’ in Nahuatl and it was the Nahuatl people who first inhabited the island. Ometepe Island is completely surrounded by Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) and insulated from the rest of the country. Ometepe Island is dominated by the two massive volcanoes that make up the bulk of the island, Volcan Concepcion (1610 meters) and Volcan Maderas (1394 meters) and it was Volcan Concepcion that we decided to climb.

We took the Ometepe Ferry from the port of nearby San Jorge to get the island and shared the Ferry with a rather large bull which took the locals a long time to force on to the Ferry!

Ometepe Ferry at the port of San Jorge

Having arrived at the port of Moyogalpa on Ometepe Island we checked in to the local backpackers’ hostel, booked our hike with the local famous guide Berman Gomez and bought food supplies for the next days climb.

The view from our hostel (Hospedaje Central) – Volcan Concepcion in background.

We knew we were in safe hands with Berman as he had recently led an expedition for the BBC where eleven physically disabled British people crossed Nicaragua from the Caribbean to the Pacific side which also included a hike up Volcan Concepcion. The expedition was called Beyond Boundaries and shown in the UK in November 2005 and had just been recently broadcast to the residents of Ometepe.

Due to the searing heat (it’s currently the height of summer) we were told the hike up Volcan Concepcion would only be up to 1000 meters (called El Floral – this is the part where the jungle ends as the last third of the hike is treeless and rocky) as even the professional guides get dehydrated at this time of year.

The night before the hike we took a small walk around the port of Moyogalpa and noticed how much quieter Ometepe is compared with San Juan. After a quiet dinner we went to bed early in preparation for our 4.30am wake up call.

In the early hours of the morning we woke up excited about climbing up the live Volcan Concepcion. Berman told us that tremors occur everyday but assured us it was nothing to worry about!

Whilst putting on our hiking boots, Oliver managed to get two blisters so sadly had to stay behind and miss the hike – after 6 weeks of wearing nothing but flip flops our feet are not used to wearing boots!

So the hike began at 5am (there were 6 of us including Berman) at a height of 50 meters. The sky was just starting to get light as we began the trail up the volcanoe to the loud call of the resident howler monkeys. Even at this early hour it was incredibly hot and humid in the jungle slops of the volcanoe –the sweat was beginning to run down our faces.

Whilst following the almost non existent trail, Berman would stop to show us the many different types of jungle plants and tell us of their medicinal properties, as well as point out different birds, butterflies and spiders! We managed to see a whole group of the most poisonous spiders in the world (they were all grouped at the bottom of a huge tree) but we were safe as these spiders don’t the fangs to bite and inject their venom!

Windowpane Butterfly

About 8am we stopped and had breakfast at the base of the biggest tree I have ever seen. It was lovely to eat breakfast in the cool shade of the jungle to the sound of howler monkeys. After a short rest we carried on with our hike so as not to get cold – when we were walking we would all be hot and sweaty but after stopping for a few minutes we would start to get cold the higher we climbed.

As we climbed into the cloud it became incredibly difficult for me to climb. The trail became less obvious and the higher we climbed the more ashy and soft the trail became so we would often slip. The trail also got very steep so you had to hold onto a tree to help lift yourself over the ledge blocking your way but at the same time you would have to be very aware of what you were grabbing hold of as snakes have a funny way of looking like tree branches! We had to take lots of little breaks at this point as I was moving so slowly ad getting so breathless due to the change in climate but Berman assured us this was quite common for those with asthma - not a good day for me to leave the inhaler at home!
Still we carried on for a few more hundred meters (which felt like miles) through the dense jungle.

Hiking the jungle trail of Volcan Concepcion

Tired, hot and sweaty (excepting Berman!) we reached El Floral about 11am and sat in the cloud cover and ate our lunch overlooking the island of Ometepe. There was lots of cloud cover so we were unable to see the very top of Volcan Conception. It was cold and damp at El Floral so we didn’t stay long after we’d finished eating and started our descent down the other side of the volcano which was a completely different type of vegetation – very grassy combined with large lava flows. Climbing down the volcano was almost as hard as climbing up the volcano due to the uneven of the grass and we had to be careful to walk behind Berman as what would seem like grass actually disguised a huge crevasse which we could easily fall into had we not had a guide.

The views on the way down were nothing but spectacular and we constantly looked back up the volcano amazed at how high we had climbed.

Looking down from El Floral

The crevasses of Volcan Concepcion

Celina sat on a lava flow on Volcan Concepcion

The walk back down the volcano as eventful as climbing up and we all enjoyed picking guavas off the trees and eating them. As we reached the bottom of the volcano we suddenly stopped as Berman had spotted a vine snake. To our untrained eyes it took us a while before we could see it wrapped around the vines on a fence. Berman played with the snake with his hiking pole to enable the next picture to be taken!

A Vine snake on Volcan Concepcion

Near the end of the hike we rewarded with the best complete view of Volcan Concepcion we had seen so far.

Volcan Concepcion near the end of the hike

All in all we walked 12 km, climbed 1000 meters, and took 7 hours!

The hike up Volcan Concepcion was the hardest walk ever but also the most exciting!

We hope to return to Ometepe Island to climb Volcan Maderas (which has a crater filled lake at the top) and see the waterfall, Cascada San Ramon.