Just Chillin'

Nanette:

The road trip must have worn us right out because we didn't get a whole lot done on Thursday.
Hanging around the hotel all morning doing nothing seemed like a good thing to do.

Berta had offered to do our laundry because she has a washing machine so we took her up on the offer and bundled our filthy clothes up and delivered them in the afternoon.  Turns out that Berta was working so it fell to Bermania to do the laundry. Juan helped her to drag out the washing machine and she got started while I was given the run of the kitchen to make liquado de sandia (watermelon juice).

Nanette making liquado de sandia...Yum!

We felt bad about having Bermania do the laundry when we saw how much work it actually was.  She doesn't like the job her washing machine does so when the laundry comes out of the machine she washes it on the washboard before throwing it back in the machine to spin.  Then she hangs it on the clothes line.  They often use barbed wire for a clothesline here because the clothes won't blow off in the wind.

Can you see the barbs on the wire?

Check out how much work is involved in washing 1 pair of panties!

Did I ever mention that La Isla Ometepe is formed by 2 volcanoes, one of which blew ash a couple of years ago so is considered active? Moyogalpa can be found at the foot of Volcan Concepcion ( on the left in this picture) and there is an evacuation route sign-posted so everyone knows which way to go in case something untoward happens.  It heads over to Volcan Maderas on the right.

I can't imagine that very many will get to safety because the evacuation route ends up traveling along the very same pot-holed, washed-out road to San Ramon that we crawled along a few days ago. It also is directly on the edge of the lake so if flooding would be the problem there is no alternate. It will bottle-necked in no time flat!  Rumour has it that they plan to pave this road, it being an election year and all.  That would certainly be a good thing for people fleeing a natural disaster not to mention tourists wanting a smooth ride.