Day #6: Traveling to Ometepe

Elliott Conely
Dr. Lee and Mr. Grisbee
Managua Field School
3/24/2018
Day #6: Traveling to Ometepe
       Today, we traveled to the island of Ometepe. We awoke before the sun came up in Ciudad Sandino to begin our long journey to Ometepe. As we drove from Managua to the ferry port on the shore of Lake Nicaragua (known locally as Lake Cocibolca) we got caught in traffic which made us miss the first ferry and take a second smaller one an hour later. When we arrived on Ometepe we boarded another van and began our semi-paved journey to Merida, the town where we are staying.
       Shortly after we arrived and ate, we went on a hike at the Ometepe Butterfly Center where we saw howler monkeys and lots of butterflies. The hike was absolutely beautiful, we walked along a cliff overlooking the lake where you had clear views of the volcano Conception. When we walked down into a marsh we encountered a group of howler monkeys. They were the highlight to an already great hike.
         On the ferry, I was struck by how difficult it would be to live on Ometepe because of how long it takes to access supplies on the mainland. On Ometepe you're on an island with poor infrastructure inside a lake inside a country with weak infrastructure. Almost every resource here had to come on that rickety ferry across the lake and then hours down a rocky, dirt road. This isn't just an inconvenience for the people who live here, but it also greatly increases the cost of goods for them.

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