Volcano Climbing

Ometepe is an island of strange beauty sited in the centre of Lake Nicaragua. Dominated by its two volcanoes, it is shaped something like a figure-eight. Life for the local people is simple, mostly agrarian and very poor, but safety is not an issue here in contrast to the rest of the country. Many of the plantations are worker owned co-operatives, no doubt founded in the heady days of socialist experimentation that followed the revolution.

Beyond the end of the pavement, my motorcycle's speed was reduced to little more that a jogging pace by the appalling condition of the roads, made of packed dirt that turns to mud in the rainy season, evolving ruts and wholes which then dry to the hardness of granite in the dry season. Near the village of Balgue I found the Finca Magdelana, a co-operative coffee growing operation at the foot of Volcan Maderas. Starbuck's regulars may know this, but it came as news to me that Nicaraguan coffee is considered among the world's best. A couple of decades ago, visitors to the island would stop at the finca after climbing to the top of the volcano, looking for food and lodging. From that beginning, hospitality has evolved into a very profitable side business for the farm and it is featured prominently in any guide book you may find describing the island.

The accommodation at Finca Magdelena is basic, as is the food, but a night's stay and three meals comes to less than ten dollars. Other than the volcano climb, activities amount to a large selection of hammocks in which to read or nap during the day and long conversations with other adventurous travelers at night while consuming vast quantities of the excellent local rum and beer.

It was eight hours of hard work getting to the crater's edge of Volcan Maderas and back to the finca. All seven of us were covered in mud to the waist and exhausted. Unluckily, the clouds that typically surround the volcano's top had not burned off by the time we reached it, so we only had glimpses through the jungle cover of the spectacular view across the lake to the line of volcanic peaks that reaches up through the country to the Honduran border.