We caught the 10:30 am ferry from San Jorge, about a 45-minute drive NE from our home in San Juan del Sur.
I’d called and made reservations over the phone the day before and was told we’d be traveling on the Ometepe 3, one of their larger ferrys which took cars. I was told it was a big, three-story ferry with a bar and bathrooms. And also that it could carry nine cars. Those two separate bits of information didn’t match in my mind; surely a large three-story ferry could carry more than nine cars, right? But when I saw the small, three-story ferry it all made sense.
As it was, the ferry only held three trucks, a couple of motorcycles and our rental car.
John backed the car up carefully, into the cramped tiny space, following the Captain’s rapid hand signals as he twirled his fingers in circles to the right and then to the left and then back to the right again.
We climbed up to the open top deck, sat on the benches behind the wheelhouse and spent the trip gazing out over the lake, which looked the size of a sea.
We caught the 10:30 am ferry from San Jorge, about a 45-minute drive NE from our home in San Juan del Sur.
I’d called and made reservations over the phone the day before and was told we’d be traveling on the Ometepe 3, one of their larger ferrys which took cars. I was told it was a big, three-story ferry with a bar and bathrooms. And also that it could carry nine cars. Those two separate bits of information didn’t match in my mind; surely a large three-story ferry could carry more than nine cars, right? But when I saw the small, three-story ferry it all made sense.
As it was, the ferry only held three trucks, a couple of motorcycles and our rental car.
John backed the car up carefully, into the cramped tiny space, following the Captain’s rapid hand signals as he twirled his fingers in circles to the right and then to the left and then back to the right again.
We climbed up to the open top deck, sat on the benches behind the wheelhouse and spent the trip gazing out over the lake, which looked the size of a sea.
The line of modern windmills south of San Jorge receded behind us, as did the communication towers which stand on the hill rising between our house on the Pacific Ocean and the lake. Yes, the narrow isthmus between the two bodies of water is not very big. And in front of us, slowly growing bigger, was Ometepe with its twin volcanoes, Concepcion and Maderas.
A group of Mennonites shared the upper deck with us, with the women and girls, in their long, polyester dresses, holding down their bobby pinned white caps against the breeze, while the boys in suspenders tossed their shoes aside and weaved like drunk sailors as they ran barefoot on the deck. They were on a field trip to Ometepe for the day, they told me, from their Mission north of Rivas.
Below decks there is seating. I sat there on our return voyage, as I was tired by then and wishing to stay out of the sun. But on the day we arrived on Ometepe, I was sitting up on top and gazing over the side when I heard and saw a big splash. Suddenly, up from the splash came a crew member who proceeded to swim with the ferry’s spring line to a buoy where he tied it off. Well, that’s one way to do it!
Welcome to Ometepe!
One-way Cost of the Ferry ride with 1 car and 2 passengers: About 720 cordobas ($22 US)
