September 20, 2015

At the hostel in Granada, I meet a German woman who is taking a one year sabbatical from teaching and traveling. She is wearing the same Volcano Boarding tank top that I have. It crosses my mind that this is a brilliant marketing tool by the Bigfoot Hostel in Leon. The shirt is included with the tour, and it’s great advertising all up and down the Gringo Trail. 

This t-shirt is a frequent sighting along the Gringo Trail.

It’s a short 45 minutes from Granada to San Jorge where the ferry will take me to Isla Ometepe. This island in Lake Nicaragua is actually two volcanoes joined by a small isthmus. The ferry is running a bit late, and although I have a booking on the 10:30am ferry, it doesn’t actually depart until around noon. When the ferry arrives in San Jorge, two young women backpackers get off the ferry, one wearing a Bigfoot Hostel Volcano Boarding tank top. Now I begin to think of this as the new way of leaving breadcrumbs up and down the Gringo Trail. 

As I’m lining the bike up against the side rail of the ferry so the workers can tie it to the rail with ropes, two guys from Vancouver ride on. They are on matching KLR650s, and are headed south as well, with the intent of selling the bikes and flying home once they get as far as they can go in the next three months.

Ometepe Ferry

Bikes lined up on the ferry.

The ferry ride is about an hour and a half, and it docks on the island at Moyogalpa (which literally means “place of the mosquitos”). Off the ferry and heading south, the first stop is food. There’s a great vegetarian restaurant on the water at the isthmus between the volcanoes, and the herb spaghetti here is one of the best meals I’ve had so far on the trip. 

Natural Food Restaurant on Ometepe

Some great spaghetti. I was hungry. Very hungry.

Continuing on, the road turns to dirt. It has been interlocking pavers for about six miles. I suppose it’s easier and cheaper than getting concrete or asphalt to the island, but the labor is incredible. Another five miles or so and the sign comes into view: Monkies Island. Yes, it’s supposed to be Monkey Island, but the Spanglish just adds to the character. This small family-run hostel has probably seen better days, but the price is right, and it has its’ own private beach down a short trail. 

Monkies Island Beach

Unfortunately, while the beach has a nice breeze to help cool things down a bit, it also has a tremendous cloud of sand flies. At times it’s hard to even breath without ingesting flies. So back to the hostel for an early night. 

In the morning, it’s time to finish the loop around the south island…

 then continue the dirt road around the north island and back to the ferry landing at Moyogalpa. It turns out that there is a boat leaving within minutes (not the ferry, but a smaller boat that can’t take cars but will take motorcycles), but the ferry will not arrive for four hours. The boat hands have the gate open on the second level for me to drive onto the boat, but they are shaking their heads and yelling that my bike is too wide to fit through the gate. I disagree. It turns out that if you remove the blue paint from the gate rails, the bike just fits. And my aluminum panniers are perfect paint removers. 

Volcano Concepcion with the airstrip to the right. The main road on the island crosses the middle of the airstrip.

On the mainland side, I’m nicer and not in a rush, so I remove one of my panniers and let the dock hands roll the bike off the boat. They still act like it’s a big hassle (I think they wanted a tip), but if I could ride it on, it shouldn’t be that hard to push it off minus one box. 

After watching my paint removal technique applied to their boat in Moyogalpa, the crew insisted on offloading the bike for me.

Then it’s off to San Juan Del Sur and Playa Maderas.