A friendly face

It was time to leave the chilled out Lake Apoya and adventure to Ometepe – an island formed by the rising of two volcanoes in Lake Nicaragua (the biggest lake in central America). I boarded a shuttle to the San Jorge port where I got lots of mixed messages about ferry times to the island. Each person in uniform I spoke to gave me a different answer. Finally it became clear that I had four hours to kill before I could board. So I decided to find a spot of lunch. As I tucked into my huge fish filet sandwich overlooking the beach with people playing, sunbathing and relaxing on the sand, I caught sight of a familiar face. My Spanish friend I met two months ago in Mexico just entered the restaurant and was looking at the menu. I called her name and we gave each other a big hug. She was with a group of friends she met on the bus getting there. We all sat down around a big table, enjoyed our food together and had a catch up. She complimented me on my Spanish skills and I in her English which had also greatly improved. We exchanged travel routes and spoke about where we want to go next.

It was so refreshing to see a friendly face I had been traveling alone for long enough. It could not have come at a better time. Of course getting the ferry was not straight forward at all. The ticket we bought did not enable us to get onto the ferry as it was at its full capacity. We had to get our money back and wait for another ferry a bit later on. It was a long affair but it is not bother me as I had company and I knew we would get there eventually – even if it did take all day, which it did.

A while later we boarded the boat, watched the sun sink in the sky over the lake and enjoyed a pleasant, calm ride to Ometepe.

A girl from Chilli in our group had a yucalale and treated us with some tunes. It was a special moment when we all sang along to ‘Some where over the rainbow’. While we were all from different parts of the world we all knew this song. As darkness descended colourful fairy lights were put on and we watched the sky turn darker and darker.

On arriving at Omnetepe port our adventure was not over yet. We boarded the wrong chicken bus and ended up in a different part of the island than we expected. Yet again, this did not matter we found a hostel for 5 us dollars and dumped our heavy baggage. While it was not the hostel we were looking for it did the job just fine.

Next on the cards was food. There was not much in offer with it being a tiny place and a Sunday night. However, we found a small typical family run restaurant. It was in an old shack type building and served typical Nicaraguan grub – yes you guessed it Gallo pinto (rice and beans), fried plantain and chicken.

We slept well that evening exhausted from traveling all day.