Lake Nicaragua, or Mar Dulce, is the largest lake in Central America, with an area of just over 8000km2. Within the lake are a number of islands and archipelagos. The two largest islands are called Ometepe and Zapatera. Ometepe is inhabited and is formed by two volcanoes, Concepcion, the perfect cone-shaped volcano, and Maderas. The former last erupted in March 2010, wheres the latter has not been active in historical times. The Islets de Granada are also of volcanic origin: all 365 of them were formed when the volcano Mombacho blew its cone into the lake thousands of years ago. The lake itself drains to the Caribbean Sea via the San Juan River; this makes Granada an Atlantic port, although both the city and lake are geographically closer to the Pacific Ocean!! As such the lake has a history of pirates, and being as DH insists he has pirates for ancestors, we took a short boat trip around some of the Islets de Granada.
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| View of Granada from Lake Nicaragua. |
Now, I am no great lover of boats (ask my cousin Clare), and what with the sway of natural waves and the thought of sharks and sawfish in the lake, the first 10 minutes or so were a little tricky for me! However, once we reached the little islands themselves and the waters were calmer, I felt a great deal better (despite knowing that crocodiles are often found in the area too!).
The first small island which we sailed past was the Fort of San Pablo. Built in the 18th Century to protect Granada from pirates, our guide told us that the pirates actually used it as a base to store their booty. Now, like many other of the islands, it is owned by the government.
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| San Pablo Fort |
From the boat, my favourite island looked lonely and solitary. A perfect shaped, story-book desert island stranded in the Lake with no close-by neighbours. Now maintained by the government, it was once owned by an extremely wealthy North-American: its isolation was the main attraction to the wealthy American as it was here that he was able to increase his wealth enormously - yep you guessed it, by drug-traffiking.
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| A Perfect Desert Island |
An old President also possesses an island, but as with the economies of the country, the house has seen better days. Would look just right in a James Bond movie, whereby Bond and the drug-trafficking bad girl have a 'rendezvous'. Great place for a party?
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| A 1970's Gangster House? No, an ex-Presidents in fact. |
Some of the other islands are owned by wealthy Europeans and Nicaraguans, like this one that is owned by the Flor family, makers of the national rum. They own a few of the islands, but this is the largest one that we saw; it even has subterranean rooms, its own cascade and a helipad!
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| The Back Door! |
Businesses can also be found on the islands; for example there is a hotel, a bar and restaurant and a few shops catering for the tourists. There is even a cemetery on one of the islands; only the inhabitants of the Lake can be granted permission to be buried here.
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| Lakeside Resting Place. |
Not all the islands are owned by multi-millionaires or political legends. A smattering have more regular occupants, like the one that is kept by a vet. He also owns the bordering islet, which houses his four monkeys! Heaven for the primates, their own little island, where they get regular food from the other island residents: or perhaps their own private hell, an place from which there is no escape?
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| Lulu. |
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