Day 119 - Monday 16th January 2006

It was a beautiful morning on the island of Omotepe and after a traditional rice and bean breakfast the two Argies, the Aussie and myself ventured out to the playa. however instead of stopping there we carried on following the trail that led off towards Charco Verde, a lagoon in the middle of an island, in the middle of a lake.

The island of Omotepe was formed when two volcanoes rose from the lake. They were orignally two seperate islands, however one of these erupted and the lave flows spread out towards the other volcano and this formed a cuaseway between the two islands thus making them one.

We followed the Charco Verde trail until we reached the headland and could go no further. From here there were clear views of both volcanoes. Only the very peaks of each were enveloped in wisps of cloud. We sat down for a while looking out over the lake and the volcanoes before making our way back down the path to the playa for a quick swim before walking into town for lunch, which came in the form of chicken and salad from a local womans house.

We were told that her house doubled as a restuarant but usually only on weekends. Although it was Monday the Argies spoke the lingo with her and managed to convince her to whip us up some lunch for the bargain price of C20 each (C30=£1).

The next place on the agenda was the Mirador del Diablo, or Devils Lookout. We scrambled across fields, up pathways and through bushes and the undergrowth, eventually making it to a lookout point. Whether or not this was Mirador del Diablo I have no idea but it was a decent enough vantage point nonetheless, from where we could see the headland we had walked to earlier in the day.

As we sat watching nothing in particular the Aussie spotted a group of howler monkeys passing by. We made our way over to where they were and like Japanese tourists proceeded to take numerous photos of the little critters. After watching them for about an hour we decided to leave them in peace and went back to the palya judt in time for a final swim and to see the sun setting over the mountains on the mainland.

During the evening I made tentative plans for the following day, to climb one of the volcanoes that make up the island, Volcan Maderas. This was supposed to be an eight hour round trip and has a crater lake at the summit in which it is possible to have a swim.