Blog 16 - So Many Cows, Not Enough Cheese

The next day at Tesoro Escondido, we spoke to one of the managers, Jane about our shift patterns for the next month.  She advised us that in return for free board and three meals a day, we would need to work 8 hours per day for 6 days a week.  If we wanted to only work 6 hours per day, we would only be entitled to two meals.  This was not exactly what we’d signed up for, as the original Workaway posting stated the deal as all meals included for 5 hours per day’s work.  I spent the first 24 hours ranting and raving at the injustice of it all and wanted to leave purely on principal, but then decided to suck it up and just get on with it in return for the beautiful Caribbean beach only 30 seconds away. 

 

So for a month from 15^th December, we became actual chefs…  Cooking for actual hotel guests….With no-one else in the kitchen but us!  Items on the menu included: Banana Pancakes, Ham & Cheese Omelettes, Black Bean Tostadas, Gazpacho, Smoked Pork Burritos and Chicken Coconut Curry.  We are obviously now expert chefs, and only had one near disaster: a cold water into boiling hot oily pan situation, almost setting the kitchen on fire.  Almost.

Cheese is very expensive in Central America.  We are not sure why as there are many, many cows.  I have been on serious cheese rations since we began our trip, and I am attributing the half stone of weight I’ve lost almost entirely to this fact.  The cheese at Tesoro Esondido was not kept in the fridge, but is guarded by the faceless owner “Monique” in her house, along with other such forbidden fruits as raisins, nuts, and the Holy Grail: pesto.  We ran out of cheese every shift as Monique would not deign to hand over more than one small block at a time and then complained that we were using too much of it.  I’m not sure this was really our fault as the most popular items on the menu contained cheese, so what’s a chef to do?  And I hardly ate any of it, I swear.

Our days here consisted of work, beach, sleep, repeat, apart from a couple of exceptions.

We formed a workers alliance with another couple of British Workawayers, Alex and Emily, and spent most of our evenings drinking beer (a dollar a bottle), and going down onto the beach to “look at the stars”.   After a couple of weeks of not leaving the hotel apart from to visit the beach, we’d started to get cabin fever and so went on a night out in Bocas Town.  A portion of our night was spent in a bar named “Books, Booze & Beyond”, where we played an incredibly tense game of Giant Jenga before hitching a lift home with three of us (not me), crammed in the boot, while I concentrated on not throwing up in the back seat.  Good times.

Christmas and New Year unfortunately felt decidedly unfestive as the torrential rain that had plagued us in Costa Rica had finally caught up with us in Panama.  Plus, the hotel was fully booked for 2 weeks and we were working far harder than we’d hoped to be on our Travelmoon.  We almost wished for a moment that we were back home, and then it stopped raining, the sun came out and we laughed at ourselves for being so ridiculous.

Nick would like me to mention the vast array of insects found and photographed by him at Tesoro Escondido.  I include a selection of them here.  The final two pictures show a huge dead spider, and then the same huge dead spider having had its insides sucked out by an army of ants.  Nice.

Alex and Emily left a couple of weeks before we did, and once we’d got over their departure, we thought it’d be a great idea to cycle to Drago Beach over on the other side of the island, which was a 40km round trip.  (I know!  Who knew I was such a proficient cyclist?!)  The bikes we borrowed from the hotel were certainly interesting to ride – they didn’t have brakes on the handlebars, so if we wanted to slow down at all, we had to pedal backwards…lots of fun.  The handlebars on Nick’s bike kept falling down every mile or so, so we had to keep pulling over and getting the spanner out by the side of the road.  The idea was to spend a few hours at the beach, but as we didn’t leave until 11am, we ended up having to cycle back again after an hour and a half.  On the way back I got chased by a crazy-looking dog, which was quite scary.   

An unexpected treat at this location:  

As this sign made by Alex shows, we were actually allowed to flush toilet paper down the toilet!!  After weeks of putting used paper in a disgusting bin next to the toilet, this felt incredibly modern.

And as promised, here’s another picture of a lizard.  This tiny gecko arrived after breakfast every morning to lick the sugar from the lid of the pot.  What kind of lizard will it be in the next edition?  There’s only one way to find out!

Blog 15 - Dear Panamanian Highway Authority

A new day, a new country: off to Panama....and on the way, our most entertaining border crossing yet.

You know how in England you get those strange shop combinations like Shoe Repair and Key Cutting, well the Costa Rican border town of (Sixoala) has gone one better. The roadside stall whose main trade is in hats and dresses also acts as a place you can recharge your mobile phone, exchange currency and is where you have to buy your customs papers. 1 randomness point to you, Costa Rica.

The border is marked by a wide river, with mountains upstream and impenetrable jungle either side. The only way across is via a disused railway bridge. 

For us, with our reasonably light bags, and in calm sunny weather this was an amusing novelty. But it’s worth pointing out this is the only way across, short of a 300 mile round trip to the Pacific Coast. So sometimes a teenage backpacker with a bag three times their size will turn up in the middle of howling winds and torrential rain, and they'll be told, ‘Yeah you’ve got to walk across that’. 

Also a reasonable number of the wooden planks are missing or broken, so sometimes a person must be walking across when part of the bridge gives way underneath them!

Fortunately we made it without any such pitfalls, at least until we arrived at the Panama border control office. The man on duty was insisting we needed an exit ticket before we would be allowed in. Now technically he was right, this is a requirement for the entry visa, but it also was for every other Central America country and we’d never been called up on it before. It’s also not entirely unlikely he was after some kind of bribe. Anyway he didn’t get one. For about half an hour we had a conversation which went round in circles, here’s the abbreviated version:

Border Guard: “You need an exit ticket to get in. Why don’t you have one?”

Us: “Because we don’t know when or where we’re going next”

Border Guard: “Then you need to buy an exit ticket now”

Us: “We can’t because we don’t know when or where we’re going yet”

Eventually his supervisor turned up, probably as a result of the queue that was rapidly growing behind us, asked us if we had enough money for our trip, if we had a credit card and decided that was good enough. We were in!

After a short ride in a collectivo mini-van, we got on a water taxi to take us across to Isla Colon, part of the Bocas Del Toro archipelago. The water taxi was definitely an exhilarating, if slightly drenching experience, as the twin-engined speed boat hydroplaned its way over the waves of the Caribbean.

Arriving in Bocas town we had a bit of trouble finding a taxi driver who was prepared to take us up to our destination, ‘Tesoro Escondido’. On the map the journey seemed like a simple 5 mile drive, but the first four drivers we stopped all said no on the basis of the condition of the road. Finally we did find one who was prepared to give it a go, and we soon saw why the others were so reluctant. To summarise the situation I have penned an open letter to the Panamanian Highway Authority.

Dear Panamanian Highway Authority,

While we have come to accept that dirt tracks so heavily potholed that most 4x4 drivers take a sharp intake of breath when considering tackling them, are considered legitimate places to drive in many areas of Central America, I would like to inform you, that usually the beach does not count as a road.  Neither does a river, nor as you appear to believe, in at least one place, does the sea.

Yours Sincerely,

Nick Madge.

As it turns out we were actually rather lucky as at one point during our stay, the hotel, along with the rest of the East side of the island became entirely cut off, as the condition of the road following some stormy weather meant not a single vehicle was prepared to attempt to traverse it for 3 days.

So after an entertaining day of travelling we arrived at our home for the next few weeks. 

Tesoro Escondido is an eco-hotel on the edge of Bluff Beach, one of the best surfing spots in Central America. Scattered around a huge central four story house are a maze of cabinas, bamboo platforms, a yoga hut and two private beaches. 

Just off the main house, is our room, and to the right our outside shower. 

We were a little skeptical of the outside shower at first given the number of bugs wandering around, but having a hot shower surrounded by tropical jungle during a tropical thunderstorm is amazing!

We had arrived just in time for the evening meal, and spent some time getting to know the other workawayers we had joined. Here’s the restaurant where we would be doing most of our workawaying, and the view wasn't so bad either!

Blog 14 - It's Still Raining

From La Fortuna, we took a bus to the capital city of San Jose.  The journey should have taken us 4 and a half hours, but due to a huge traffic jam it ended up taking us 6 and a half.  This meant that when we arrived, we were STARVING, and consequently I made the mistake of suggesting we eat in the very first place we saw, as I “just couldn’t go on anymore”.  It was a KFC and a pretty horrible one at that.  Ten pieces (between us) of greasy, grisly chicken later, we walked the two miles uphill to the  hostel we’d booked, feeling more and more nauseous with every step.  We did witness an amazing sunset while on the bus though, which made it more bearable.

Castle Tam hostel was pretty weird – I wouldn’t recommend staying there.  It was decorated in a “London theme”, with each of the rooms having a different tube line painted on the door.  It was also FREEZING cold and the window to our room wouldn’t shut.  There were rules everywhere you looked – on the walls, the fridges, the doors.  A couple of examples: On the bathroom mirror – “Do not leave your bathroom items in the bathroom overnight.  Any items found here in the morning will be destroyed.”  Bit unnecessary, we thought.  On the fridge – “Alcohol may be stored in the fridge.  However, if alcohol is not removed by 9am it will be thrown out.”  Funny how the bathroom items get destroyed, but the alcohol does not….  

These clocks were in the lobby area.  Nick thought it was mega lols, so took a photo.

Anyway, we were looking forward to the “best hostel breakfast ever”, as stated by numerous visitors on Hostelworld.  It turned out to be a giant pancake – the American kind, not the delicious English/possibly French ones we have on Pancake Day with lemon and sugar.  Also, there was nowhere to sit and eat breakfast, just a teeny tiny desk in the kitchen where the two of us plus the cook crammed round (all of our knees touching) and ate in silence.  All very strange.  Before we left though, we were treated to a HOT SHOWER!!  This was our first since leaving New York 6 weeks ago, so it was reason to celebrate indeed.

A pretty flower in La Fortuna

We had no desire to hang around in San Jose as it’s pretty much just full of shopping malls and office blocks, and we are nature-loving hippy traveller types now so we have no love for such cosmopolitan surroundings.  So, we took a bus to Puerto Viejo: a small surfer town on the Caribbean coast.  It’s a cool place, and it would have been good to spend a few days here on the beach sunning ourselves, if it had not been raining, as it had been throughout our whole time in Costa Rica.  We stayed in a nice little cabina-type hostel for a couple of nights and as our money was dwindling away rapidly, we cooked all our meals in the kitchen on site. 

I believe I have come a long way since the beginning of this trip, when at first I would not even entertain the idea of eating anything that had been prepared in a hostel kitchen, as let’s face it, they are always really dirty, no-one washes anything properly and as the plates, cutlery and cooking equipment do not belong to me, basically I don’t trust them. However, I've persevered and can now eat pretty much anything off a surface that hasn't seen a sponge this decade.  And I've only thrown up once so far…..Hurrah! 

A lizard

So, on we went across the border to Panama.  We’d arranged a Workaway placement from 15^th December lasting a month, in a small hotel on Isla Colon, Bocas del Toro.  This border crossing was the most interesting of all.  I’ll let Nick tell you all about it in the next installment as I’m very tired due to not having a siesta today.

P.S. Apologies for the random pictures again.  We don’t have any pictures that go with this bit of the trip, so instead you’re treated to some that don’t really make sense with what you’re reading.  Also, as there are a lot of lizards i n the part of the world, I’ve decided that the next couple of entries will include a picture of a lizard.  Because we have about 100 of them.

Blog 13 - La Fortuna: Orff-full Weather

A new day and off we went on the bus towards La Fortuna. The route was only about 50km to travel, but apparently it takes over 3 hours because the road is so steep and windy in places. As per usual we arrived at the changeover town of Tilaran high in the mountains at what we considered a fairly reasonable time (1pm) expecting to get an onward bus, only to discover they had already stopped for the day.

So we stopped for the night in Tilaran.  It’s a pretty quiet place and there’s not much to say about it.  To pass the time I decided I would have a shave for the first time on the trip, and try out different comedy beard styles on route.

The next day we got up early and continued on to La Fortuna.  The three hour bus ride was actually more enjoyable than you might imagine, winding from one mountain to the next and got some spectacular views across Lake Arenal, and spotted a barrel of monkeys eating fruit by the side of the road – and yes barrel is the correct collective noun for monkeys.

Now I’m sure La Fortuna and Costa Rica in general are amazing places but we encountered two fairly significant problems:

1.) A typical day tour in Costa Rica seems to cost around $100 per person. Now this probably isn’t a big amount in the grand scheme of things, but coming from Nicaragua where the equivalent tours cost only $10, it kind of felt like we were being asked to give up a kidney in exchange for a go on a quad bike.

2.)  It rained continuously the entire time. Maybe this shouldn’t have been so surprising to us, after all there must been some logic behind calling them ‘rainforests’, but our bodies had clearly adapted to the 30 degree all day sunshine of the pacific coast. Also almost all of the attractions in the area involve long walks in the outdoors, which are at best slightly less enjoyable when you’re soaking wet and can’t see any of the scenery, and at worst, as in the case of the ‘Celestial River’ downright pointless. This had previous caught our attention as according to the guidebook, after a three hour hike through the jungle you arrive at a confluence of two rivers, where due to the unique volcanic chemistry they combine to glow an iridescent blue, except however… when it’s raining when the river is instead a muddy brown.

One afternoon the clouds did briefly part so we made a dash for the nearby La Fortuna waterfall. The 3 mile walk was slightly more challenging than originally anticipated as it was almost entirely up a 45 degree slope. A friendly guy heading the same way in his car did stop and give us a lift, but only for the final 200 meters.

On entering the Catarata Rio Fortuna Park, and getting our first spectacular views down onto the waterfall, the walk was immediately completely worthwhile. We descended down steps cut into the side of the volcano to the base of the waterfall, and no sooner had we reached the bottom before Becki was bravely leading the way getting in for a swim.  

Falling down from 75 meters above us the water was icy cold and incredibly powerful.  The spray and waves nearly knocking us off our feet again and again. One woman did wander in too close, and got swept off screaming towards the rocks downstream.  Fortunately two of her friends and a local who was carefully overseeing the pool pulled her out before she got there, and aside from being a bit shaken up she was fine.  

After an afternoon of playing around in the plunge pool and the river further downstream, we made our way back up and had some lunch at the lookout point restaurant – definitely the best food of the trip so far. While we were waiting for our food to arrive, a monkey came to join us, coming out from the trees, right to the furthest branch overhanging the lookout point walkway. He didn’t seem bothered at us getting up close and even put on a bit of a show, hanging from his tail and pulling different poses.

The next day the weather returned to its state of continuous rain, so by the evening we were desperate to get out and do something, even if that something was only run to the bar down the road for some drinks. Becki set a new personal best in getting ready for a night out, from ready for bed to ready to go all in under 10 minutes.

Once at the bar we got chatting to this local guy, and what started out as an opportunity for us to practice our Spanish and him his English ended up with him taking us under his wing for the night and showing us the bars where the locals go, and finishing up at a late night café.

The next day with hangovers kicking in and yet more rain forecast for the whole of the rest of the week, we decided we would move on and keep heading south in the hope of finding some sun again.

Final Thought: You might think that La Fortuna’s claim to fame would be it’s views of the perfectly conical Arenal Volano or the dramatic 75 meter waterfall nearby, but apparently it is also home to Costa Rica’s International Mini-Golf Centre… although as this picture shows it now seems to be less 'world renowned attraction' and more 'location for an episode of Scooby Doo'.

Blog 12 - Boats, Buses & Liquid Cheese

This blog entry is a detailed summary of the events of one day:  Sunday 7^th December 2014 – The day we crossed over from Nicaragua to Costa Rica.  Although I’ve somehow managed to write an entire entry about a single day, we have not a single picture with which to illustrate the story.  So, instead we have an informative map of our journey so far, plus a selection of photos showing random things we’ve seen, which haven’t made it into blogs or photo albums.

It was time to leave Ometepe and head back to mainland Nicaragua, ready for the onward journey to Costa Rica.  Given how ill I had felt on the ferry ride over to the island, I decided that we should this time sit on the lower deck of the boat.  Our choice was rewarded with a screening of the original King Kong, played on a 14 inch television at the front of the cabin.  We were getting quite into the film and were just up to the part where (sorry, spoiler alert) the giant monkey has grabbed the woman and all her friends are on their way to rescue her, when we started to lose signal.  Rather than try to fix this problem by twiddling the aerial or whatever, one of the boat people just switched the channel to some really annoying Spanish pop music videos from at least 30 years ago.  Was not impressed.

A morose pig strolling along the beach in El Cuco, El Salvador.

After a great deal of negotiation on price, we took a taxi from the ferry port to the border town of Penas Blancas.  As seems to be the custom at borders, we were immediately accosted by a man who told us that by far the best way to get across the border quickly, would be to pay 12 dollars each to a coach company.  We decided to do this and gave our passports to an official-looking woman with a clipboard and an ID badge and all the proper stuff.  After filling in the immigration forms and handing over our money and our passports, we were directed to a coach and told to simply to wait next to it.  Mild panic started to set in when 45 minutes later, there was no sign of woman or our passports.  Eventually she reappeared and doled them out again, so all was well.

The stage door for the production of one of our favourite TV shows – Person of Interest, which Nick randomly found while on the hunt for food in Queens, New York.

So, onto the coach we went, full of hope of a swift, painless border crossing.  We travelled two minutes across the border and then had to get back off the coach and queue up in possibly the world’s longest queue.  Honestly, it rivalled the ones at Alton Towers during term-time.  Not that we ever went in term-time, as our mother would generally phone up the school and tell the secretary that all three of us had come down with a mysterious stomach bug (probably too much Sudafed), and we’d all have a day off to go to Alton Towers with no queues.  Those were the days.

Anyway, we had to fill out forms again on the Costa Rican side and then get back on the coach, which would take us to Liberia.  So, the “quick” crossing had taken just over 3 hours.  Well worth the money.  I think this would be a good point to mention that we had not eaten since breakfast, and as we reached a fairly substantial traffic jam an hour away from our destination, the time was approaching 6pm.  I was beginning to lose it a little bit, when Nick suggested we tuck into half a loaf of seriously squashed bread and a warm, old jar of peanut butter.  I declined the peanut butter, but munched my way through six slices of bread while waiting for the coach to get moving again.

Slightly offensively-named bread in Nicaragua.

Finally, we arrived in Liberia, which for an inland city was surprisingly sandy and windy.  Not the best combination.  We checked into our hostel and went in search of food.  As we were so ridiculously hungry, we made the mistake of just choosing the first restaurant we found.  We ordered nachos – one of our favourites, so imagine our disappointment when the plate arrived covered in LIQUID CHEESE.  This was possibly the most upsetting thing that has happened to me during this trip.  I refused to eat the nachos, Nick did his best but even his iron stomach was no match for this monstrosity.  Also, they cost us 14 dollars!!!  It turns out people were not exaggerating when they said that Costa Rica is a great deal more expensive than the other Central American countries.  We had a couple of pints, ate at McDonalds across the road, and then went to bed. 

The End.

Blog 11 – Ometepe Island: Always Brake for Pigs

Sorry it’s been a while since our last post, and we’ve got a little bit behind. Today’s entry goes back to the beginning of December, and we’ll try and catch some up over the next couple of weeks!

So on from our adventures at the lake, we jumped in a taxi, the driver of which chased and then flagged down what at only lunch time really shouldn’t have been the last bus of the day. Getting on it was obvious we weren’t the only ones who had rushed to make this bus, and were in for our most packed ride so far, barely enough space to breathe, let alone move, as we headed south. Of course this didn’t deter the usual parade of people squeezing their way through selling various random things, including some kind of delicious peanut flapjack.

About an hour or so later and we were getting on a ferry from the port just outside Rivas mid-afternoon. The boat ride was pretty choppy in parts for a lake, although admittedly a pretty huge lake.

We just managed to snap this cheerful shot before things took a turn for the worse and Becki came down with a case of sea-sickness (or I guess lake-sickness in this case). Perhaps in hindsight climbing up to the very top deck of the boat where the swaying was most severe was a mistake.

It took about an hour and half to cross the 5 mile stretch, and as we drew closer we were treated to one of the most impressive sights of our trip as the twin volcanic peaks of Ometepe loomed larger and larger on the horizon.

Arriving in the town of Moyogalpa, our first stop was at a pizza place on the main street where we could sit and watch the sunset. Refuelled and with Becki recovered now her feet were firmly on the ground, we wandered off to find Yogi’s Hostel which a passing friendly guy on a moped told us was the best deal in town (although it would later transpire he was also the owner of the hostel so possibly his review wasn’t entirely unbiased).


Waking up the next morning, our plan had been to rent some bikes and explore the island, but unfortunately Becki woke up unable to move her neck, so perhaps bouncing our way over semi-paved streets wasn’t going to be the best idea. Instead we took it easy, and explored closer to home, getting to know the town. One thing we discovered; in Ometepe old tires double as bus stops.

The next day with Becki needing to give her back and neck another day to recover, I inevitably set off to climb the main volcano: Concepcion. Probably the single hardest climb I’ve ever done, starting at sea-level in tropical humidity we climbed pretty steep tracks cut through the jungle, using tree-roots and vines to pull ourselves up for over two hours, before the route levelled out to our first view-point. Well I say first view point, it was in fact the only view-point the rest of way up, as from here on we entered the layer of cloud that near-perpetually surrounds the top of the peak.


Unfortunately we couldn’t make it all the way to the summit, the winds had picked up too much and as almost sheer slope the last few hundred meters was completely unclimbable. We tried to encourage our guide to let us try but when he spotted his friend coming back down accompanying two Swiss rock climbers complete with climbing gear all saying it was impossible the decision had been made.

So back down we went, taking a longer but more gradual path down the other side of Concepcion, a nice path cut out for us by a dried up river of lava from the most recent eruption. There were plenty of sights along the way; we passed by a family of howler monkeys playing in the trees, and walked through a swarm of 30-40 white butterflies that swirled around us, before coming out onto a ridge and getting some spectacular views across the whole eastern side of the island. Due to poor internet, I’ve had no luck uploading the video of this view, but it will appear here and on Facebook as soon as we get somewhere with a relatively decent WiFi.

The next day, and with Becki fully recovered we got ourselves some bikes and set off to explore. A few km along the road we saw a turn that my volcano guide yesterday had said leads to a little beach which almost no-one knows about so we decided to check it out. He was right, 2km down this dirt road we came out onto a deserted spit of sand. With no-one about we took the opportunity to leave the bikes and jump in for a swim.

After our swim we cycled around some more, stopped in a place called Los Angeles which I have to say is a lot less showy than TV had led me to believe. Then we got into a game with a truck full of kids where we kept overtaking each other, and they found it hilarious to shout ‘hola!’ to us, and when we replied with the same, for some reason it was (as Becki would say) “lols all round”.

One last bicycle adventure, after dropping Becki off at the hostel I found a massive hill, which although an absolute mission to get up, meant on the way back down you could go ridiculously fast. Like when you were 10 years old and no human being had ever cycled as fast as you were right now. 

One Final Thought: You know how when you’re taking driving lessons, your instructor will tell you that if an animal runs out into the road in front of you it’s dangerous to try and swerve to miss it, so the correct thing to do is just keep going and run it down. Well there should definitely be an exception to that rule when you are an 80kg person on a bike, and the animal is a 200kg pig.

Blog 10 - Blind Massages & Kayaking "Records"

To get to Granada from 

El Transito we had to get up at 5.30am (yawn) and travel on a couple of chicken buses.  I have become surprisingly used to this form of transport.  Sitting between two hot and sweaty people on what is clearly a seat designed for one, while the driver either chats on his mobile phone or swerves to avoid giant potholes has become the norm, and I’m not sure how I’m going to feel about getting on a regular bus, even more so a train ever again.

When we stepped off the bus, we found to our dismay that it was RAINING!  As we hadn’t experienced such an event in numerous weeks, we kind of took leave of our senses and walked into the first café we could find for breakfast.  It was not great.  After that, we went and checked into our hostel: The Bearded Monkey.  This hostel is rated number one in Granada in the Lonely Planet guidebook….we are not sure why.  It wasn’t bad but certainly nothing to write home (or an entry in a guidebook) about.  Also, a couple of people who were staying in one of the dorm rooms had money stolen from their locker which isn’t great.

Granada is fine, it’s nothing too amazing though.  There are lots of nice cafes and old buildings, but we’d kind of seen all that in Leon so it was all much of a muchness for me.  On the first day my back was pretty sore so I decided to go across the road to the “Seeing Hands Blind Massage” place.  Here I got massaged by a blind person, and it was definitely the best massage I’ve ever had.  It was also very thorough……very, very thorough.  Over the next couple of days we generally mooched about, checking out the town.  On the Saturday, Nick spent the night in a treehouse a few miles away from the hostel.  This trip definitely wasn’t for me as you were guaranteed to be sleeping next to all sorts of scary creatures and the chances of me getting a good night’s sleep were pretty slim.  Instead, I went out drinking with some other people who were staying at the hostel: much more suited to my tastes :-) 

On the Sunday we said goodbye to Granada and travelled to Lake Apoyo.  I was mega hungover and so when the bus dropped us off, we walked into the first place we saw which turned out to be LOVELY!  It was called the Laguna Beach Club and it was a kind of cross between a hostel and a hotel.  Swimming in the lake was amazing.  The water was so clear that you could see incredibly far down; not to the bottom though as the lake is 300 metres deep!

We stayed here for two nights, and on the night before we left Nick decided he wanted to kayak across the lake and back which is a 7 mile round trip.  Someone (me) suggested that they should leave at 3pm so that they would be back by 5.30pm so not to be kayaking in the darkness.  Someone else (him) left at 3.30pm and got caught in a storm when he was halfway back across the lake.  When it hard been dark for half an hour and there had been no sign of him, the barman got in a kayak and went to search for him.  As it turned out, he was fine.  The current had carried him across the lake away from the hotel, so he was kayaking along the shore back to us when the barman found him.  Nick would like me to add here that he is the “first man ever” to kayak solo across Lake Apoyo, purely because he can’t find any other mention of anyone else having done it on Google.

If you look closely at this picture, you will see Nick setting off on his trip.  In the next instalment: Ometepe Island :-)