The Fellowship of Maderas
Part I – Atmospheric Splendor

Thursday - Friday, May 23-24, 2002
by Eric

photos by Anna Staiger
Ometepe Photo Gallery

[Part II - The Degobah System]

The ferry departed Granada at three o’clock in the afternoon for the four hour voyage across the mighty Lake Nicaragua to the largest fresh water island in the world, Isla Ometepe, two towering, cloud-shrouded volcanoes connected by a narrow isthmus. Brian and I had heard from a friend in Utila about an excellent trek up Volcan Maderas and we had vowed between ourselves to not only make the ascent, but to spend the night in the lagoon filled crater. We were traveling with Anna from Germany and Mike from England, who we met in Granada. We met Seth from Chicago aboard the ferry and Matt from England on the colectivo to Alta Gracia. Over the next three days, we would become the Fellowship of Maderas.

Ahead of us for the entire voyage loomed the perfect cone of Isla Ometepe’s Volcan Concepcion, towering ever higher as the afternoon grew late. Surrounding us in every frame of sky was a symphony of cloud and light and color and electricity, pure atmospheric magnificance. The black storm behind us allowed only select rays of the afternoon sun to illuminate the water and sky that stretched ahead of us. Volcan Concepcion was blacked out, shrouded in shadow.

The perfectly conical Volcan Concepcion.

On distant shores to our west, enormous thunderheads formed a wall, billowing ever higher, perfectly composed relative to the volcanoes and mountains, unified, connected horizontally by long, shifting, razor-thin whisps of low hanging moisture. Above and to the east were every conceivable formation of cloud, dancing and morphing, catching the sun’s rays. Thin and fleeting, smoky puffs, punctuated crescents and calligraphic swirls, exquisite strokes of a maestro’s hand. Behind us the sky grew increasingly dark, grey, black, with the promise of a good drenching in Granada, obscuring the rays of the setting sun, until its angle was low enough to pass beneath the storm barrier, its light slicing across Volcan Concepcion from base to perfect peak, as a time-lapse film, Brian noted. The thunderheads continued to billow in the west, taking on every subtle shade of blue, navy, indigo, purple, violet, pink, and as their spotlight slowly gave way to dusk, they responded with electrical explosions rippling along the wall formation. Behind us, a brilliant ball of orange exploded as the sun dropped below the mountain horizon to the east. It sank lower and lower, igniting a raging firestorm upon the underbellies of insane cloud swirls, exclusively in that small sector of sky, perfectly drawn there, perfectly composed, soaking in the fire, the embodiment of every character trait, every emotion, every feeling existing in that corner of our electromagnetic reality interpreted by our eyes as color. It infused the bones of everyone aboard the ship, locals included, all gathered on the starboard for the spectacle. Reflected onto the horizon-surface of Lake Nicaragua’s tranquil water beneath the incendiary orange display, a thin streak of blinding, unified color shot out horizontally, like the shockwave explosions of planets in sci-fi movies. The curtain of night had lowered on the afternoon performance. The day’s opening act had finished its set, holding nothing back, leaving everything on the stage, daring the headliner to top its performance.

We docked and took a colectivo to the small town of Alta Gracia, where we were told we’d have to stay the night because there were no buses to the Volcan Maderas side of the island until the morning. Brian and I intended to climb Maderas the next morning and were thus hellbent on reaching quarters as close to its base as possible, for an early rise and start.

We began negotiating with all drivers of trucks for a ride. Finally a man in an SUV, trailer in tow, offered to take us to our destination for free, he was going that way anyway. The Fellowship of six jumped in, myself and Matt riding in the trailer. Halfway through the journey, the driver informed us that he was not a taxi driver and that he would not be taking us to our intended destination. He could drop us off and we could hike the remaining five kilometers, or we could come stay at his place.

An excellent photograph of the sunset we experienced on the ferry.

Luckily, I was in the trailer at the time and privy to none of this…the Fellowship decided to go with the driver. The electrical storm rippled across the horizon of Lake Nicaragua. It was dry season on the island, and the bumpy, rutted rode was dusty as hell. Matt and I were chewing grit and covered in dirt upon our nighttime arrival.

The driver’s “place” was actually a traveler’s enclave under construction, an old coffee finca set on the shores of Lake Nicaragua, with several bunkhouses, a pier and dining patio. We were pleased with the facilities, and we had arrived at the base of Maderas as planned. The driver’s graft was written off as good marketing. The buzz was electric. We somehow knew that we’d love the place, and the anticipation of our adventure up Maderas was palpable. The Fellowship raced for our bunks, threw down our packs, stripped and jumped in the lake for a night swim. Most of the workers thought we were crazy.

We ate dinner, drank rum and relaxed on the patio. It began to rain, a good rain, the first rain of the season. The owner was giddy. “The rain is so different,” he said. “We need it.” Fireflies transformed the encroaching shadows into crackling, fluorescent, shimmering waves of energy and life. The good rain grew into a torrential downpour, deafening and forceful. Gargantuan toads the size of small rabbits sprouted from the wetted, long dormant earth and hopped about. The toads were enormous. We joked about licking them, and I think a few actually considered it.

Late, after midnight, the storm unleashed the full force of its fury, the heavens opened, electricity reigned down from the sky, bolts of energy crashed in the yard and lake in front of us. With every lengthy blinding flash, night was turned to day, color was drawn from the red terra cotta tiles and green vegetation. The perfect palm tree in the yard was transformed into three palm trees by some sort of photo-negative effect on the optic nerve. We lost power, leaving only candlelight and the periodic floods of blinding light from the storm. Thunder claps from immediately proximate bolts of lightning were just audible over the deafening roar of the thundering rain.

Someone discovered that our bunk house had been breached by cascading waterfalls pouring from the roof onto our bunks and rain being driven through the windows, soaking everything. Hysteria ensued as the Fellowship scrambled in search of high ground, of dry ground. Laughing and screaming and total disbelief. A lake began to form on the concrete floor of our bunkhouse and it would continue to grow throughout the night. The storm raged into the early morning hours and we raged back. I finally made my way to the patio, found a hammock, sank into its quicksand clutches and melted into the sublime violence of the raging elements.

The headliner had indeed topped the opener. It had been a most perfect day.

Most of us slept in after the epic, adrenaline filled, exhausting night. It was too late in the morning to make our ascent up Maderas. It would have to wait a day. We lazed about, took a late breakfast, and broke off, going about our individual business. Four of us took kayaks to two tiny islands just off the peninsula, each island home to several monkeys.

Two spider monkeys, calm and curious, waiting for food.

As we approached the first island, a large male spider monkey, of the grey variety, approached our kayaks. Behind him were a female and an adolescent. He had gangly limbs and the face of an old man. He studied us and we studied him, from a range of three feet, and everyone was struck at how human he appeared. He hung and swung directly above us from tree branches, and his family watched from a short distance. On the second island, three white faced capuchin monkeys also greeted us from close quarters, again, with the male taking the lead, and the others holding back. This male was a bit less friendly than the first, aggressively defending his island with a silent attack scowl of flashing incisors. The second island’s lone howler monkey watched lazily from above, lounging on the high branch of a nearby tree. On the way back to camp, we approached the bank of the peninsula from which reverberated copious amounts of animal racket which echoed to us across the water. Probably a tree full of birds we thought, but we wanted to know for sure. Upon closer inspection, we discovered a small marsh packed with enormous toads, croaking incessantly, straight out of the Budweiser commercials. We laughed for awhile then headed back to catch the 2:30 bus to Alta Gracia, where we would provision ourselves for the next day’s ascent.

The workers at the hacienda couldn’t believe we were going to spend the night in the crater, and neither could Marcos, a traveler-resident for the past 40 days, who had seen many travelers come and go, none of whom had spent the night at the summit. “If you spend the night up there, it will become an expedition, not just a tough hike,” said the owner. “I don’t even like people to make the day trek without one of my workers to guide them.”

A white faced capuchin monkey, pretending not to be angry.

He insisted that we take some of his workers, forming a full blown expedition to make the journey. We refused. The story was recounted for us of the girl who, in the past month, had gotten lost on the densely forested slopes of Maderas. The Nicaraguan military had to bring in helicopters and search teams to extract her from the volcano. The stories were confirmed by locals in Alta Gracia. Most people making the ascent take the northern route because the trail is more defined, not as steep and generally easier. We would be leaving from the hacienda, from the west, the most difficult route, but we wouldn’t discover that fact until later.

During dinner, the workers sharpened our machetes to a razor’s edge. They pleaded with us to take at least one guide. The Fellowship would have none of it. We packed, made our game plan, and hit our bunks, exhausted from the day’s activities, excited about the coming adventure, and completely lacking any true comprehension of what we were getting ourselves into…

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