The only thing to fear is fear itself, well that and death.

After being overwhelmed with What Not To Do in Ometepe, I was a little unsure of what to do on our first day. I used this blog as an excuse and spent the morning doing another update. Despite the remote location of the Hacienda, the owner had awesome internet and wifi. But after relaxing in Leon and Granada, I was feeling a little stir crazy.

One of the things we hadn’t seen in a while was a waterfall. We weren’t interested in the three hour hike though. So we decided to take bikes out to the beginning of the path to the waterfalls. We were given helmets and heavy duty mountain bikes. It seemed a bit excessive for a trip down the road. Until we started our ride. The road was even worse than I thought it was. What seemed like gravel when we were on the bus was actually large stones. And those deep ruts? Well when going down the hills they were like ramps that sent the bikes airbourne. I kept picturing one of us hitting a large rock or deep rut and going flying over the handlebars. We got about 15 minutes into the 25 minute ride and I said “No more”.

We returned to the hacienda and traded our bikes for kayaks so we could go visit those “vicious” monkeys on monkey island about 250 metres off shore. There were two islands each home to a different type of rescued monkey. On one live some spider monkeys and on the other, capuchins. Both supposedly liked to bite but we figured we’d stay well away from them.

Weary after our last attempt at kayaking, Adrian and I started slow but soon discovered we were pretty good this time. There was limited fighting and we were making good progress. But then we came around the point and into the exposed part of the lake just 50 metres from the offshore islands. Just then the wind picked up and the kayak was turned 180 degrees. The waves began to swamp the kayak and it became apparent that we weren’t going to make it to the monkeys. We turned back and decided to stay on shore with the wifi and the wonderful view of the sunset (photo above). Sure we may have wimped out but we didn’t want to become another warning in the hacienda’s activity book.