When I referred to my Google Earth discovery of Lake Nicaragua in an earlier story this is really what got me ... in the middle of Lake Nicaragua is an island - Isle de Ometepe. It is made up of 2 volcanoes which at some point in the past sort of got joined together by the stuff they were spewing out. So here I am now on the Isle de Ometepe in the middle of Lake Nicaragua and it´s gorgeous. Considering my history with volcanoes maybe staying on an island that is, in effect, 2 volcanoes this may not be the best decision but ... !
I got here on Friday (I think, I´m losing all concept of time !) and chose to stay here in Altagracia on Volcano Concepcion side of the island. Really nice place to stay, found Hotel Central only 5 US dollars a night, that´s like only 2.50 pounds (no pound sign on these keyboards !) and it´s by far the nicest place I´ve stayed !
Here´s a classic, proves it´s such a small world .... this won´t mean anything to some of you but to others it will ..My first night here I´m sitting on the patio having a beer and I notice this guy who I think is English so we strike up a conversation, his name is Alistair, we get chatting about what we´re doing, where we´re going, where we´ve been etc etc. He asks me what I do for a living so I explain I resigned etc, he asks me what I used to do and I tell him I was GM for Mecca Bingo and await the usual comments ... he says, that he knows someone who works for Mecca, or maybe it was Gala, wasn´t quite sure. He didn´t know exactly what he did but ¨he drove around a lot¨ I asked him his friends name, he explains that it´s not his friend but it´s his brother´s best friend, he´s called Paul Benton. I mean really .... here I am on a volcanic island in the middle of Lake Nicaragua in Central America sitting having a beer with a guy whose brother is best friends with Paul Benton - bizarre ! I´m not quite sure Paul would be best pleased that the description of his job was that ¨he drove around a lot¨ ! Anyway I updated him on Paul´s move to the other area of the business.
Yesterday I jumped on my favoured mode of transport now .. the chicken bus and went to a place called Charco Verde, a really nice beach (black volcanic sand) on the south of Concepcion. Topped up my tan a bit and had a swim. Then last night me and Alistair went to a bar to hopefully watch the Ricky Hatton fight but they couldn´t get the channel so we hooked up with a guy called Andy, from Barnsley, and ended up at a ¨party¨that was more like a club in some old community hall thing. A good night was had by all and I got my fix of my latin american pop music !
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