Nicaragua

18 May 2010

After finally recovering from the hell that was Volcan Baru in Panama, I got myself on a bus up to San Jose in Costa Rica where I stayed in the weirdest hostel ever (it was close to the bus terminal). I'd been told that Costa Rica was expensive and full of American tourists and businesses so I figured I'd give the country a miss, just taking the time to step out and indulge at one of the American fast food restaurants!! So the next morning I got the 730am bus out of there up to Nicaragua. Another splendiferous bus ride with a breakdown lasting a mere 1 1/2 hours and resulting in the aircon being shut off for the rest of the journey (actually a blessing as you normally have to dress warmer on a bus than if you were staying at Fountainhall Road in winter).

Some kindly Americans lent me their Lonely Planet whilst we were waiting for the border formalities to be concluded so I was able to figure out how to get to Granada that night rather than suffer the hell of going to Managua which apparently isn't in the top 10 capital cities in the world. I met a Czech girl, Katka, when I got off the bus and we shared a taxi up to Granada together and then she took me out to meet some of her couchsurfing friends in the evening which was really nice.

Granada is a really beautiful town with lots of colonial buildings set around a central square with quite a smart cathedral. Around the town there are plenty of churches that could be described as being in a state of faded splendour, plus a large convent (with really cool indigenous rock statues of men with monkeys and alligators on their heads) and a massive old market. It's really, really hot though and oppresively humid so really hard to sleep at night and even harder to bother to do anything during the day (not that I really need an excuse!). And it rains. A lot.

On one of the days I was doing nothing I found myself at the bar in the hostel drinking a few of the Margaritas which were conveniently on 2 for 1. I was just talking to Katka when this crusty old Guatemalan guy, who lives at the hostel making jewellery, showed up. We asked him nicely a couple of times to go away (and I mean nicely - we weren't rude or loud and noone else noticed so it wasn't embarrassing for him). He took this badly and punched me in the face! An English guy noticed something going on and turned around and thought something had happened to Katka as she looked so shocked! He didn't really hit me that hard and I only ended up with a slight graze to my chin, so all ok!

I didn't manage to move out of the hostel in the morning as I was a little hungover from the additional Margaritas imbibed due to shock, but I moved the following day only to bump into the kindly book-lending Americans I met at the border.

And on to the next weird experience of my time in Granada: The kindly Americans (Jordan & Drew), plus their Geordie friend (Vikki) and I were just hanging out at the hostel drinking a few beers when we were approached by this nutter of a Texan called Russell (think cowboy boots, wifebeater, massive texan belt buckle, mirrored sunglasses over a black eye). We got into various discussions with Russell including gun control (or lack thereof) and other sensitive topics and then took ourselves off for food, only for Russell to turn up at the restaurant telling us how he'd amusingly hired some street kids to follow us and they'd misunderstood and were all poised to beat us up until he managed to stop them at the last minute! After Russell smoking weed at the table and a local man appearing in the girls' bathroom when I went for a pee we retired to our hostel which has the advantage of a locked gate!

The next day a whole bunch of us (not Russell!) took a boat down to the island of Ometepe. The island comprises two massive volcanoes, one of which is still active, rising out of Lake Nicaragua. The island is really beautiful (as seems to generally be the case everywhere so far in Nicaragua) and the people so, so friendly. We stayed at a great hostel run by a great guy Mario and his family (including son Achilles - great name!).

We managed to haul ourselves out of bed late one morning and take the bus up the road to a place called Ojo de Agua which was a freshwater swimming hole (on an island in a freshwater lake!) which was really really lovely. The water was cool but not cold and completely clear and we had a lovely time just being stupid, learning how to make ashtrays out of drinks cans and taking pics with my underwater camera (see kodakgallery/facebook).

The buses on the island are great - they're either beat up large minibuses or beat up american school buses. And the roads are unpaved. So there's no snoozing off on the journeys!

And then someone (not me!) had the bright idea to climb the active Volcan Concepcion so off we trotted at 7am one morning in crazy heat and at quite a pace. It was very much a long walk up a steep hill and so I quit after a while. I like to think it's because of my bad knee and the knowledge that I was slowing anyone down, but it's more probably because I'm lazy and unfit!

The others didn't make it to the top in the end as there was too much sulphur blowing down the volcano in their faces, so I felt better about my afternoon in a hammock whilst they were all sweating their guts out!

We kind of tried to leave the hostel in order to go to another place on the island, but Mario invited us to his wife's birthday party which coincided with national Ladies' Day so how could we refuse?! It was a really great party with loads of food and rum and all the ladies going slightly mental on the dancing front! Jordan and Drew were particularly popular with the crowd of girls!

Finally we moved out of the town and went round to the other side of the island to a hostel with a beach where we spent a relaxing couple of days. Defying the threat of bullsharks in the lake Vikki swam out to a smaller island whilst the rest of us loitered in the jacuzzi-hot shallows. Some other Americans turned up one day and set up a slackline which all the local kids took to like pros.

We spent our final night on the island in a town called Matagalpa where we caught some locals spying into our rooms from the street which was unnerving.

Back in Granada the boys made us spend the next couple of evenings watching sporting fixtures in bars. And me and Vikki spent the days shopping at the second hand stores for clothes and at the Laguna de Apoyo which is a vast crater lake in the jungle and another stunning place to spend some time (see pics).

And then it was time for the boys to head up to the big city to pick up their friend who was flying in, and for me and Vikki to get the bus down to Costa Rica so I could visit the Ranch that she and the guys had been living on for the last few months (they talked about the place endlessly so I thought I'd better go see for myself.)