My bike has been slowly wearing down as I have been using it but it wasn't until I moved into Bagaces that it finally decided to stop working. This meant I had a nice 2 km walk into work for a couple of days while it was fixed. I had to get the whole back rims replaced as well as fix the brakes and the gears. It was like a brand new bike and I was so happy about having my bike back that I promptly ran over a tack, popped my tire and had to send it back to the shop. When I got it back the second time I decided to make use of my newly fixed bike and pedal to the nearby Palo Verde national park.

It was 20 km of very rocky gravel roads to the entrance of the park. The road passed through cow pastures, sugar cane and other types of farms. Despite the road it was a relatively easy ride with the wind at my back and more downhill slopes than uphill slopes as the road made its way down to the river. At the park entrance I picked up a map and headed 8km into the park where there was some trails, a campground and a research center. The research center had rooms for quite a few guests and there were quite a few people there. The marsh was almost completely dry because it is the end of the dry season. The park is famous for the huge numbers of water birds that migrate here however it gets too dry for them in March and they all leave. So I missed out on the birds but I managed to see a group of spider monkeys hanging out in a mango tree. This was the first time I had seen spider monkeys and they amused me by swinging around on their long arms and tails and trying to threaten me by throwing branches and mangoes down on me. One even tried to pee on me but luckily they didn't have very good aim. I continued 2km to the river that is the base of the park. There was a big sign by the dock warning about crocodiles but I didn't see any lounging around on the shore. There were some things in the water far away but I couldn't tell if they were animate or not. On the way back I passed the mango tree again but it was now full of capuchin or white monkeys. Having seen howler monkeys earlier at the research center I had now seen all three types of monkeys in Palo Verde. I also saw hundreds of iguanas swarming around the campsites, a couple of coatimundi and some deer. The way back was much more difficult than I was prepared for. Not only was I very tired not being used to biking for such a long distance, but it was against a strong wind with many painful uphill stretches. The trip that took less than 2 hours getting to Palo Verde stretched to almost 4 hours returning and I was relieved to get back to the house. My bike managed to survive the trip intact, however on Monday morning I woke up to find my other tire was flat. I had to walk yet again to work. In this case I was glad to avoid the bike for the day.

The next weekend was a long weekend due to the Mayday holiday. Six of us from Bagaces decided to go to Nicaragua for the weekend and visit the island of Ometepe. The island consists of twin volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua. The taller volcano is named Concepcion and is one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. It's cone is bare of trees and you can often see smoke coming from the peak. The other volcano is slightly smaller but is dormant. It is covered in a cloud forest and has a crater lake at the top. To get to the island requires an hour long boat ride across Lake Nicaragua. The lake was quite choppy and the rickety ferry had water rushing in the sides, soaking shoes if you weren't careful. The ferry was packed and there seemed to be a significant lack of life jackets in the boat. However this was offset by the safety feature of signing our names on a list of passengers, preventing them from losing anyone. We managed to arrange a ride to our hostel from a guy on the boat with a pickup truck on the island. The island was very tranquil and rustic with cows, pigs, chickens, horses and goats freely wandering across the road. Our hostel was near the smaller, safer volcano and it was just as rustic. It was right on the lake and we went swimming as the sun set across the water.

The next day I arranged a guided trip to the top of the volcano through the hostel. I went with another Canadian from Oakville who just moved to Bagaces a week ago and is staying about 8 months while he does a co-op program from university. The first stretch was relatively flat across cow pastures. As we entered the forest the path started to steepen. The forest changed from dry tropical forest to rain forest jungle to cloud forest. When we got to the cloud forest the trail became extremely steep. Sometimes it was almost vertical as we climbed exposed roots and wet muddy clay. At the top it was too cloudy to see much but ever once and a while the cloud would clear just enough to see the blue lake in the middle of the forested crater. The climb down gave great views of the other volcano across the length of the island and it was very refreshing to swim in the lake at the end. On the return trip we didn't have a ride. It was much longer 2 hour bus ride with a transfer in the middle. We didn't get back to Bagaces until after dark.