Falling Behind

Well, I am now in the last country of my adventure. Our plans changed dramatically when we realised how expensive it was going to be to get to Columbia. So, we are now going to the states at the end of March to stay with Dave's grandmother until we can save up enough money to do south america justice. The adventure is only continuing, with unexpected twists and turns.
The last time I wrote I was writing from Laguna de Apoyo, a beautiful, peaceful crater lake created by an imploded volcano. It was only minutes from Granada and yet so few people seem to know about it. It is one of those places that is still relatively undiscovered, and it was a happy retreat from the cities that had been throwing us around like pinballs. We didn't do much - went for a walk, saw two different kinds of monkeys and some beautiful birds, and swam.
From Apoyo we went to Isla de Ometepe - an island created by two formidable volcanoes. One of them is still active and both are a challenging climb (apparently!), but this doesn't worry the locals. It is a volcano they claim likes to go off little and often, so it isn't saving up some catastrophic amount of lava which will wipe out the small population (which I am sure is now half hippy gringo). On our first full day there we decided to rent a 'moto' which is like a dirtbike as the roads are almost non-existent. When they realised neither myself nor Dave could actually function the thing, they let us go with an automatic scooter akin to the ones you see teenagers revving around on in England. As I had driven one before, I took the lead. It all started very well, and then we got to a junction. This stupid machine is deceptively bulky and I couldn't take the corner so drove it into a bush instead. A little shaken and having a policeman stare hard at our licences and our faces, he told us the man should drive. So Dave, looking a little scared, gave it a test run and I jumped on back. We were going along straight when Dave slowed down around some school children. Rule number one on a scooter - maintain a constant, decent speed. So, we wobbled, went down in front of a load of locals, and came out badly grazed, but nothing broken. The locals then charged us $2 to use a mobile phone for 30 seconds to call our hostel as we didn't want to drive the thing again. It's nice to see that in a time of need someone is always there to make money off of you. An old man came up and put some form of oil on our wounds as we waited for the scooter guy to come and pick us up. He took advantage of our shaken and shocked state and charged us $380 to fix a scooter that had nothing wrong with the engine. On the way to get the money out, the guy stopped off to buy some cable ties and a bulb for the smashed light. I appreciate that tourists and travelers are now paying back for the constant rape of their country by others, but it doesn't make it any easier to swallow. Because of this accident we ended up staying in a cool little hostel with our own casita until I was able to walk again. They cleaned and dressed my foot which was well on its way to a nasty infection and were just very good to us. If you are ever in Ometepe, stay at Little Morgans. Good people, good vibe.
After 4 days of doing nothing on the island, we finally made our way to Poste Rojo, a place I have been aiming for since I started traveling. It's a hostel in the trees, and it is beautiful. The private rooms are not very private, unless you get your own personal treehouse, but most people are there to party. We turned up a day before the free rum night and had a good night chatting and drinking. Howler monkeys were everywhere overhead, 2 kittens, and cicada season just coming to an end. This bugs are big and stupid and will fly into anything with any form of light on it. And they are deafeningly loud at certain times of day. But Dave loves to poke things, and he managed to catch himself a few cicadas which he proudly danced around with. They do seem like good insects for a rave - they make the right kind of buzzing noise and he had me in hysterics as he danced around on the porch to an invisible drum n bass beat. Unfortunately, that night, I came down with another 12 hour stomach bug leaving me useless the next day. I kept trying to gear up for free rum,  but my body was pretty adamant it was a bad idea, and I had to agree. We offered to cook dinner for the hostel in return for free food, which would have been great had it not been for the owner. Instead of leaving us to our devices, he disappeared out back for a sniff of the white stuff, came out and essentially told us what to do. He kept saying I was doing the rice wrong, how to chop veg, it was ridiculous. But one of those characatures that needs to be seen to be believed, He was quite the arrogant character, saying he could run the place all by himself if he needed to blah blah blah...
We got out of there fairly promptly despite the beautiful setting. So much more could be done with the place, but it did seem like a neverending task trying to keep it going at the level it was at. So we decided to treat ourselves to a night of hot showers and TV in Granada. It was positively spiritual.
From Granada we made our way to Costa Rica with every intention of just flying through. Didn't happen that way though. We quite liked San Jose despite what other travelers had told us. But this might just be because it is so Americanised it is just familiar. We stayed in a cool little hostel which we followed other people from our bus to. We ended up there for 2 nights and explored the various parks in San Jose, one of which had a little lake/pond which had people zooming around in jet skis and power boats. We decided to treat ourselves to a Subway - a treat which cost us $16. No Subway is worth that much. So we started to learn that it is as expensive as everyone said it was.
From there we decided to go to the pacific coast town of Montezuma. We turned up with no reservations and checked in to the cheapest place we could find. It may have had its own bathroom, but it felt like a prison cell. It had a hole in the wall for a window which had metal bars covering it for 'security.' As we walked along the beach we noticed that the entire ocean was red. A deep red that frothed up on the beach leaving behind a trail of dead and tortured looking fish. We were told that red tide had come in about a month previous and still hadn't left. Red tide is basically red algae which starves the sea of oxygen. Some people are safe to swim in it and others come out in a rash. Knowing my skin, I didn't risk it. Instead, a local gringo showed us the way to the beautiful waterfalls in the area. It was a bit of a walk over rocks and rivers, but was a lovely little swimming place. As my foot was, and still is, healing, I didn't swim very much. I can now say i've seen my muscle once, I don't want to see it again! We moved hostels to a place on the beach and just took it easy. Unfortunately I can't put hiking boots on as the area is still tender, so our activities were limited.
From there we went over to Puerto Viejo which has a reputation for partying. As I don't like enforced partying, I was reticent. But as it turns out, we met a group of amazing Oregonians who were welcoming and generous and had an excellent sense of party. We probably partied a bit too much, but it was worth it. Unfortunately the weather was not on our side and the rip tides were intense, so swimming was minimal. It may have been on the Caribbean coast, but it looked more like the pacific with ominous waves and sky. But the hostel we stayed in was called Rockin J's and our bed was up a ladder with a mirror on the ceiling and mosaics everywhere.
We then moved on to Bocas del Toro in Panama, which is where we are now. It's an archipelago and another party town. We stayed 2 nights in a party hostel in which our room was just on the other side of the bar. We slept through the first day recovering from our party at Puerto Viejo. Again, the weather was terrible but we took a bike ride none the less out to La Gruta, a little cave guarded by a statue of Mary. On the ride back the heavens opened and we got drenched, much to the amusement of passers by. We decided to make our way over to one of the other islands - Isla Bastimentos, and stayed in a hostel with hot water and air conditioning for only $20. Heaven. But again, it was pouring with rain the first day. The second day we had the morning to go down to a lovely beach where tiny red frogs populate the beach. But I have a feeling that they are not long for that habitat because of the tourism being built up around it. After 2 nights we moved to another island - Isla Caranero and stayed at a hostel built entirely over the water. Another party hostel, it is more a place to spend the day and evening than to stay. But stay we did and enjoyed the water trampoline and water swings. To tide our budget over and have a nice dinner, we drank through lunch and went to a restaurant over the water where we were eaten alive by sand flies, but it was a great setting. Since the staff were not all that accommodating, we left after one night and are now in a hotel room with its own laptop, hot water and flat screen TV for $5 more than the shack room we were in before.We have given up the party ghost and are pretty much just sitting in AC and watching TV. It may be a Saturday, but eh, I can party back at home. Hopefully on Monday we will be taking a snorkel trip out to a dolphin breeding area as the weather is slowly clearing up. As for the unique, local experience, I've had enough. I've done the chicken buses crammed with sweaty locals who fall asleep the moment the bus starts moving, I've stayed in local villages, I've stayed in dumps of hostels and had an amazing time, but every now and again I like to be reminded of the creature comforts I took for granted. A hot shower now fills me with unspeakable joy, a bed that actually fits in the room is luxury. We are now approaching spring break and the smell of hormones, cocaine and latex are in the air. Good luck to them. I hope they have a great time and remember almost nothing about it. I've been there, done that, and do look on them with a certain amount of envy. But the other side of me loves the fact that I can enjoy other things now without tequila to oil the cogs. Although, don't get me wrong, tequila is still the perfect way to kick start any evening.

Honduras in a Nutshell

Honduras overall only needs to be given a nutshell. It is not a much traversed place by travellers and is still fairly dangerous. Once we left our friends on Utila, we made our way on the aptly nicknamed ´vomit comet´ ferry. We decided to treat ourselves to a bit of white water rafting down the Rio Cangrejal. We stayed in a little eco lodge where they actually ask that you put toilet paper down the toilet. This sounds like a weird luxury, but after 3 months of having what has been dubbed the ´shit bin´ (the bin for your dirty toilet paper) staring you in the face, it really was refreshing. We had a crazy Irish guy as our head rafter, and we definitely had the most fun out of all the groups. We got pummelled by water and Dave went overboard, just excellent fun.
We then decided to head to Lago De Yojoa to stay at a micro-brewery. It was a lovely little place and Honduras is chock full of beautiful butterflies and birds and the beer was on draft and great. But as you can imagine with birds come bird watchers. I have since realised that bird watchers are a unique crowd and there is a reason they keep to themselves. We spent a couple of quiet days there and decided to take the advice of the owner on a different route to travel into El Salvador. Most of the way the road is unpaved, but we thought, sod it, we´ve come for an adventure. We took 3 different chicken buses to get to La Esperanza, where were told that we could get a bus to El Salvador. As it turns out, we got to La Esperanza and they said there was no way were going to make it to El Salvador today, we would have to stay in ´Colo´ for the night and get the bus at 5 the next morning direct to San Salvador. This was at 12 in the afternoon. We got on the bus to ´Colo´and by 4:30 we had reached Colomancagua, the farthest of the gringo trail I have ventured yet. The road to it was dusty and unpaved as was warned so we were more than happy to get off. I went into a little shop to find somewhere that did accomodation and we found ourselves a little room. The shower and toilet were in the room with us, shielded by a shower curtain over each. And yet, it had cable TV. The owners were lovely and despite our limited conversational skills they were very accomodating. Unfortunately, we found out that the bus to San Salvador doesn´t run on a Sunday, so we would have to spend an extra night. It started to chuck down with rain, but we went out anyway and bought a bottle rum and a bag of crisps to tide us over til dinner. As it turns out, places shut down quite early on a Saturday and we ended up going without dinner, but at least not without rum! The storm worsened and the electricity went out, so for the rest of the night. But we had a candle and an amazing electrical storm to watch. I´ve never seen lightening like it - every 5 - 10 seconds for hours. We woke up the next day and the electricity was still out, so we went for a walk and discovered it was market day. It was obviously the social event of the week and wasn´t much frequented by foreigners as I have never been stared at so much in my life. We actually had one drunken reveller (very drunk I might add) ask why we had come to this village. I think more by way of ´Why would you bother?´ than a get lost statement.
The next morning we deaprted at 5 in the morning with our hotel owner waving us good-bye. As we left we realised we had been staying in Hotel Dios, God´s Hotel. Again we got stared at quite intently as it was obviously a worker´s bus and mounted more unpaved roads. We got to San Miguel in El Salvador without having any form of real border crossing, just a couple of gaurds who stared malevolently at out passports. We were told here to get off to transfer to the capital, San Salvador. The thing I love about buses here is people come on and sell you everything you could possibly need. Hamburgers, fries, vegetables, fruits, crisps, water, juice, medication - I honestly wish we had this in England. So we were duly entertained for the hour bus journey to San Salvador by people selling us all sorts of stuff. Once there, we realised San Salvador was a horrible, sprawling place and headed straight to Playa Del Tunco, a nearby volcanic beach littered with surfers. So another 2 buses later, again around 4 in the afternoon, we landed at the beach. I was so exausted I could hardly speak and bedtime was swift upon me. Playa Del Tunco was nice for a couple of days if you don´t mind the narly man surfer dudes who think they are god´s gift to women. The beach was beautiful as I had never seen a black sand beach before, and tumbling around in the waves, even without a surf board, is much more fun than lounging in the Caribbean sea. Despite a bit of a run-in with the tourist police, it was fairly uneventful. Don´t worry, no prison tales yet, just a waggle of the finger and an óff you go.´
We had our fun with beaches, rum and coconuts there and headed straight back out of El Salvador, acutely aware that we had no stamp out of Honduras. We were about to chicken bus and chance it when a guy stopped where we were waiting for the bus and asked where we were going. As it turned out he was heading the same way, and I´d rather travel in a lexus than an old bluebird school bus any day. He managed to convince us to take a swanky bus as it was an 11 hour journey, called up, made arrangements for us, dropped us at the terminal and went on his merry way. We could not believe how much he did to help us out, and the very expensive bus journey was so unbelievably worth it. More leg room than I could shake a stick at, burger king lunch and dinner included in the cost, and 3 border crossings dealt with for us. Apart from the Honduran border. We were asked to get off the bus and talk to immigration. Here they insisted that Honduras has no lapse in their border, but for a small fee of $20 each, we could get our passports back-stamped. This day was my most expensive day to date, but I still reckon that bus was worth it. No one sitting in your lap, or an arse in your face, or a child being sick into a bag. Bliss.
This brings me almost up to date! We are now in Nicaragua, much safer than Honduras or El Salvador, and very beautiful. We stayed in Managua when we first arrived for 2 nights. Don´t ever bother doing this. Not much to see but a huge polluted lake that you run the risk of being mugged if you go to look at up close. General muted hostility from the locals and bloody hot.
We moved on to Leon where we bumped into a couple of guys we had chilled with in El Salvador who are cycling through central America. Nutters. Leon is lovely; colonial, friendly and laid back. We did volcano boarding at Cerro Negro, where you basically hike up a volcano and throw yourself down it on a board. Awesome fun! Unfortunately, there was a guy on the same tour who I had come across before. He is the typical hiking 'I´ve done everything and want to tell you all about it´ kinda guy. It provided amusement as Dave instantly picked up on this guys ultimate ego trip. It was greatly amusing at least.
The water is calling my name yet again, so I'll leave it there for now. There is more to tell, and grand plans to tell, mañana mañana!