So after nearly 3 months on Ometepe I have finally gotten out and seen and bit more of the island. Two fellow volcanologists have been visiting since the last week in January and I have gone out with them for a few days in the past couple weeks. We have managed to climb up a stream on the volcano where we found some volcanic deposits and lava flows. We also saw waterfalls, large spiders, bats, crabs, monkeys, and lots of butterflies. I was also lucky enough to discover which plant is the pica pica plant. (Looks kind of like one of those cactuses with tons of tiny little spines on it, and yes it picas, or stings/itches depending on which meaning you are using).
Lucie at the beginning of our trek up the stream.
Our new friend.
Looking down toward Lucie after hiking up and around a waterfall. These were some of the deposits we found.
The sedimentary rocks that underlie the volcanoes.
The following day we went to climb up the volcano from the town of Balgüe. We first rode our bikes there and then started up. At the beginning the trail was fine, with some petroglyphs along the way…
And some nice views…
And some mud… (and believe me this was not the worst of it)
We were also in a cloud forest…and so the summit was covered with clouds when we got to the top and didn’t have much of a view, other than beautiful forest…
There is also a lagoon on top of the volcano but I didn’t go down to it this time. There were so many clouds and I figured I’d be back again. And I did try to hike the volcano again the following week with the others, but we went up a different trail, which could hardly be called a trail, and eventually lost it and decided to turn around before we lost ourselves. It was unfortunate too, because it was a beautiful cloudless day on the volcano.
Other than that school has finally started here in Nicaragua. During the last couple of weeks I have attended a number of meetings for teachers and observed a number of classes. The schools are very different here and everyday I am thankful for having had the opportunity to grow up in the states and attend the schools I did. The teachers here have very few resources and very little time to teach, given that the school day is only five hours long and I’d guess that they’d be lucky to teach for four hours of that day with the fact that it takes nearly an hour for all the students (and sometimes the teachers) to get there after the school starts. And then once most of the students are finally there some of the mothers bring in food that they have cooked for the students (breakfast for the morning session and lunch for the afternoon session). This food is provided for the schools from the government, but they need the participation of the parents to cook it. And then they also have a recess that is supposed to be only 30 minutes but usually goes for at least 45 if not more. There is a ton more I could say about the schools here, but I’ll not bore you all with that.
Some other things that have been going on: I also made it to the beautiful waterfall in San Ramon. I went with some Peace Corps Volunteers that were visiting the island from Honduras. It was fun to spend a day with them and hear about how things compare between their service and mine. Unfortunately, though, I didn’t bring my camera this time and don’t have any photos. But I imagine I’ll be back there again soon.
Our cat finally had her kittens. This cat was quite feisty when I first got here. She would scratch you if you tried to pet her. But I bribed her with some fish and tried petting her little by little and eventually she became my friend. The days leading up to the birth of her kittens she would follow me around and laid outside my door a lot. Then last Sunday I came home around 11:00 am in the morning the cat was there and she kept meowing and rubbing up against me and then right there in my kitchen had a kitten. There was obviously another kitten in her stomach but she took the first kitten in her mouth and took it away. A little while later she came back and did the same thing, but for longer…pacing and meowing and rubbing up against me and after quite a while she finally had the other kitten in my kitchen as well. Apparently my presence was necessary for the birth of her babies. Of course I haven’t seen her or the kittens since. I’m considering keeping one of them…but we shall see.
And here is one last photo of my family de-kerneling some corn for chicken feed. The chickens are all around eating the hundreds of little black bugs that were on the kernels.
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