Ometepe Island is an island in Lake Nicaragua that is formed from two volcanoes: Conception & Maderas. It is relatively close to Granada, an hour to the port city of Rivas and then a very uncomfortable 45 minute ferry to Ometepe. The island is quite spread out with limited means of public transportation so the go to mode of getting around is a scooter or motorbike. Having ridden a scooter a handful of times and never ridden a manual motorbike of course I opted for the… motorbike. What better place to learn to ride a motorbike than roads that resembled a jigsaw puzzle, livestock coming out of nowhere and sharing a road with local drivers who treated the road signs as suggestions than Ometepe Island. The rental company delivered the bikes, 3 scooters and 1 motorbike to the hostel I was staying at for me and the group I was travelling with. I signed my life away and was given the keys and a helmet that offered about as much protection as a paper bag. The chap gave me a quick impromptu lesson on how to ride a motorbike, and with the confidence of a man that passed his manual driving test in a town with no traffic lights and still managed to stall, off I went. There were a few shaky moments but I got the hang of it quite quickly, despite not knowing how to indicate for the duration of having this bike.
We spent the afternoon at the hostel which had a great rooftop pool and offered amazing views of both Volcano Conception and the sunset over the water.
The next day we rode our bikes to the Ometepe nature reserve which was nice. We went to the butterfly sanctuary which bizarrely featured very few butterflys lol and took a nice walk to the lake where we saw monkeys and other birds. We ventured 30 minutes to the Punta Jesus Maria beach for sunset. Sunsets seem to be a bit of a theme on the trip so far but this sunset was up there with the best. We had dinner at a nice local restaurant to round out the day.
The next day a few of us watched Arsenal at the hostel and stimulated the economy with some beer purchases. We attended a party on the other side of the island ‘Wet Wednesday’ which was good fun.
There were a few rough heads the next day but we rode to the other side of the island which took about an hour. We explored the area and had lunch at a roadside restaurant. We watched the sunset at ‘Playa Mango’ before a slighty scary nighttime motorcycle back to the hostel.
A very fun few days and one of my favourite places on the trip so far!
