expectations & eggspectations.

when you hear too much good about something - a movie, a restaurant, a touristic landmark - chances are that bringing high those expectations will only let you down, disappointed.
isla ometepe has always been on top of the to-do list in nicaragua as far as tourism goes back in this turbulent slash passionate political country. hence my suspicion of finding a spoiled paradise. au contraire. the island is anormally quiet. the picture on the right was taken from finca magdalena, were i crashed for 2 nights. the finca, at the foot of one of the 2 volcanoes that have created the island, serve mainly as an organic coffee farm but has also dorms and a small restaurant-like place where one* can enjoy some grilled fish, a fresh juice and a beer while watching the opposite twin volcano. to get there in the first place was an adventure in itself. it implies going through the roughest dirt road ever, making it even harder to believe that this island has anything to do with tourism. it s then walking uphill for some time untill you reach the farm.

as the farm was at the bottom of a volcano, it seemed futile to try not to go up it s crater. a small group ( 4 of us, maud, molly and louis) went up for it. what was believed as to be a walk in the parc quickly turned out to be a stiff, narrow, rocky little path. and as we gained in altitude, the ground became more and more humid and then clearly wet. soon, we had red-clay mud up to the ankles. and as we kept moving up in a hike that never seemed to end (it took a good 6h30 all together) what was then steep became closer to rock climbing. the heights brang wind. maud was starting to feel week (my lower legs still hurts 2 days after). we new, after 3h30 minutes up-hill, that we were getting coser to our objective only when, at the very top, we started going downhill. that meant that we were now inside the crater, the fact that there was no more wind confirmed this. out of the thick green-jungle-cloud-forest-like came an oasis: a little beach with the blue-green crater lake. we ate our sandwiches, we took it easy, enjoying the sun, little bath. we had the crater lake for ourselves and i really wondered, at that precise moment, if nicaragua had any tourism at all. after all, we were, the 4 of us, alone in what is suppose to be nic first attraction.

mini-van, boat, taxi, chicken-bus and a pullman. these are what is needed in order to get out from omatepe and into costa rica. before i start a new post for costa rica, i d have to say at least a word about what has now been the strangest cross-border i have been through so far. priorly, borders have been shared between guatemala, el salvador and nicaragua in good faith and in common sense, making the crossing efficient, practical, easy and fast.
now why the border between nicaragua and costa rica is seperated by a full one kilometer corridor, a no-mans-land kinda experience, is beyond understanding. people are walking frenetically in all directions. you need a first stamp. you need to pay to leave the local community. another desk, somewehere, elsewhere, needed to pay out of nicaragua. then walking and walking. people have luggages over their heads, as if they would be fleeing some sort of heavy warzone. then you get into costa rica and you need to find where about to get their stamp in your already much shaken passport. i m telling ya, this, in itself, was something of an experience out of the ordinary.

N.B.: as a big breakfast fan, those eggs, rice, bean and cheeze that we get pretty much every morning have never been dispointing. sometimes it s just nice to know what to eggspect.

* "one" would be me.