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 :-)

Blog 9 - It's a Small World After All

So today’s adventure: Volcano Boarding! An early start as the shuttle bus picked us up at 7am, so perhaps I can be forgiven for still being only half-awake when the next group of people from another hostel across town got on.

I was chatting away to this Austrian rock-climber guy when I overheard someone talking in front of me and had a strange feeling of, ‘I know that voice’. 

Clearly they must have thought the same thing, because he turned round, and for a second I thought I might have found our second doppleganger….however it turned out to be the actual Mark Wardle, one of our friends from University! 

Here the two of us are posing on top of the volcano. So random how you can go literally halfway around the world and end up sat on a bus next to someone who you lived only a couple of rooms away from in the same building in halls!

So while we started catching up, the bus made its way out of town, and about an hour later we arrived at the Cerro Negro National Park. Straight off the bus, we were handed a duffle bag full of kit, a wooden board and looked up at what we’d let ourselves in for.

The hike up to the top of Cerro Negro took about an hour, allowing for a couple of stops to admire the views along the way. Our guide told us the mountain gets its name (The Black Mountain) from the fact that it erupts so frequently that the vegetation simply doesn’t get a chance to grow back. The border between the green and black in the photos below shows where the most recent lava flows reached to.

At the top we were sandwiched between the heat coming down from the midday sun, and the heat coming up from the active volcano underneath. Digging a small hole just 3-4 inches into the black rocky ash meant it got too hot to touch.  Apparently this was the perfect time to put on our boiler suits, and stand around for 10 minutes while the guide gave us a safety talk.

What exactly is Volcano Boarding you ask?  Well, you sit astride a shelf-like board about 1m long and 30cm wide.  One side is polished smooth, and the other has a rope tied to it to use as a handle/accelerator. Then you tip yourself over the edge of a 1km, 45 degree slope. So off I went.  In only a few seconds I was hurtling down the side of the mountain, small rocks and black sand spraying off all around me, and it was awesome! I reached a top speed just shy of 70kph…..before …. I came crashing off….

Our guide had said we could use our feet as brakes to slow us down if needed, however my experience suggests this was nonsense: the only thing putting your feet down accomplished was to; increase the amount of rocks and sand being thrown up, spin the board, tip you over, and send you rolling head over heels for the next 20m. (In the guide’s defence, he may have given us further information - I have to admit to getting distracted by a giant yellow butterfly during our safety talk).

Still, no harm done.  I dusted myself off, got back on the board and cruised down the rest of the mountain. A quick side note:  I would later discover during my tumble, my phone came out of my pocket and spun out onto the mountain. Looking for a black-grey phone, in a mountain of black-grey rocks, sand and dust is just as fun as it sounds.  Fortunately after an exhausting 15 minutes my phone and I were reunited.  Incredibly it was still working and with barely a scratch on it!

So in summary, Volcano Boarding: awesome.

Got the bus back, and after a fruitless check at the hostel I found Becki wandering the streets, she looked very happy to see me, as it turns out she’d had an adventure of her own.

A New Day - Off to the Beach

It had now been 4 days since our trip to the beach, and it seems that’s pretty much the maximum time Becki can spend away from the sea. So with the start of a new day, we set off to the Green Surf Hostel in El Transito on the Pacific coast.

Due to some excellent last minute planning, we had chosen to go a town to which no buses ran. So our trip involved a one hour chicken bus to a town called Miramar, and then a 15km ride on a motorised tuktuk. Here's us enjoying the ride.

Arriving in El Transito, a village of no-more than 1000 people, the hostel was no-where to be found. So we decided our best option was just to walk along the beach, until we found something that looked hostel-like (How many could there be!).

Well 15 minutes later we were well out of town and had almost run out of beach when we spotted a tiny sign no bigger than your forearm hanging against a palm tree, and we were there! It turns out our difficulty in finding the place wasn’t entirely accidental, as this conversation we had with the owner later in the evening shows:

“Your hostel is really hard to find, we only just managed to spot that little sign”.

“Yeah I only put that up a few weeks ago, I don’t really like people to come here”

Despite the apparent grouchiness, the owner was actually a really nice guy, and made some really good ceviche (a kind of dish made with raw fish, chilli and lime juice that seems to be all the range in these parts).

So the next few days were spent playing on the beach, swimming in the sea, and enjoying some amazing sunsets.  Only interrupted by the occasional thunderstorm, and FYI; a thunderstorm over the ocean at sunset is something amazing. I literally stood there for hours watching it!

One more thing; walking along the beach we kept seeing these strange looking things. Apparently they are called ‘Sand Dollars’ (probably not the scientific name), and are a kind of creature. While living they are a kind of Sea Urchin and look a furry brown grey, but when they die, they get bleached in the sun and this kind of shell-like skeleton is all that’s left. They come in all different sizes but they all have these leaf imprint like star patterns in the centre surrounded by near perfect straight line holes.

Blog 8 - Take off Your Shoes & Put on Your Sunglasses

From Tuesday 18^th November, we spent six days in Leon, Nicaragua.  On the first morning we discovered a French bakery called Pan y Paz, selling croissants (for Nick) and cheeses (for me).  We went there every morning after that for our wake-up coffee and breakfast.  The main touristy thing we did in Leon was to visit the Cathedral.  The inside is pretty impressive, as you’d expect, but the really amazing part is the roof.  We paid about a dollar to walk up the tiny narrow staircases up to the very top of the inside of the building.  Once there we were met by a man who advised us to, "Take off your shoes and put on your sunglasses".  The reason being, the roof has recently been painted the brightest white that white can be, meaning the effect underneath the midday sun is almost blinding.  The second picture is from the inside of the roof looking out - quite a difference! 

The next day I was simply too hot and fed up to stay in the city and Nick diagnosed me with a severe case of “beach withdrawal syndrome”.  So, we got on a bus and travelled the 40 minutes to the coast.  As we have been quite spoiled re the quality of the beach in La Tortuga Verde, we found that this beach was nothing special, but I got my seaside fix anyway.  That night we went for dinner at a fish restaurant called Pescalitos.  Here’s a picture of me with my MASSIVE fish, covered in garlic sauce….the fish, not me.  It was delicious.

 We’d heard that about 15 minutes walk out of town, there was a “Museum of Myths and Legends”.  I don’t usually go in for visiting a lot of museums as I have a fairly short attention span, but this sounded quite interesting so on Wednesday we thought we’d give it a go.  Well, I think maybe the word “museum” was used fairly loosely here, as we managed to get round the whole thing in under half an hour.  With our limited Spanish skills, we were unable to decipher much of the information.  My highlight though, was this giant woman.  Apparently she is very important in Nicaragua.  If you closely at the picture, you can see Nick too – this gives a sense of just how giant she really is.

 After three nights at the hellhole that was La Pasada Gordita, we packed up and went in search of an alternative hostel.  We ended up at Hostal Latino, which was a massive improvement.  The next couple of days were spent mooching around and trying to firm up some Workaway placements for later on in our trip to save us some money.  So far, we have booked a placement working in a small hotel in Peru for the month of February. 

On the Saturday afternoon, we obviously had to stay holed up in our room at the hostel and find a website that was showing the AC Milan v Inter Milan game, otherwise Nick would have been most unhappy.   They drew 1-1, and as I helpfully pointed out: a draw is better than losing.

Sunday was our last day in Leon, and Nick went off to go Volcano Boarding.  This is a most dangerous activity consisting of sitting on a snowboard/go-kart contraption and hurtling down the side of an active volcano at speeds of up to 100kmh.  Nick will tell you more about it in the next instalment.  For my part, having carefully memorized the way to Pan y Paz the day before (due to my being more than slightly directionally challenged I was nervous about making the 3 minute journey alone), I set off to have my breakfast there as normal.  However, when I arrived I found that it was closed on Sundays and so I’d have to find somewhere else to go.  Panic.  Well, I was most pleased with myself as after 10 minutes or so of wandering around I found myself in a coffee shop with air conditioning, free Wi-Fi and lemon drizzle cake: Result. 

The problems began when I walked out of the door and found that I couldn't remember which direction I’d come from, not least how to get back to the hostel.  After half an hour of walking round in circles feeling stupid and getting slightly teary, I approached a friendly-looking American couple and informed them I’d lost my hostel.  They showed me a map of the city, which didn’t exactly help matters, and I was about to give up and sit in a heap on the floor, when they pointed out that my old favourite Pan y Paz was only two streets away!  As I was rounding the corner to the hostel, I bumped into Nick who had returned from Volcano Boarding and had come to find me – probably wise.

And finally....on our last night in Leon, I received my first ever electric shock.  This was given to me by the dodgy plug socket in our room at Hostel Latino.  It hurt a lot, and my hair didn't stick up in the comedy style that I've seen in so many films, which definitely would have helped counteract the pain :-(

Blog 7 - Sleeping in all the Wrong Places

The next morning after Nick’s volcano adventure, we filled ourselves up on breakfast, ready for the journey to Honduras.  In order to fit in all the places we want to go to, we were only using Honduras as a one night stopover on the way through to Nicaragua, which is a bit of a shame but we can’t do everything otherwise we’d never come home!  So the plan was to leave La Tortuga Verde at around 10am.  However, when we tried to settle the bill we found that stupid Natwest had blocked Nick’s card for a second time this trip.  So, much time was spent on the phone to them sorting that out before we could go anywhere.  Here's a helpful map to show you our journey so far - the solid red line is where we are up to this point, and the dotted line is where we'll be by the end of this blog entry.

To get to the border we left La Tortuga Verde and took a chicken bus from El Cuco to San Miguel which took about 1hr 30 minutes, then a second bus from San Miguel to Santa Rosa (a town 20 minutes from the border), which took another couple of hours.  Our plan was to then go straight over the border and find a place to stay for the night once we’d crossed over to Honduras.  However, we decided to hop off the bus at Santa Rosa at about 5pm as we were hot and tired (both of us) and grumpy (mainly me), and find a hotel.  This was much easier said than done.  After traipsing around the streets for 30 minutes, it transpired that there was not a single place to stay in the whole town, as generally it doesn’t get very many visitors, i.e. it’s a horrible place.  We got in a taxi and asked the driver to take us somewhere, anywhere where we could spend the night.

As some of you will know from my startled Facebook post a couple of weeks ago, he took us to the only hotel in town – a pay by the hour motel.  The lovely room we stayed in was fitted out with such splendid features as:  a tissue paper dispenser next to the bed, free condoms, a switch next to the bed to operate “seductive” music, a sign detailing how to turn on the “adult” tv channels, and of course....mirrored headboards. 

Needless to say, we got out of there pretty quickly the next morning, and continued on our journey.  So, it was back on a chicken bus to the border.  Getting through the checkpoint itself was relatively painless and only took about half an hour.  Once we were on the Honduran side of the border, we took yet another chicken bus to Chaluteca and then a minivan shuttle to the Honduran/Nicaraguan border.  The minivan section of the journey was a a little scary - the sliding door didn't stay shut and so someone had to hold it in place the whole time, lest we fall out the side.  Also the road was filled with potholes, some a metre wide.  This meant the driver was continually swerving onto the other side of the road in order to avoid them - not very Health & Safety.

This border was a lot more hectic…we’d hardly even opened the minivan door when we were surrounded by several men, who all wanted to take us the 4km to the checkpoint on their rickshaw.  We eventually chose our man and set off.  I’m sure everyone is aware of what a rickshaw is, but just in case, it’s a bicycle with a two-person bench seat attached to the back of it. We felt quite bad for the guy as it was ridiculously hot, and pedalling three peoples’ weight and all their luggage has got to be pretty hard work.  Once through the checkpoint and into Nicaragua, it was on to yet another chicken bus to Leon where we would spend the next week.

Here’s some useful info about Leon for you:  It is a university city about the same size as York and used to be the capital of Nicaragua, but during the revolution the capital was changed to Managua - I don't know why... sorry.

After 9 hours of travelling we finally arrived at our destination.  The hostel we had booked was called “La Pasada Gordita”, which by the way means “the incredibly obese woman” (and she was). Now, this hostel was the highest rated in Leon out of hundreds.  However, our room turned out to be the worst we have stayed in before and since.  The mattress was a piece of foam which a) was just really uncomfortable to sleep on, and b) foam is not the best material to alleviate the UNBEARABLE heat throughout the night.  The room was equipped with a fan off of the 70’s which was so loud it sounded like a helicopter was taking off next to our heads all night.  I ended up sleeping on the cold tiled floor instead.  I am very hardcore now.   

I will tell you all about our time in Leon in the next entry :-)