OUTDOORS
Sunset over a fuming Volcán Concepción, as seen
from Finca Magdalena on the Isla de Ometepe
H AV E I T Y OU R
E C O - W A Y
Travel Nicaragua before it’s
the next Costa Rica Story & photos by Chuck Adams
I
just sort of started drinking the water.
From the tap, unboiled and unbot-
tled. It was a perilous choice to make
in Central America, one with conse-
quences of the most uncomfortable kind.
But I had had enough. The plastic bottles
of agua purificada I had been buying in
Nicaragua for the past week to refill my
Nalgene were destined for a local river-
bank or in the drainage ditch beside the
road. In a country where children learn to
ask gringos for one peso (as if foreigners
are visiting grandparents) and have been
taught that any open window is a perfectly
functional garbage can, setting a good
example by drinking the local water sup-
ply was the least I could do. It didn’t hurt
that some of the places I stayed encour-
aged this practice. Finca Magdalena, on
the Isla de Ometepe, has a big sign that
reads “Help Stop the Privatization of
Water — Drink our Tap!” It’s a hopeful
sign for this country of belching volca-
noes, cloud forests, rain forests, freshwater
lakes, countless rivers and genuinely
friendly people.
Nicaragua is hot right now, and not just
in degrees Celsius. It’s being touted as an
underdeveloped dreamland for real estate
speculators and a touristic paradise with
more square miles of virgin forest than
Costa Rica. Oh, and don’t forget to men-
tion that it’s dirt cheap! Well, that’s
because the people are dirt poor, earning
about a dollar a day. With budgets so tight,
it’s no wonder that mini-buses won’t
depart until they are 99 percent full; that
the country’s per-capita energy consump-
tion is the lowest of any Central American
country; that pesticides are rarely used on
crops simply because they’re too expen-
sive.
Good or bad, it is because of this pover-
ty (which is low-impact simply by design)
that Nicaragua is fast becoming the de
facto eco-haven for all your eco-tourism
needs. It also still retains most of its rough
edges and cultural purity — big boons to
the traveling backpacker in search of
adventure travel without all the comforts
of home. Last month, I visited a destina-
tion in Nicaragua that still falls in that rar-
efied zone of authentic culture mixed with
ecologically rich lands: Isla de Ometepe.
Ometepe is a close-knit
island community that contin-
ues to live at its own pace.
Similar to Italy’s Sicily or
Sardinia in the Mediterranean,
Ometepe’s traditions and cus-
toms are preserved by water, in
this case the largest lake in
Central America: Lago de
Nicaragua. To give you an idea:
The Internet has only been
available in the past few years,
oil barrels are still shipped by
small, single-engine skiffs and
electricity brownouts are a
daily hassle. The best lodging
(and dining) on the island come from two
organic farms spread out over the eastern
slopes of the dormant, cloud-capped
Volcán Maderas.
Finca Magdalena, one of the farms,
contains a huge, 120-year-old barn con-
verted to simple dorms and single rooms,
where lodging is under two bucks a night
(try to reserve one of their four hammocks;
the cots are stiff). Twenty-four families
cooperatively run this gigantic farm in a
spirit of community. Food and drink are
farm-fresh and delicious. The main draw
at Magdalena, however, is the 5 km trail
that climbs up the volcano, passing under
shade-grown coffee and cocoa plantations
(go to www.bosia.org to buy some for
yourself), side-stepping ancient petro-
glyphs and topping out in an amazing,
“mist”-ical cloud forest with an eerie
crater lake.
For an even more rustic setting, about
one mile down the road is El Zopilote
Finca Ecológica, a practicing permacul-
ture farm and campground managed by an
Italian expatriate guru who lives and
breathes Slow Food. The boon here is his
wood-fired oven, serving up fresh-baked
bread and occasionally pizza (if you order
at least eight pies one day in advance). The
homemade food here is so good that
rumors of a pizza party spread quickly
around the island; late one night, a band of
Brazilian fire dancers arrived, hungry and
restless. As the evening matured from twi-
light serenades to midnight philosophical
rants, all nationalities and subcultures
were present: French hippies, dreadlocked
Aussies, astute Swiss, austere Finns, fre-
netic Brazilians, clueless Swedes, note-
taking Americans. Out of this swirling
madness came two thoughts: One, that
sometimes travel can be more character-
driven than destination-driven, and two,
that when given the choice of sporadic
banter with an international hodgepodge
of miscreants or riding an ATV vehicle
through the last remaining stand of virgin
rainforest in Costa Rica, I know which I’d
choose. As for my choice to drink the
water: Two weeks on, I still have no
regrets.
ew
Nicaragua online resources:
Informative travel guide: www.vianica.com
Finca Magdalena: www.fincamagdalena.com
El Zopilote Finca Ecológica: www.ometepezopilote.com
Permaculture, grass huts and
Volcán Maderas at El Zopilote —
eco-tourism at its best
MAY 3, 2007 21