Ometepe (Nicaragua) - Stuff your 'El Jardin' right back to freakin' Portland

Ometepe (Nicaragua)
07 February - 10 February 2017

It's always the dropouts of life, or the trippy, hippie population of the can't deal with everyday challenges, lets look for rainbows, sparkles and places to crap in the open air fame that goad me. Their pimpernickel skulls are so orchestrated to doing the alternative thing or doing things on their own terms that reality escapes them. I mean really, who the f*** charges $600 for a six day retreat that's crafted around cooking a pig and making a sauce to go with it? That's it by the way, smoking a pig, cooking it and then maybe eating it....what the actual f***?!?

Welcome to El Jardin de la Vida  on the Nicaraguan island of Ometepe where the art of slow living morphs into careful,deliberate retardation of all your faculties, but hey, more on the endearing qualities of El Jardin a little later in the show, lets talk about the island of Ometepe first.

Leaving San Juan del Sur around mid-morning we caught a public bus to Rivas with a driver who must have been suffering a huge bout of the Nicaraguan blues as our journey was accompanied by the blaring sounds of early 80's love songs. His mamma must have hurt him real bad.

Landing in Rivas we acquired a tuk-tuk to take us down to the port of San Jorge, a small place that sidled up to the lovely waters of Lake Nicaragua (also known as Lago Cocibolca). Our destination for the next few days was right in front of our eyes. Looking across the greyish-blue wind beaten waters of the lake stood Volcan Concepcion and its little brother Volcan Maderas, both standing imperiously and mysteriously off in the distance.

San Jorge - looking across to Ometepe - Nicaragua

Ometepe - Nicaragua

The ferry crossing from San Jorge to Moyogalpa - not nearly as bad as the way I look here

Lake Nicaragua - Nicaragua

The island of Ometepe is formed by two volcanoes and rises impressively out of Lake Nicaragua. Maderas in particular is known for its lake crater and diverse rainforest environment, a unique place in itself as it's one of the rare places on the Pacific side of Nicaragua where its possible to get the humidity at the right levels to form this type of rich bio-diverse ecosystem. Not that we were arriving solely for Maderas, in fact, we were only arriving in order to say that we'd set foot on Ometepe and experienced it.

Ometepe is nice enough. Tranquil, abundantly green and presided over by the occasionally cantankerous Volcan Concepcion. I can see from aside what could draw a person to a place like this but personally I'd need a sunset view, some cool afternoon breezes licking off the lake and perhaps a tequila old fashioned to keep me in the Ometepe game for any extended period of time. Never the less, making the crossing from San Jorge to the main town of Moyogalpa had us most of the way to where we wanted to be, we just need to cut clear across the Ometepe isthumus, get to the town of Balgue and then push past that another 2.5kms to the front gate.

Lake Nicaragua - Nicaragua

Volcan Concepcion - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Volcan Concepcion - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Moyogalpa - Ometepe - Nicaragua

We arrived at the front gates of El Jardin in the early evening and walked into the communal area where the hippy collective was just commencing their 'chow down' under the yellowish hue of generator driven lights. Some of the inhabitants were swinging in hammocks and others might have been playing mahjong for all I know. It didn't bother me too much, we're accustomed to situations such as these and don't mind the occasional pop-in to the transcendent existence of these enlightened human beings.

The Mother Hen, AKA, Rachel 'P' and the co-founder of El Jardin, was the Hitler-esque figure head of the operation. I didn't see anything in her that I could recognise as being engaging, personable or inviting. Perhaps she is the perfect foil to Trevor's hipster drive. In any case, with her cold directions we were offered a meal and had the details of our lodgings explained to us, and admittedly, for one of the most remote parts of Nicaragua it was pretty good. So, no complaints at all on the accommodation front.

The next day Inga and I tossed up the idea of hiking up to the top of Volcan Madera but without a guide we decided to take an alternate option and hired a pair of bikes from El Jardin.  This decision is the initiation of what turned out to be both a loquacious and brainless argument with the owners later that afternoon but to get to the point of what happened we need to discuss the day.

El Jardin of my pathetic existence - Punta Gorda - Ometepe - Nicaragua

So the bikes. They appeared to be ‘normal mountain bikes’. They could have been made in the US, could have been made in China but were advised only later that they were built and designed in Nicaragua. Now this fact in itself shouldn’t be synonymous with bad quality, nor should it automatically set the fire of anxiety and suspicion in your mind that somehow the bikes were inadequate for their expecting range of desire use. Not that we were going to be taking the bikes on mountain trails but, we had decided to circumnavigate Volcan Maderas , and mentioned this to the owners before departing that day.

Heading out of El Jardin I immediately noticed that my bike had issues with gears and some concerns with the brakes, nothing dramatic, just little niggles that like in most places you make do with and learn to triage as you get use to the bike and the terrain.

The route out of Balgue, heading anti-clockwise to Santa Cruz and then further afield was fine. The day was pleasant and the views were fairly impressive. Our prime destination for the day was to be the waterfalls at San Ramon which we managed to get to after a few hours of work along the undulating dirt tracks, which in some sports required us to get off the bikes and push. No issues from us though, both Inga and are to exercise and we just accepted this is part of our standard routine of challenges that we quite often sign-up for, either deliberately or unwittingly.

Inga pushing one of the Nicaraguan bikes up a hill - close to Punta el Congo - Ometepe - Nicaragua

Close to Punta el Congo - Ometepe - Nicaragua

The walk up to La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

La Cascada de San Ramon was actually a welcome relief from the grind of being on the bikes for a prolonged period of time and absorbing the ever strengthening Nicaraguan sun.

The pool at the base of the waterfall was cold, inviting, refreshing and an acute form of bliss that would have had us stay longer if we weren’t on the direct opposite side of the island that we’d commenced.

It was here that we made the decision to continue with our circumnavigation of the island, it also marked the point in time where the degradation of human and machine was intrinsically connected to each other’s fortune. For every kilometre we pushed on we discovered a more rugged, more challenging stretch of road, (in actual fact,a dirt track) that would rise and fall on a whim and whose surface appeared to increase with the numbers of errant rocks exponentially for every few hundred metres added.

La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

La Cascada de San Ramon - Ometepe - Nicaragua

In all honesty that's what I think of tea also - Ometepe style tea - Nicaragua

Somehow our bikes, that should have been ‘normal mountain bikes’, able to take on average terrain, started to shudder. Now, we didn’t throw these bikes around, we didn’t ask for heavy laden truck to drive over their frames, we utilised them for the purpose of their construct, but, with each turn of the pedal, these bikes literally started to fall apart. Chains slipped off chain rings, pedals decided to come of their axles, the handle bars came loose (…nay…they came off), these bikes were literally de-materialising before our eyes. It was incredible. It was as if they had both decided just to give up the ghost.

At the stage where I needed to give up the idea of actually riding was the point in time where we were about 2-3kms out of San Pedro, which placed us 10kms from Balgue and about 8kms from the front door of El Jardin.  Literally, there was nothing we could do to assist our situation at this point, and the HELP, which were were graciously advised on our return should have been abundant, (in fact, the citizens of Ometepe should have been spilling from their huts to assist us apparently), was literally nowhere to be seen. We did get some laughter and wry smiles as we passed the odd person by but nothing even close to any offering of help manifested.

Let me tell you now, pushing bikes after a day out in the sun, up and down some God forsaken dirt track in the butt-hole of Nicaragua does not make for a particularly affable, congenial couple. That’s not to say that we are instigators of angst, it’s just saying that the situation we were in had beaten our spirits for the day.

A few kilometres closer to our accommodation and Inga still had the capacity to ride her bike enough to make it a short way without stopping. I asked her to get in front of me and head back to El Jardin in order to explain the situation.

I arrived perhaps 45 mins after her. Now, what I expected from the good ‘ole folks at El Jardin was a little sympathy for the type of day we had and in reality, some accountability for what were very crappy bikes and for a route that we should have received a heads up on. What we got, first of all, from Madame Hitler,was an attack on our integrity & rationality.

Now, what I add below is factual, based on both the events and my recollection of the idiotic argument that took place at that time.

I believe the argument started like this – ‘You should know the roads in Nicaragua and you should know what Nicaraguan bikes are like, what did you expect to happen?’

Me: Well, I expected the bikes to work in all honesty.

Then the attack from her went onto why we didn’t ask the general populous for help? 

HELLO people! You live on this island, there’s not exactly a burgeoning population around here that are ready made bike mechanics, nor did those that did present themselves jump out to give us a hand.

Her argument, moving in and out of being accusatory and nonsensical then headed back to WHAT WE SHOULD HAVE REALISED, both about the roads and about the bikes.

The argument I made was this;

Not that it should matter but an ordinary bike should be able to handle the track we had taken, and to a greater point, we advised them of where we were going, so IF THEY BELIEVED THERE WAS A REAL PROBLEM THEN WHY WERE WE NOT ADVISED OR NOT PREVENTED FROM GOING TO PARTS THAT MAY BE TROUBLESOME FOR THEIR PRECIOUS WARES?

I made the argument that on their understanding of their environment they should have warned us, they in turn stated that ‘we have no right to stop you’… 

NO BUT CONSIDERING WE’RE HIRING YOUR VEHICLES THEN YOU CAN ADVISE WHAT AREAS WE SHOULD RIDE IN AND WHAT AREAS WE SHOULD AVOID – WHEN YOU HIRE A CAR THEY DO EXACTLY THE SAME THING –  to which Mrs Hitlers response was an incredulous NO THEY DON’T.  Well a Google search of terms for car rentals refers to so many terms and conditions regarding on this matter that her was response was simply ludicrous, but stuff it, just to be clear and to pick the FIRST cab off the rank in a Google search.

3.1 You and any Authorised Driver must not use the Vehicle: .... location or region reasonably specified by Hertz to you as an area or region which is prohibited.

From here the conversation denigrated into a demand that we pay for the damage to the bikes, which I was not willing to accept, not a cent. Then both of these dip sh*ts attempted to bargain us for our complicity in the situation. Once again, my response was stuff you.

Now at this point they threatened to contact the police and also stipulated that they would be holding our passports until we made payment. Aside from this being a style of false imprisonment and some ludicrous method of ransom, what element of STUFF YOU did you not understand!!!? In actual fact I probably should have dropped some harsher words there.

So let me tell it straight. To the wonderful owners of El Jardin of my pathetic life, you guys could have been moderately sympathetic rather than being the world class dicks that you showed yourselves to be. Unreasonable, unrealistic and as dumb as dog shit, you just needed to take out the frustrations of you shitty existence for some reason on us. Rachel, I don’t know who the hell you think you are and why the angst seeps from your pores but you need a good balling from your husband, and as for you Trevor. Man, you need to grow a pair!