volcan concepcion.

It must be written somewhere that I am not to have good luck with hikes and views on this trip: after Volcan Baru' and Chirripo', Volcan Concepcion here in Ometepe was a big disappointment! It is the biggest and highest of the two, and there were no guide who would take you to the top, but I insisted and hoped to make it as far up as possible! Well, the hike was pretty steep, with big steps here and there...without the branches to pull yourself up it would have been almost impossible...then all of a sudden it started raining hard, and as the forest got smaller and smaller, the wind grew stronger and stronger...till one point where we were in the open air and it was hard to walk straight, and you had to protect your face from the heavy rain...so we sought "refuge" behind some bushes, waited out to see if it would get any better...then finally decided it wasn't going to, so we might as well go back down...as far as wildlife spotting as well, as all along this trip, another big let down: all we saw was 3-4 monkeys, and we only heard a few howler monkeys...oh well. Then there was no bus back to town so we had to walk the 4-5 kilometers here, and once we got here all I could ask for was a big bottle of water and a shower! Things are going well now that I got both, and I just need some food before calling it a day...I went over to the same spot as last night's to check out the sunset again, only this time the sky didn't get as red as last night...I was thinking of taking a tour around the island, maybe by boat or motorcycle, but several locals told me that the water is so high that most of the coast, which means all of the beaches, are submerged! Bummer...now I am going to try to figure out my next couple of days, since I did not have enough of the bumpy boat ride here, and I would love to make it to the Corn Islands out in the Caribbean.