April 13 – April 14, 2018
We headed back to towards Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) to take the ferry to La Isla de Ometepe. Ometepe consists of two volcanos, the active Concepcion (which hasn’t done anything in probably about 70 years) and the inactive Maderas, which ages ago became joined to form a single island.
Many travellers have heard of Lago Atitlan in Guatemala, but the largest lake in Guatemala is the less visited Lago de Isabel, at the outlet of which lies the small harbour town of Rio Dulce. The Rio Dulce river then flows about 40 kilometres out to the town of Livingston and the Caribbean Sea.
We headed along a highway, toward the border of Mexico and Guatemala, to Parques Nacional de Lagunas de Montebello. There are a series of lakes here. On a sunny day each lake has its own remarkable shade of blue or green, sometimes both. But when we arrived, it was raining, so we made our way to where we were going to camp for the night and thought we would drive to visit the various lakes the next day.
Lake Chapala is Mexico’s largest natural lake, but more importantly, it was the location of the condo we had rented for a few days over New Year’s Eve. Daydreams of elaborate meals, prepared in a fully operational kitchen, served on a real table (“Maybe they will have some candles we could light!”), daily hot showers without the need for flip flops, laundry churning away in the washing machine and a full sized bed filled my head as we drove to the lake.
Our plan had been to visit Uruapan, the “Avocado Capital of the World”, and we did drive through miles of lush avocado plantations to the town. When we got to our intended camping spot, the owner told us there was a private fiesta happening that evening. We were welcome to stay but it would be muy ruidoso (very noisy). He told us there was a campsite in Patzcuaro, which is where we had planned on going next anyway, and that it was only 20 minutes away, so we headed for Patzcuaro with the idea of returning the following morning to walk around Uruapan .