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Recently learnt rules of boating:
1. If you pass another boat, you MUST wave at them.
2. If passing people on land and they wave, you MUST wave at them.
Yeah, thats it. Thanks to Steve for a boating education I wouldn't have lasted without!
In the last few days we've rented kayaks and set out on a few adventures on Lake Nicaragua. We arrived on Ometepe on Monday after a 13 hour chicken bus - normal bus - other bus - 3 hour border crossing - taxi - ferry debacle. Seeing the island from the water was worth every bumpy minute though. Ometepe was created by two volcanos erupting out of the lake to create land over many years and forming an isthmus between the two. It is beautiful, and (cloud permitting!) the view from the ferry is magical. A dense cloud forrest surrounds both summets and hiking without a guide is illegal as some tourists have gotten lost and died trying to do it themselves. The easier of the two hikes is a gruling 8 hour all-uphill stuggle, so we decided to save our volcano hiking for another peak!
On the recommendation of a lovely man in our hostel, we took the kayaks out to the nearby 'Monkey Island', a small piece of land which houses two monkeys which were rescued from misguded people who tried to keep them as pets. They were very cute, but we were warned a number of times by hostel employees not to get too close, as they would 'cave your head in and steal your camera' if they got the chance to climb on the boat. We stayed a safe distance away and on the way back floated around for a bit to watch the sun go down. Very romantic!
Today we took the kayaks out to a stretch of land known as the 'swamp' in between the two islands. There are windy paths you can cruise through and check out the birds and other wildlife from the water. We got lucky enough to see a troop of howler monkeys -wild ones this time! Steve showed off his bird spotter skills by correctly naming a few and we got completely soaked by a torrential downpour on our way there! In all - a rather successful few days! Tomorrow we are gonna move to a different part of the island and stay on a permiculture farm. Really looking forward to it! Then, Friday sees us leave the island for San Juan del Sur, on the pacific coast to settle into the beach for Christmas!
Feliz Navidad all!
Love xxxxxxxxxx
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