La vida loca! Wished you were there? We did, so here we are on our big adventure! A year in central America, to make sense of this vida loca...

Who would have thought I would be spending two weeks in a tent, in a sea of mud, on the side of an extinct volcano, facing another very much active volcano.  Well I did.  Dan and I volunteered with Finca Bona Fide, a permaculture farm, on the island of Ometepe in Nicaragua.  This is Ometepe: two volcanoes with a strip of land in between.  It´s is the largest of more than 300 islands on Lake Nicaragua (or Lago Cocibolca meaning “sweet waters” to the locals).

We arrived after some detours - a ferry from Granada to Altagracia, bus to Moyagalpa (the islands´ two towns) and a brief sojourn at Finca Magdalena just next door to Bona Fida.  It`s not the easiest place to find.  There are no road signs, no direct road access, not even a proper footpath.  Imagine a hill-side plot surrounded by a network of stony, muddy cattle tracks instead.  Our directions from Magdalena´s were to go straight down a path, then left and right again, we even had a helpful zigzag biro´d onto a paper napkin.

The usefulness of our map became apparent when the path split into at least three directions.  It was useless, the whole hillside was a web of interconnecting trails some made by livestock others by people or both.  We made our way in the approximate direction, fortunately met a farmer and asked directions and retraced our steps through a field or two, before we finally stumbled across a hillside garden.

Permaculture is the practice of growing plants within an ecosystem approach.  That means looking to get the maximum output, without using chemicals (an organic approach), working with contour lines, water catchments, companion and rotation planting, mulching and so on.  Leguminous plants fix the nitrogen, mulching saves water and provides compost.  Swales cut across along contours slow water run off and capture soil washed down from the fields above.  The fine soil is then mixed with homemade compost to make a potting mix.  Planting ensures that fruits and vegetables are producing all year, trees, shrubs and garden plots grown together.  For example, sweet potatoes were planted next to coffee which itself was shaded by bananas.

Walking along tree lined paths we finally saw signs habitation: a compost toilet, a thatched class room, a nursery and finally an open air, mud floor and thatched kitchen come dining area.  This was the hub of the operation where we found the resident interns and volunteers relaxing in the hot damp afternoon hours.  Our arrival was unexpected.

The kitchen hub

We had of course attempted to make email contact, but for whatever reason (the server, the weather, who knows?) our message wasn`t received.  So we tried our luck and just turned up.  Fortunately for us, Heather, a long term intern was leaving the next day and had decided to donate her tent to the Farm.  That meant we had somewhere to stay.  We agreed to return the next day and home for the next two weeks was a 2-person tent, on platform under a tarpaulin.

Home-sweet-home

When you spend some time in the tropics, especially during the rainy season you learn just how useful tarps are.  Our time on Ometepe coincided with the rise of the seasonal wind (usually November – January) and the tail end of the wet season.  It was very stormy most nights with spectacular thunder and lightning.  A tarp lent an extra sense of security and was pretty useful when a banana tree almost landed on us one night.

Our principle living area was the kitchen-diner, closely followed by the tree platform (under which was the outdoor shower) and the outdoor sinks.  We had electricity (solar and wind generated), purified water, a gas stove and a beautiful view of La Conception. The Maderas volcano on which we sat was more usually covered in cloud.  Although it was here that we saw our first sunsets in months. 

making chocolate with seeds from a cocoa pod