The bus is a retired American school bus, circa 1960, which seemingly does not have shocks. Ometepe is safe and the natives are friendly, but automobiles are few. When you do spot one, it's invariably a truck loaded with bananas, pineapples or coffee beans. There's not much of tourist value in tiny Moyogalpa, but the town has a raffish, sleepy charm. The name still fits.
Geckos skitter through walls, on ceilings, sometimes over limbs.
Mosquito Town has a few restaurants, a few bars, a pool hall. If that's not enough excitement, check out a cockfight in the nearby village of Los Angeles. Many tourists find themselves lazily sipping rum, drinking beers and swapping volcano-climbing stories at the pool hut, where six billiard tables sit under a thatched palm roof. But most folks who've climbed the volcanoes eventually turn their attention out-island again. Though volcanoes dominate Ometepe, the island also offers softer beauties.