Ometepe and Volunteers

This weekend we went on a trip to the island of Ometepe!

To get to Ometepe we left from our house here in Managua and  went on a two hour car-ride (starting at 5 am!!! Thanks Erin for reminding me), caught a ferrry, and got to the island which is the middle of lake Nicaragua.  On the island of Ometepe there are two volcanos (I think they are both inactive?).  We drove around the island during saturday.  We stopped at this little outdoor restaurant that is nestled in between Lake Nicaragua and Charco Verde (means green puddle).  We had breakfast (yummy).  Then we went to some pond--I'm pretty bad with names, but the guide told us some people call the pond "fountain of youth."  The water has a lot of minerals in it-- so it is suppose to freshen your

 skin and make you younger. We hung out there for a few hours.  We rubbed some of the mud on the bottom of the pond on our skins to make us softer.... I don't know if it worked--maybe? (Mind over matter).

We eventually ended up at the shorter volcano (called Maderas) and stayed at a hostel called Finca Magdalena.  On sunday morning we got up to hike the volcano (5:30am again).  It was quite an experience.  It was raining, wet, and slippery.  We had two guides... one was rushing us--so the boys went on with him.  And then a few of us ladies ended up leisurely going up the volcano with another guide. He gave us the run down on the flora and fauna of the mountain. Good Stuff!  I included a short video of this experience here in the blog.

Overall tons of fun! It was a good weekend trip.  We all came home exhausted!

In the video you will see Eva, Christa, Summer, and Elizabeth ( I think you see a little bit of each of those gals).  They are girls I am volunteering with here this month.  Speaking of which, I haven't really mentioned the other peeps I'm volunteering with.  This session of summer volunteers has 9 people.  Two guys and seven gals! The guys names are: Ryan and Andrew (from Virginia and Texas).  The girls are: Eva (Texas), Meghan (Atlanta), Christa (VA), Summer (VA), Elizabeth (Texas), and Ashley (Texas).   I love the group of volunteers! We have gotten along very well :)

The program directors leading us this session are Geoff and Erin (equally amazing).  There are other Manna program directors here that we are working with and everyone is so fun, dedicated to their students and really interesting to talk to :)