NICARAGUA TRIP end of November 09

The awesome foursome decided fairly early on that we would save our permitted one absence from every class and use it to extend our thanksgiving break... so one week before thanksgiving we took off... we had a school sized backpack each and banana bread in hand... we were ready to go!! we took off to Liberia and then crossed the DELIGHTFUL Costa Rica/ Nicaragua border... CR side fine... NIcaragua side you have to pay a tourist few... no probs... BUT NO!!! of course they wouldnt have change... we were expected to have the exact 7USD on us... what traveller just has random one dollar bills floating round... and they wouldnt accept Cordobas (their own currency) so silly!!! Finally we figured the mess out and made our way onto a bus headed to Rivas... we were all seperate on the bus... the guy next to me was fromm Honduras and knew the Pastor who runs the project that I was going to volunteer at over christmas... so Random... Erik or Nathan met a nice young man who helped us find a hostel... We got a great deal... $2.50 each a night AMAZING... only catch was that the hostel was under construction BUT our room was great and the owners were very kind...

Next day (DAY TWO) we were up early and headed off to Isla Ometepe... We got on this super rickety boat… Colleen and I realised pretty quickly why our seats with prime view had not been previously occupied by others… they were where the splash and boat wall leakage were worst… I got off the boat a lot damper than when I got on... We were immediately accosted by local tour guides who were not letting an opportunity for work go without a fight and in our desperation to flee we got on a bus without really knowing where it was going and got out of the main town… we were relieved to find out that the bus actually would take us to where we wanted to go anyway so we sat back and settled in for a ‘short’ bus ride that actually turned into 4hrs… BAD roads but the island was stunning… just gorgeous…

Got to the finca (farm) and walked up the 1km road to the hostel… some amazing views and after a lovely kip we had dinner got a hardcore game of scum cranking and then lay beside sun roasting coffee looking at the stars…

DAY THREE… the boys walked down to get us a cheapo deapo breakfast from a shop on the main road... bananas and bread…CHA WHOOO I was stoked I hadn’t had to walk down… then we set out on a bush walk up the side of a volcano… we decided to follow the trail without a guide to save some dosh but I began to question our decision when I saw a snake slither off through some grass on the side of the trail… But it turned out to be ok… only encountered a crazed bee after that and ZI interpreted some ancient petro-glyphs for the group… made to a really cool look out about an hr and a half – two hrs up the volcano… we came back down in time for lunch of beans in a bag and bread oooo and some tomatos… really jazzed up the sarnies that’s for sure!!!

We wanted to swim in the lake in the avo but due to a lack of entrances into the lake and Colleen and I really not wishing to enter with a ton of local men staring at us… we opted to not swim… another similar night this one with some great coffee…

DAY FOUR… we left the island on a bus that was a heck of a lot quicker than the first and a ferry that had an upstairs deck… we had all done some washing on the finca that had not dried and I hate the smell of wet clothes… so I did something my parents would have done and when I was younger I would have died from shame for being near them while they were doing it… I whipped out all my wet clothes… quite a lot of clothing… and hung it all over the seats on the top deck… my friends followed suit and we had quite a collection on display… then due to the fact that we had lost all sense of shame we also got out our wet undies and hung them out to dry too… well within the hour ferry ride we got all our clothes dry and had no nasty smelling clothes to pack away... we headed to Managua and got a taxi to a hostel… ‘the white house’… we got the only room that had a door to the loo rather than a curtain (quite awkward for anything more than wee)… Colleen worried about the fact that the door could be opened through the window devised a deterrence using a fan placed very closely to the door so that you had to squeeze in and out and had to open the door with care…

Exploring the city was next on the list…we went down to the area which had been damaged severely by the earthquake in 1972… There was a really cool monument to Ruben Dario, a Nicaraguan poet we had studied in Lit class, we also saw the old cathedral a huge old church with massive cracks all through it… It was so bizarre to walk passed a huge slum area and then walk into a mall within 5 minutes… It just really struck home again the huge inequalities there are in the world…

We had the most AMAZING dinner at this wee restaurant… great curried chicken and Pasta!!!

DAY FIVE- Day to explore Granada…

Bt first money changing was needed… on the way to the bank we walked past a high school… I was a few metres infront of colleen and attracted the attention of some boys in a class… by the time colleen walked past the entire class of boys had collected at the window and were watching her until… she dropped a banana peal that was in her hands… now due to the fact that the streets aren’t exactly the cleanest place it could have been left there BUT due to our adversion to littering Cooleens immediate reaction was to bend over to pick up the peal… The boys quite liked this bending down action and let out a massive hoot of appreciation!! HILARIOUS…

we hoped on a public mini van that was PACKED all four of us were standing up and there were about 15 people in one small van… Colleen and I got asked by a hilarious (ie slightly dodgey) old man firstly why we didn’t like to wear make up… (perhaps because it was on fire outside and it would sweat off in 1 second or maybe because we were travelling) and also why we like latino boys better than boys from home (I don’t know where he got this idea from and let me just say I do not find machismo esp being hissed and yelled and oggeled at attractive at all!!)

Granada was beautiful!! what a lovely wee city… felt like we were somewhere in Europe… the buildings were so cute… we opted not to look like complete gringos and walked rather than take a ride in a horse and carriage around the city… then we heade to Masaya for all of 40 min and strolled through the local Mercado… picked up a knife for 50 cents tho to help make sandwiches… came in super handy!!

Dinner… cornflakes and milk in plastic cups ooooooo yeah we are cheap!!! and then a yummy helado that the boys ran back from the shop as a surprise with for us…

DAY SIX… On a bus to Tegucigalpa Honduras… yet another fantastic border crossing without change and a deadly bus ride from the border to the city… we found our hostel and went out to get din dins… more budget work with peanut butter, bread and banana…

DAY SEVEN… THANKSGIVING… my first (or maybe second??) ever… saw the sights including a really bustling local market a interesting art museum ( the group was a great group to art museum it with as we all were not to quick or to slow in our appreciation of art)… Oh in the avo we had a great coffee so good… and then that evening we went to hunt down some thanksgiving dinner… the first place we went to we had to leave… great menu but actually only had the ingrdients for one recipe… a club sandwich… ummmmmmm how bout NO!! so pizza hut here we came… got a giant pizza which was super good…

DAY EIGHT- Caught the super early bus at 6 to the border… once again very deadly at one stage we were zooming along a one lane section and came within metres of a head on crash with a truck!! Scaryness… crossed the border (Yet again no change… notice a friendly habit here??) and made it to a pueblito called Somoto around lunch time… Yum… Beans in a bag for the 7th day straight WHOOP WHOOP!! the guy at the hotel was so cute and lovely (claro que si… of course was his response to our every request) and we also got free cafecito so we were stoked!!

In the afternoon we headed to see the canyon!! we had heaps of fun scrambling over rocks and swimming through the canyon… jumping off some pretty high rocks… and getting kind cold after a number of hours of being in the water… the guide was awesome and before sending us home took us to his house for a wee snack… coffee…beans… tortillas… cheese… and sour cream..soooooo good… ‘

DAY NINE- Nathan had visited Somoto twice before on a mission trips and had a few friends… super kind people so we decided to hang out Somoto another day… we found another hostel due to bookings… meet a really gross man and decided I didn’t want to stay in his hostel… but found a room eventually with a curtain door for the bathroom lol… quite funny to hear everything… luckily we were quite comfy with each other by this stage…

Then we went to a soccer game… ok so this town is not touristville by any means and so Colleen and I got a lot of attention… every man and his dog on the street made some comment or whistled etc… but as we walked into the soccer game all males in the stands ran to the top to watch us walk in… then they watched up sit down… when colleen and erik went to get drinks every male eye was on her backside and then wen I pointed at the to show Nathan he told me not to point… I thought it was somewhat ironic that I shouldn’t point when they were blatantly staring at her rear end…

DAY TEN- we had to get all the wa back to the punt in one day from the nth of Nicaragua sooo… we got on the earliest bus out of Somoto… at 4am… crickey that was hard… on the morning bus ride Nathan and I got the grossest seat ever… but saw something 100 times worse… I saw my first dead body… a man had been hit on the road and had had his head smashed…his face was covered as the police had arrived but you could tell it had been squashed very badly… so horrible…

well the drama continued when on the bus out of Managua we heard some very bullet sounding noises hitting the side of the bus… everyone screamed and ducked..we however forgot to look at the damage when we got off but we hold to the claim we were shot at… we finally made it home at about 7pmish after a long day of travel… We would have loved to keep travelling as we had a super duper amazing fantastically choice trip but school was a calling and we had no choice… how sad is I to get back from holidays right… not much time left of the semester was also a sad thought we all were sharing… next big thing we knew would happen was saying goodbye :-( BUT THE TRIP WAS SO FUN and we were very pleased about that!!!