Hiking on Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua :D

For my mothers stay we are planning to travel around as much as we can! Since Troels needed a new stamp in his passport, and I want to see as much of the world as I can, we decided to make a trip to Nicaragua. We took a bus from San José to Rivas in Nicaragua. This was an 8 hour bus ride, but the bus was comfortable and it almost felt like a flight. We got a taxi to San Jorge where we cought the ferry over Lago Nicaragua for Isla de Ometepe! Isla de Ometepe has two volcanoes, Volcán Concepción and Volcán Maderas.

We arrived Isla de Ometepe when it was dark so we just found a hostel to stay at for the night. Plans were made for our stay on the island, and the next morning we went to Charco Verde, a lagoon in the middle of the two volcanoes. From the lagoon you can see Volcán Concepción.

While walking around the lagoon there is a little trail leading to a beach where we could swim in the lake. Here we could also get a view of Volcán Maderas.

Continuing around the lagoon there was a viewpoint where we could get a view of the lagoon form higher grounds.

After our hike around the laggon we cought a bus for Moyogalpa, a city further north on the island.

This was the only city on the island where we could find an ATM. Walking down the street was nice and calm with few tourist. The people here were very kind and would just stop us and ask where we were from, and wish us a nice travel.

We also grabbed some good nicaraguan food here before we jumped on an even more crowded bus back to San José del Sur where we were living.

On the way we would pick up even more people!

So many that people would have to stand outside and hold on to the bus.

When we got back to our hostel we decided to stay in and relax because the next morning we would hike to the top of Volcán Concepción (1610 meters). The bottom of the volcano started out with a hike trough dense forest.

After ascending the first 1000 meters we reached the end of vegetation!

From here we had a great view of the western side of the volcano, and we could see across the lake.

We still had 610 meters to go, but before continuing we had a little rest, ate some cookies and fruit for extra energy up the rocks, and of course I had to do some gymnastics!

The last part was really challenging, steep and rocky. If we stepped wrong on a lose rock it would roll down and everybody behind would have to jump to the side. On the trip up we met another group hiking, and we ended up hiking together with them. We were a few that got separated from the guides, and at a point we had no idea where it was safe to ascent. Luckily there was another guide that cought up with us and followed us to the top. Finally we made it to the top!

It was a tough hike, but it was totally worth it! We got an amazing and unique experience and we met some great people from the other group that I ended up meeting again in San José (Costa Rica) at a later time.

A weekend in San Carlos :)

The last few weeks I've been travelling a lot around, so I haven't had time to update my blog. Earlier in october I went with Maja, Jorge and Troels for a weekend in San Carlos! We left early on a Friday morning to get away from morning traffic. On our way we had a nice stop in Zarcero where they have a nice church with an unbelievable park in front. The trees were cut out in many different figures and shapes :)

The drive was really nice and we could see so much beautiful nature, but with sharp eyes we also got to see a sloth in a tree close to the road. Sloths are normally just hanging still and difficult to get an eye on, but this guy was streching out to eat some leaves ;)

After about 2-3 hours we got to La Fortuna, the first plan was to go se the waterfall "Catarata La Fortuna". Driving up to the waterfall we got really lucky, the clouds around Volcán Arenal opened up so we got to see the top of the vulcano :D We heard that this was not so common for this season.

The waterfall was just amazing! Standing right next to it we could feel the power of the water falling 75m!

We also went for a swim below the waterfall. The water was pretty cold compared to the oceans I've tried. Troels and I even tried to swim into the waterfall, but the powers pushed us back. 

After cooling down in the waterfall we moved on to check in where we would stay for the weekend. We dropped off our luggage and moved on to relax in some natural hot springs heated by the vulcano. Unfortunately I left my camera, so I have no pictures to share from this great experience. We just parked the car by the road and walked down into the forest and found the hot running water :) It was so nice and relaxing! Getting back to La Fortuna we went for dinner and planned our next day going to Rio Celeste. On our way to Rio Celeste the next morning we made a short stop to see a huge tree, Arbol de la Paz!! 

When we got to the national park we parked our car and started our walk to se the light blue river. Walking through the rainforest we saw many different animals.

Rio Celeste also has a waterfall, but because of an accident 3 years ago which lead to one person dying it's not allowed to swim there anymore.

I have so many pictures from this hike, but I really like this picture that shows where 2 separate rivers connect and become one light blue river. The light blue color is from a chemical reaction between sulfur and calcium carbonate which each of the 2 rivers contain seperately.

Rio Celeste runs through the Tenerio Volcano National Park so we also hiked up to a viewpoint and got a great view to the volcano as well.

After a long day of hiking we had decided we wanted some luxury, so we went to Baldi Hot Springs Spa! They have 25 different pools with 12 different temperatures. It was nice and relaxing, and a dinner and dessert buffet was included :)

Our last day in La Fortuna was spent relaxing at the pool in the nice weather, and when we packed our bags and were about to leave the clouds lifted once more from the vulcano!

It was one more unforgetable weekend in new parts of Costa Rica!!
¡Pura vida!