The last few days of my bike trip were spent with my friends Deb and Ron in Ometepe Island, Nicaragua. We met through our blogs, and Joel and I house sat for them last September for 3 weeks and absolutely fell in love with Ometepe Island. It is a unique and beautiful place, and in a short time we had friends everywhere.

The road by the lake

The road towards town

A typical house along the way

I almost felt like I was coming home as I returned to this beautiful island. I remembered my way around, and I remembered the people who lived in the various houses I passed between the ferry to my friends’ house.

A cow wandered into the yard and was chased off by the neighbors and a couple dogs.

The mattress salesman walks down the road. Yes, this is indeed a man with a whole lot of mattresses on his back. Deb said he fell once and couldn’t get back up without help! You just never know what you are going to see around here.

The sun shines off the water as a ferry makes its way to the mainland.

Every evening there is a beautiful sunset over the lake.

I stayed an extra day because Monday was Ron’s birthday. Festivities were planned and they sounded like fun. There are a few back stories to this event, one of which is told better by my friend Deb in her blog. Click on the link to learn how the neighbor’s doctor came to spend his vacation staying at her house with his mother and two sons, and a bit about what it means to be a doctor in Nicaragua (hint – a doctor doesn’t earn enough to afford a hotel for vacation).

There is also a post about the neighbor’s house, and the new addition they put on for the doctor’s visit. It has a cement floor, a step up from the dirt floor in the main part of the house, and they hope to afford doors someday.

After a meal of BBQ pork sandwiches, baked beans, and potato salad there was an exciting game of jenga with much cheering, hollering, and shouts of “don’t touch the table!”

Gloria (waving) wants to visit Panama. If they are Deb’s family then they are mine, and it would be wonderful to have them here and show them around.

The jenga game continues. The doctor’s mom is across the table with the glasses, and that is one of his sons behind her. The birthday guy is in the white t-shirt.

The doctor is in the striped shirt, Deb is holding her camera. The rest of the people are neighbors and the doctor’s boys.

This darling little girl was so happy when she saw the camera pointed at her that she started jumping around, making it impossible to get a good photo.

I was taken next door to see Petunia and her new piglets. The pig behind the tree was butchered the next day with the assistance of Ron, and the doctor who used the opportunity for an anatomy lesson and further explanation of the surgery he did on the neighbor. The doctor also helped them chop wood for cooking.

The last photo of Petunia and her piglets. There is also an interesting story about her mastitis and the treatment in Deb’s blog here. I had never heard of using a toad to treat infection and swelling so I mentioned it to a few people here back in Panama. One said oh yes, she knew of someone who had an infected and swollen leg, and rubbing a cane toad on it helped her a lot. Another said his wife has very swollen legs when she was pregnant. A friend brought a toad, rubbed it over her legs, and the next day the swelling was gone. Apparently something about the toxic skin secretions of the cane toad are very healing to these problems (thought there is no mention of this in the Wikipedia article). Who would have thought! There is always something new and interesting around here.

Oooh, I must remember to include the happy birthday song!

But, like all good things, my visit came to a close. I biked to the ferry which took me across the lake. By the time I got off and got my bike back, there were no taxi’s but it was easy to just bike to Rivas, the main town just a few miles away. It took me a little while and a bit of help to find the bus station. I wish I could have taken photos of the dozens of streets clogged with street vendors, cars, bikes, pedestrians, horse carts and everything you could imagine. But, I was very busy trying to follow the nice lady with her little girl on her handlebars who was leading me to the bus station.

One of the volcanoes of Ometepe recedes in the background as the ferry makes its way back to the mainland.

The bus station in Rivas

Heading out of Rivas past a few of the many bicycle carts that take people around town.

I feel like I have barely scratched the surface of Nicaragua, and I hope to come back again. Even on this visit it was very interesting to see more of Rivas, and there are many other cities and areas I haven’t seen at all.  There is so much to see and do in this world, and even just in our own area.