Ometempe Island, Nicaragua

The island is in Lake Nicaragua, the 9th largest lake in the Americas.  The island was formed by two volcanoes which are linked by a piece of land.  There are a few stretches of beach, with dark volcanic sand and rock dominating the shorelines.  Although the water is warm, to my eyes it does not look inviting because of the suspended silt, which gives the water an angry cast.  the sheer size of the lake and the gentle slope leading up to the island means the waves can be quite impressive.  When I leave the island I will try to remember to take a few pictures of the wind farm on the west edge of the lake.
One of the differences between the wind farms in Alberta Canada and here, is the wind is never cold.

The vegetation change with altitude on the sides of the volcano.  As you can see in the above photo, the top is usually shrouded by cloud.  My lack of fitness prevented me from climbing all the way up, but I did get a few pictures of the stuff along the trail.   A few delicate flowers, which were only seen at the start of the trail.

The trio of small flowers were about the size of strawberry blossoms, and the single in the close up was roughly the diameter of a dime.

The thorns in the picture were slightly shorter than my thumb.  That makes the insects ( I am unsure if they are ants or termites ) truly tiny.

I did not adjust the exposure in the top picture, so the Howler Monkeys are dark silhouettes  against the morning sky.  The lower picture shows them better.  There are 6 of them in the top picture, though they do not all show.

For all of you coffee addicts out there, this is what an organic coffee plantation looks like.  At this point, the beans were harvested about a month ago, and it is still months to go until they bloom again.
As we climbed the slope of the volcano it became both cooler and more humid.  According to the guys who made it all the way to the top, it was a wet muddy mess at the top with a misty view of the lake in the caldera.  Over half of the climbers to the top had slid in the mud at least once and I am glad I did not try to get far enough up slope that the footing became slippery.    The view of the lake through the trees was very nice, and the pictures did not do it justice, so I will not post those.

One last shot, the Capuchin Monkeys that cluster close to the road for feeding time.  The pic is a little fuzzy, but the bump on the back of one of them is her baby.