Thursday, May 29, 2014

Day 296: Las Isletas de Granada


Just south-east of Granada, scattered throughout Lake Nicaragua, are roughly 365 volcanic islands. We thought this would be a nice place to go for the day, to get away from the heat of the city, and enjoy some wildlife viewing opportunities. After shopping around a bit, we avoided the tour companies boasting photos of tourists petting monkeys (shame on you!), and chose one that sounded a little more eco-friendly. Being on the last of our pennies, we discussed at length the trip with the tour operator to ensure we knew what we were getting.



Turns out, we didn't discuss enough. What we thought was a day trip in a boat to explore the islands and look for birdlife and monkeys turned out to be a boat transfer to their private island where we were dumped for the day and abandoned along with our cook. The boatman came and went so secretively that we were confused when we saw two more women on the island that had not previously been there. Sadly no one ever came to clean the pool which looked like a '90s Nickelodeon gameshow had been filmed in it before our arrival.






Without any information about the lake (currents, etc), no lifejackets, and the rum we had brought with us, we decided to stay ashore and safely swing in the hammocks. Eventually we were collected and taken around the small islands as the sun went down over the verdant slopes of the volcano. In a rush (we suppose), the boatman skipped our stop at the thermal waters at the base of the volcano without saying a word to us.




Needless to say our experience was not what we had hoped or paid for. That being said we did enjoy our time in the hammocks (though we had to be careful as the birds above us seemed intent on carpet bombing the island), and the boat ride, what little we got, we beautiful.

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