The Isleta's

Although we had gone before, we took Ashely for an afternoon tour of the Isleta's that are clustered around the harbour of Granada. These little islands were created by the eruption of Mombacho over 1000 years ago and are now home to generations of locals as well as the playground of the rich and famous. An amazing contrast of local fishermen swimming naked in the murky waters, casting their handmade nets, next to million dollar homes with security guards patrolling year round so that the owners can come for a couple of weeks a year and enjoy the serenity.

We took a taxi down to the dock where we were inundated with competing boat owners all jostling with each other yelling in the taxi window all the reasons why they are the best tour. We finally settled on one who had a new looking boat and asked for his price, $30 for the four of us for an hour. "No way, do we look like tourists"? Oh yeah that's right, we do! We talked him down to $20 although in reality it should have been about $15. We climbed aboard and started off. It was a gorgeous day, absolutely beautiful. Even still, I had a brief surge of panic (again) as the boat left land and my mind realized there was no way off and back to land. I told Gary I thought I might have to go back, but waited it out and through concentration was able keep in under control.

We saw an incredible variety of tropical birds, some quite comical looking with their long legs and tiny bodies. Our boat driver spoken only Spanish but between Gary, Nikki & I, we were able to understand most of what he told us. We had taken with us a bag of goodies to feed the monkey's on Monkey Island and as we pulled up, prepared to toss then to shore as the last boat tour we had taken, the tour guide had told us they were crazy from their isolation on this tiny island and it was unsafe to let them take the food by hand.

Well much to our shock and horror, this boat driver pulled us right up and invited one of the Monkey's onto the boat!! We didn't notice at first as we were busy tossing cookies (galleta's) to the other monkey's on the island. This guy quickly clambered over the seats, over Gary's shoulder, to the front of the boat and grabbed the bag out of a shocked Nikki's hands! Is was horrifying and exhilarating at the same time. He then calmly sat down on the seat in front of me (I didn't move a muscle, if they even scratch you, you need to get rabies shots straight away!) stuck his head in the bag and started to work his way through the contents. Gary, bless him, instinctively tried to retrieve Nikki's bag for her at which point the monkey bared his teeth and hissed at him! Hilarious!

He first went for the cookie wrapper which he looked in, found empty and then with disgust threw it on the ground before starting to rummage again. He pulled out all the banana's and sat calmly pulling them apart and eating them. When he was done, he threw the bag on the ground saw another boat pulling up and made a flying leap on to it. Without as much as a thank you!

It was amazing. Ashley & Nikki were in awe and talked about it for the rest of the day! I had been sat so close to him I could count the hairs on his head. What an experience!