Ometepe: Ojo de Agua, Maderas Volcano Hike, Kayaking & Organic Chocolate Farm | Nicaragua

#Ometepe #Maderasvolcanohike #Concepción

Three action packed days in Ometepe, Nicaragua as we continued to travel Central America. Isla de Ometepe is an island comprised mainly of two volcanoes, Concepción volcano and Maderas volcano, in Lake Nicaragua (a.k.a Cocibolca).

After a crazy and chaotic one hour ferry from San Jorge to Mayogalpa, we took both a taxi and scooter to Hotel la Omaja, south of Maderas volcano....a scooter which I subsequently crashed 100m from the hotel! The sunset from the pool at Hotel la Omaja is incredible..

Overall, Ometepe is a peaceful and relaxing place to visit whilst travelling Nicaragua. However, whilst there are a number of key tourist attractions you can complete this within a few days at which point it's time to get out of there! Here was our itinerary:


Day 1: Ojo de Agua

Ojo de Agua is found on the thin strip of land that connects Concepción volcano and Maderas volcano. It is a swimming pool that is fed by a natural underground spring/river - apparently from Maderas volcano even though it is technically closer to Concepción.

The water at Ojo de Agua is crystal clear and hovers around the 25°C mark. The water is constantly refreshed from the underground river.

It's an incredibly peaceful place to relax, with multiple restaurants, changing rooms, swings in the pool and a sort of spring board/diving board & rope swing. Entrance costs $5 USD, or 150 Córdoba. It is perhaps the nicest swimming pool I've ever been to and is surrounded by plants and trees.


Day 2: Climbing Volcán Maderas

Climbing one of the two volcanoes on Ometepe is one of the main attractions of the island. Concepción stands at 1,610 meters in altitude and Maderas at 1,400 meters.

Concepción looks like your classic volcano, symmetrical and soaring to the sky. It is however more arid than Maderas, whereas Maderas is covered in rainforest and cloud forest as you climb higher.

I decided to climb Maderas because the start is only a few minutes walk from Hotel la Omaja. In addition, I was told it is the better hike because Concepción is very similar the whole way up. It is an active volcano but you can't see any lava from the top. With regards to views, both struggle from the fact that a lot of the time the summit of both volcanoes is covered in cloud!

Time wise, Maderas takes anywhere between 7 and 9 hours to hike (we did it in 7) and Concepción 9 to 11 hours to hike to the summit and back down.

The hike up Maderas volcano starts with about an hour of reasonably flat farmland before the terrain gets a little steeper in the rainforest. As you reach the cloud forest it starts to get a lot steeper (and wetter), often having to climb on all fours. Once you reach the top there is a lake that you can see which takes another 45 minutes but we skipped that because we wouldn't have been able to see anything because of the cloud!


Day 3: Kayaking & Organic Chocolate Farm

Waking up on day 3, we went immediate to Mango beach to kayak down the Istian river in the strip of land between the two volcanoes. There's a lot of wildlife to see including birds, turtles, caimans and horses and cattle feeding off the vegetation growing on the banks of the river.

It cost us $15 USD each and lasts about 2 hours. There can often be a lot of wind on lake Nicaragua so it's worth staying relatively close to the shore to get a little shelter from the wind.

After Kayaking we went to visit an organic cacao farm called el Pital on the North East side of the island. In fact, you see Pital chocolate being sold across Nicaragua! It has a great vegan restaurant and the kombucha is particularly good.


Other things to do:

There are a few other things to do in Ometepe that we didn't manage to complete during our stay. There is a 1km long sandbar on the South Western edge of the island called Punta Jesús María which is a spot that is particularly popular during sunset.

Finally, San Ramon waterfall is relatively close to Hotel la Omaja in the South East of the island. It's over 60m tall but is more spectacular during the wet season. It does require some hiking from the car park and we had already seen a lot of waterfalls in Costa Rica so we decided to give it a miss this time around.

Timecodes:

0:00 - Ferry from San Jorge to Mayogalpa
1:45 - Taxi/Scooter from Mayogalpa to Hotel la Omaja
2:58 - Hotel la Omaja
6:52 - Ojo de Agua
8:45 - Mango Beach
10:13 - Climbing Maderas Volcano
12:19 - Cloud Forest
14:06 - Summit of Maderas Volcano
19:53 - Nicaraguan Wages
23:03 - Kayaking Istian River

Shot on:

- GoPro Hero 9 Black (with media mod)
- GoPro Hero 8 Black

Edited on:

- Da Vince Resolve 17