They stood in an unordered mass of over a thousand bodies, swaying like palms in the wretched sun as wave upon wave of hot malice fought to rip any remaining moisture from their parched, barky skin. An occasional gust of wind brought both relief and clouds of dust that settled on them like a powder. Slowly, the mass of humanity shifted and one ponderous step forward was taken before stillness again ruled. They were at the border of Costa Rica and Nicaragua, it was January 2, 2010, and the sheer number of people was staggering. There was no order, just swirls winding inward toward the passport control booth from all directions. It was 35 degrees on a cloudless day, they were in a dirt field, and each had no less than 30 kg on their backs, willing their bodies to crumple to the ground. This, my friends, is the worst border I have crossed in all my travels. It took almost two hours to get our exit stamp for Nicaragua before walking to the Costa Rica entry office and discovering a single line snaking like an Amazonian Anaconda, frightening and deadly. There was no shade or comfort to be found in this winding menace either, and we probably should have taken our chances bribing one of the shady characters to expedite our way but then what kind of a story would it be? I was still feeling sick with mild fever and lightheadedness/dizziness but just about 5 hours after we left that morning we were officially welcomed into Costa Rica.
Now as I said, I was still feeling ill, but it came and went in waves and I was hoping to feel better and as well to get in some SCUBA diving with manta rays at Playa del Coco. Jez, Phil, Andrea, and myself were still together on the bus to Liberia where we would fracture once more into pieces and go our separate ways; Andrea to Monteverde, Phil to Tamaringo, and Jez beyond though our slow passage through the border meant that Andrea would be spending the night in Liberia and Jez wouldn’t make it further than Tamaringo. Andrea took off first and the three of us had a pricey but tasty dinner at the bus station (welcome to Costa Rica) while we waited for our 6:00 busses. I knew I’d see Phil again but who knows if Jez and I will cross paths, and breaking up the team sucked but such is life. I got on my bus. Like in El Salvador, I had the good fortune to have a friendly and pretty local named Maria sitting next to me. We talked in Spanish for a while and I found out that she was studying to be a nurse and also that she was going to Playa del Coco to visit a friend for a day or two before going back to school. We covered quite a bit given my barely passable Spanish and she offered to walk around with me and look for a place to stay until she had to meet her friend.
Unfortunately, that was an ordeal. Almost everywhere was still full from New Years and they were charging high season prices. The diviest dive was charging $30/night and I kept looking, determined, though it was a bit more difficult in the dark as you don’t want to blunder into any seedy areas with all your gear on your back. Maria’s friend eventually met up with her and also helped me look for a bit but they were discouraged and hungry and though I appreciated their help they thankfully left me alone. I hate dragging people around with me and I also like to do my own talking/negotiating, though they did it faster than I could have. Eventually, another friendly local who saw me walking on the streets brought me to this woman’s house (also named Maria) where she gave me a private house for $10/night. At last, I collapsed coughing and feverish onto the bed and though it was not even 9 PM, to sleep.
I won’t spend a lot of time talking about Playa del Coco. It’s so full of tourists and gringos that you pretty much never need to use a word of Spanish if you don’t want to. In fact, you can have full conversations in English with waiters and pretty much anyone. This is not exactly cultural immersion, but I was here to dive, if and when I felt better. The town and the beach didn’t have much charm at all and it was the perfect place to do nothing whatsoever while I recovered. I’d only go out to get water, food, and escape the midday heat in my room. I left finally without doing the sole thing I’d meant to: SCUBA diving. Though I’d never dove the Pacific, this was not going to be the place I started, especially as the manta rays had not arrived and there were no other big animals in season aside from reef sharks which I’ve seen plenty of. Maybe my first taste will be the Galapagos islands, which probably doesn’t qualify but it would be a heck of a start. I took a bus to Liberia to get the bus to Tamarindo, my next beach of call. We passed the Tamarindo bus picking up passengers on the highway and I hopped off and ran to catch it but it took off leaving me stranded on the highway. Eventually I caught a bus to Filadelfia, which renewed my hopes that there was still a real Costa Rica to see even if I hadn’t yet, and half an hour later was on a bus from there to Tamarindo.
Tamarindo is more developed than Playa del Coco but I liked it better because it at least was developed well and there was enough there to hold interest for a few days. I actually passed by Phil and Jez on the bus in which was another pleasant surprise (I thought Jez would be gone for sure) and grabbed a room in a loud hostel with a Canadian couple I’d met on the bus. They were quite nice but the hostel was really loud as a result of being central. I moved the next morning to La Pura Vida hostel, the one that had the best vibe as far as I was concerned, and sure enough there were Phil and Jez. I met some pretty cool people there and we went to the beach (though I had to go solo because I couldn't risk fording the river with my camera) and all went out that night to Club Pacifico. I wasn’t drinking however because I was on some antibiotics, or at least on expired ones from my Australian trip so I went home around 1. I’d actually met some pretty cool people at the hostel including Sloane, Johnny, and Shaun, and the four of us plus Jez left the next day inland – in Sloane’s rented “Green Machine” – for Monteverde.
We were able to miraculously navigate using the Lonely Planet, which is even more risky than it sounds, though not without a snag. As we crossed the friendship bridge we came down into an area where the speed limit on the highway drops to 40 km/h for 500m. Sloane, like everybody else on the highway, did not slow down (or even see it, I think). But unlike the others on the highway, Sloane is a gringo. So the cop waved us in and we pulled over. We all stayed in the car but Sloane had to get his passport out of the back, leaving the trunk open. The cop showed Sloane the radar gun and all we heard was Sloane say “wow”. Then back to the cop car while the rest of us wondered if this was a country where you had to bribe the cops or not. Sloane answered by opening the trunk, grabbing his wallet, and saying, “I’m bribing him” then shutting it again. Apparently, the ticket – for going 104 in a 40 zone – is $340 US. Alternatively, you could “Pay now” for less. The cop initiated the bribing by offering the "Pay now and forget" option and asking how much money Sloane had and Sloane said $50, and then he asked “What about your friends?” “They’re all poor, I’m the rich one!,” Sloane replied. And we managed to leave paying $10 each. When in Rome, I guess. Otherwise, the drive up to Monteverde was beautiful, scenic, and rough. You would NOT want to do this by bus, or if you tried, you’d need to do so pretty early in the morning to get there on time. But we had arrived, largely unscathed, to our new very chilly home among the clouds.
It was about as organized as I have ever been travelling: I had booked somewhere to stay for New Years Eve almost two weeks in advance. Generally, I prefer the showing up and finding what you find approach. At first this approach might seem laden with stress and worry, but with time and enough experience showing up and finding something that works, there is actually less. You don’t have to scour the internet and reviews, find phone numbers, wait for emails, book with your credit card, and then hope you can find the place you booked. Instead, you show up, make your way to the centre where the hostels usually are, and then browse, reviewing the hostels – in person – and assessing their atmosphere, cleanliness, security, and location for yourself. Usually, you go with a few recommendations from fellow travellers heading the opposite direction in the town you just came from or, worst case, a starting point from the Lonely Planet. We had been recommended Pacha Mama’s by Fran and Ronja, a couple Aussies we’d met in Leon that were also going to spend New Years Eve in San Juan del Sur and after a tense couple days with no reply and some hunting of other places (booked, booked, booked), we received the email that said they had space.
The hostel itself was pretty nice. Pacha Mama’s is less than a month old, clean (except for the bathrooms which had a perpetual sludge of black sand on the floor in spite of the foot wash faucet at the entrance) and there was a decent common area, a little backyard bar, and hammocks and rocking chairs. That said, the vibe was not as good. This is always a mystery: the same travellers in another hostel would be social and outgoing but in this hostel that seemed to be absent. You expect it from groups traveling together – especially if they all speak the same non-English language - and this hostel did have a large contingent from Israel that did just that. But generally other independent travellers are more social. The owner or manager of the hostel plays a big part in making this atmosphere happen, and while we found him amusing initially, that soon faded. In fact, without fail every traveller we met said they liked the hostel, but not the owner. He wasn't great but I wouldn't specifically avoid this place and I guess if I were making a recommendation for my readers, it would be the much more amiable Hostel Esperanza. If I come back, this is the place.
Now then, for those that don’t ever want to run a hostel, you can start reading here. We got in to San Juan del Sur, Phil, Jez, and myself, freshly bruised and wearied from a hellish ordeal at Ometepe the day prior. The beach was beautiful. Clean (except for one spot where the storm drains empty into the ocean), and with cliffs on either side, one of which had a large statue of Jesus, Rio style. We didn’t do much but relax after our noon arrival, as we had some serious recovery to do. Dinner at Comedor Margarita was quite tasty and affordable in this town, after walking around and seeing that it was difficult if not impossible to eat for less than $7 anywhere else (generally we were paying $3 for a meal and when put in terms of back home this all sounds cheap, but when you travel this way you get into a local’s mindset and paying double what you usually pay is still paying double). The next day was likewise pretty relaxed, hammocks, breakfast at Jerry’s (best and most affordable breakfast in town), visiting with people and we met up that night with some girls that had been staying at the same hostel as us in Ometepe, from Texas.
Now, we’d drank at the hostel bar the night before and tonight we were looking to cut prices by picking up our own rum and coke and drinking in the hostel’s common area. The problem was, with the hostel so booked, it already had a couple people asleep. So we took a table in the backyard, as far from the bar as possible (even though there were only about 10 people drinking), and didn’t take any bottles of booze or anything like that out with us. Then we got out the Drinking Game Jenga, which is always a lot of fun if not trouble, and an hour later were scolded by Alex for doing so. Understandable, but the thing is that some hostels allow it and others do not. The ones that do not usually make a point of saying so when you check in, with signs, and so on. Even without these indicators we were discreet. The common area where drinking in this hostel would normally be allowed would result in waking people in his overbooked hostel, and we were simply trying to be polite. But I understand where he’s coming from, obviously. We moved back to the common area where the girls that had been sleeping were now awake anyway (two of the Israelis had started playing Ping pong near them) and resumed our game before heading to the beach for a swim and then hanging out at the Pier beach bar.
The days kind of flow into one another but it was now the 30th and Jez, Phil, and I went to the beach finally (we’d avoided it mostly in the day because we’d all gotten too much sun in Ometepe) and kicked around Jez’s soccer ball. Actually, it was pretty funny – I’d finally finished my final Bourne book (The Bourne Ultimatum, which was probably the best of the three novels) – so I arrived a little after Jez and Phil at the beach. I got there, they passed me the soccer ball. It was small and quite bouncy and two dribbles in, flew over my head. When I jogged to pick it up again and start dribbling, I dribbled it right into my head, sending my glasses flying off my head and knocking me a step backwards. There were some locals watching and they couldn’t stop laughing, but then again, neither could we. A great introduction to Dynamite Dean. After adjusting and passing it along the beach, we stopped for some Licuados (fresh fruit juice and ground ice, sometimes with milk) at Pier. It’s a nice place, they have a very cute server, and the licuados are pretty reasonably priced.
This is an example of why Nicaragua is probably my favourite country so far. There are people everywhere selling sunglasses, which gets annoying, but after definitively turning down one guy, we ended up chatting with him for almost an hour in our broken Spanish and making friends with him. He was from Managua and was heading back after New Years died down but he always said hi and chatted a bit when we’d see him from then on, never once trying to sell us more glasses. Just a cool and friendly guy. We also made friends with a cigarette guy (they walk the beach selling those too) and played a bit of soccer with him, plus some locals wanted to have a game with us but by then we’d had too much sun and were walking back to the hostel. And when we arrived, everybody (including taxi drivers who obviously benefit from people taking a ride because they can’t find a place) was happy to point us towards our hostel. Just friendly, friendly people.
Speaking of which, we were delighted to come across two more friendly faces when we got back from the beach that afternoon: Anabella and Maria, our Columbian Christmas Cousins (tm) had just arrived from Ometepe along with Lizzie and Andrea (England and Switzerland respectively). Unfortunately, they had no place to stay as the hostel was overbooked and Lizzie had not “confirmed their confirmation” meaning she’d emailed saying “I’d like to book for 5 of us from Dec 30-Jan 2” and they’d replied “OK, from the 30-2 for 5 people, it’s $12/night, cool?” the day before and she had not been on the internet to say “Cool”. So they looked for another place but could find nothing affordable and eventually gave up (Lizzie and Andrea were going to share beds with the girls and the Columbians had hammocks). Then we all went out for some pretty decent pizza, Jez and I split a Pizza del Diablo (who could resist taking that on?) and caught up. We now had our Christmas Crew back together and ready for New Years Eve and it felt about as close to being home as one can down here.
At last the day came: it was New Years Eve, it was 9 AM, and somehow in spite of celebrating a bit the night before, I was out and about taking photos. I noticed that quite a few places had life-sized dolls outside their houses, usually with booze and sometimes a little sign, which I discovered are effigies of the bad things they are burning away from the year prior. If only it were that easy. The plan for the day, after my little photo shoot, was to go to the beach, come back, get ready, and try to get a nice table at a beach side restaurant for sunset. We went to the beach a little late, Phil, Jez, Maria, Anabella, and myself, probably around 1:00, and sat at the Pier drinking licuados with rum in them. I went swimming with Anabella for quite a while and tried to teach her how to Body Surf but it turns out that I’m not very good at it myself. Generally I jump and maybe paddle once or twice but with these bigger waves that doesn’t work so well. Nevertheless, we had a lot of fun and both did end up catching a few waves. We were also joined by Phil and Jez’s Swedish friends that they’d met in Rancho Tranquilo, who were both pretty hilarious if a little unhinged. They were trying to hide from some woman that they’d been talking to the night before, whom they later discovered was married to a mobster from somewhere, which in writing sounds a lot more serious and less funny than it was, because they really hadn’t done anything terrible they were just wanting to avoid getting into trouble.
Back at the hostel, they were doing New Years Eve around the world, with different drink specials every hour depending on which country it was midnight at that particular hour. A pretty good idea, I think. We tried to get ready for sunset but we missed it entirely (I even ran to the beach about 5 mins too late) and so we wound up having a few drinks for England/Jez and then went out for dinner on the beach. These are the pricey restaurants, by Nicaragua standards, but I ordered the lobster anyway (the most expensive thing they had) and with a beer my tasty meal (and tip) came to $20. We returned to the hostel and Phil, Jez, and I bought a 1.5 L of Flor de Cana rum (excellent Nicaraguan rum) and a bunch of mix, and I made the unfortunate choice of also buying a cigar. Back to the room, I made my second mistake in letting Phil pour my drinks. The rum is so tasty you don’t really notice but you’ve just drank four or five shots with your coke. I had two or three. It was enough.
I should emphasize again what a great group we had. Sitting around in the girls’ dorm was probably more fun than actually being out was, at least for me. Good music, plenty (too much) to drink, good company, and we had a few newcomers from New Zealand that were hilarious as well. Still, we ran out of our rum pretty quickly considering its size and were soon out at the Iguana which is not so different from, say, the Sutherland, except that there is a beach in front with a bonfire. One thing we were missing, however, was a countdown. Phil was wearing Maria’s watch, a stylish pink number that really only he could pull off without looking gay, which was set to Columbian time, so he tried to get us counting an hour early. I do remember looking at my own watch at 11:50 when I saw fireworks, but fireworks and firecrackers especially are pretty much a daily thing in Latin America. As for the actual countdown, well, one minute it was 2009 and then next it was 2010. We lit our cigars and I tried to pass mine on to anybody who would take it but wound up having it mostly to myself. I should’ve thrown it in the fire but I do hate wasting things.
So needless to say, I went home early. And moreover, I don’t remember a lot of anything. I don’t know what’s happened, I guess I eat less and drink less here, but my tolerance is gone. I’m always the first one to feel the effects of alcohol which is good in a budget sense but this particular time it kind of wrecked my New Years Eve/full moon party. Oh yeah, I didn’t mention that it was also a full moon, did I? I would have loved to stay and watch the sunrise like Maria and maybe one or two others did, but I was the first one back to the hostel. I woke up that morning still coughing and tasting that cigar and then eventually, as the others awoke, tried to piece together what else had happened on New Years Eve from everybody and what I had missed out on. The others have some pretty good stories, but I’ll leave it to them to share. Apparently, I was pretty funny but by the end could hardly stand up much less walk straight. This usually doesn’t happen to me unless I’m really far gone, but I did make it home okay and with all my stuff on me which is pretty good or else lucky.
Our first day of 2010 was, aside from the slightly rough morning (I’d gotten sick the night before so I was actually pretty okay aside from that taste and cough). We got a cool cab driver named Jorge to take us (Andrea, Maria, Anabella, Phil and I) to a nearby surf beach called Maderas and bring us back after sunset for $5. The beach was really nice and we had a great day there. Maria and I swam the longest and I have to admit I’m really looking forward to hopefully catching up with both Columbians again when I make my way further south. If today was an indication of things to come in 2010 then it should be a great year. We had our final dinner together, the whole group that is, after a beautiful sunset at Maderas and it did feel a bit sad. I had some pork which I noticed was quite pink in the middle but absentmindedly did nothing about it as I was thinking of beef and only later did it click that, “Hey, that was pork. It shouldn’t have been pink”. I paid for it that night with a crazy fever and a really vivid dream that borders on hallucination that I was telling everyone about my fever and that I thought I had malaria and I would see how I felt in the morning but I might have to go to San Jose for the hospital.
In truth, I said nothing to anybody except in my sleep, though it felt like I was awake almost the whole night. By the time I woke up my fever had died down from the heights reached the night before to normal again though I still felt terrible. At least with the fever subsided, I was probably not dealing with malaria. I realized talking to people in the morning that most of what I thought I had said to them had, in fact, been dreams, and we went for breakfast as a whole, which was our last time together. From there, Jez, Phil, Andrea, and myself were heading to the Costa Rica border, Ronja and Fran were heading up to Belize for some diving, and Maria and Anabella were going up to the Bay Islands of Honduras to hopefully dive the Caribbean coast as well. I feel bad now that I was in a pretty poor disposition the day we left, not that I think I did anything rude I just wasn’t very smiley or talkative, but I hope they understood. The hostel owner called Jorge for us and we got in a cab headed for the border waving goodbye to everyone else, most of whom we’d probably never see again. You get used to the idea of it when you travel, but sometimes it’s harder than others. Still, for the next few hours, at least, I had Phil, Jez, and Andrea at my side.
Ometepe is an island in the middle of giant inland Lake Nicaragua, formed much like the island of Maui by two volcanoes and an isthmus of volcanic soil connecting them. And it was our next destination, just for a quick two nights as we had already booked ourselves into Pacha Mama Hostel in San Juan del Sur for Dec 28-Jan 2 on the southern coast of Nicaragua. We set out at around 11:30, catching the chicken bus from Granada to Rivas. It took a solid hour and a half at which point we grabbed a cab with a very strange French chap to the lakeside town of San Jorge to get the ferry to the island. There, we paid a tourist tax of 10 Cordobas that may or may not have been real to get into the port and stood on the walkway along the bottom half of the ferry until it became clear that the waves would be inundating us and I nearly had my camera and/or backpack soaked. I found a vantage point on the second level and sat up there watching the distant Volcano of Conception grow larger. This was the easy part.
When we got off the ferry, there were two options. A minibus for $5 or the chicken bus for $1. Which do you take? The taxi driver tells you the bus will take two hours where the taxi is only 45 minutes, but can you believe him? Is $5 a fair price for the distance? We were unarmed with this information and so took the chicken bus. It did indeed take 2 hours and we arrived, again, after dark in Santo Domingo (the nicest beach on the island) only to find every single place full, from the cheap hostel to the expensive resorts. On top of that, the busses were pretty much done for the evening, but luckily we ran into a couple Canadians who had a hostel with space even if it was in the middle of nowhere between Santo Domingo and Santa Cruz. This turned out quite well, as we got rooms for $7 and got to hang out with the Canadians after a much needed dinner. When I say we, I should mention that the French guy had tagged along with us which I don't really object to (I've been the solo traveller plenty of times) but I wasn't a big fan. Still, we all had fun and got some interesting insights into Nicaragua as the Canadian girl had been born and raised in Nicaragua then moved to Canada, so she could discuss the local philosophy on garbage, the reason Phil and I had no luck with the ladies here (apparently, it's customary to ask until you get annoying in Nicaragua so that the girl doesn't appear too eager: maybe as many as six or seven times) and of course her own difficulties coming to Canada.
The next morning we were going to hike to the top of the smaller volcano where there are some great views and a volcanic crater filled with green water but the clouds precluded that and we instead rented some bicycles and set off to make our way around the small volcano, about a 30 km track all said. We had a pretty leisurely ride in the morning, chatting with the very friendly locals, stopping to watch a few innings of a baseball game, lounging and swimming in the lake and snacking on the lunch we'd packed. I'd bought 6 sandwiches for the three of us so we could have lunch anywhere, given half to Jeremy and, as I discovered at lunch, forgotten the other half in the hostel. This was the start of the day's mistakes. From our lunch point near San Ramon, we decided to climb to the waterfall, supposedly 3km. This was arguably a second mistake, although I would not claim it as such. The hike up was hot and relentlessly upwards and we stopped under a mandarin tree to pick a few slightly underripe Christmas oranges at which point it occurred to us that there may not even be much water this deep into the dry season. As we got further and further up, well past the 3 km point in my opinion, we still could hear no water running though we could now see a dry riverbed. Uh oh.
Fortunately, we pressed on and eventually came on some running water, then scrambled up the rocks surrounded on all sides by towering green walls until we rounded a corner and there, at last, was a beautiful waterfall floating down from the crater above. Cold water has rarely looked so appealing as it did to three sweaty and tired backpackers at this point. We had our showers and cooled down then returned to the bottom where time was definitely slipping away from us. I was pretty sure that we were not anywhere near halfway around the volcano but the other guys thought we were and I wasn't going to argue the point. This probably was the biggest mistake of the day as a quick look at the map would've told us we had much further to go around than to return. But instead we pressed on around the volcano to circumnavigate this part of the island. I would be remiss at this point if I didn't mention the 'roads'. They are exquisitely terrible. Large boulders and rocks are strewn and embedded everywhere and the road undulated up and down along the coast like a mating python. Our rental bikes had neither suspension nor the capability to take the punishing abuse these roads offered and instead transmitted it to us through handlebars and hardened seats.
This should say a little about our condition. First of all, we'd hiked quite a ways to a waterfall, not to mention biking a fair distance around the volcano on the aforementioned roads to get here. Our hands were sore, our butts were sore, our legs were sore, and the beginnings of hunger were already stirring. We also got sunburned on the way up to the waterfall and I had a bit of a headache from too much sun, I think. This was how we were feeling when we set off from the volcano on the long road home some 20 km more to go. Jez's chain came off repeatedly if he switched gears and so he had to start walking his bike up hills. Before long we were exhausted and joined him walking. Meanwhile, my bike was starting to fall apart from the shocks and jolts of these terrible roads. I could feel the handlebars were starting to give and pivot a little bit and was conscious not to put too much weight on them. Meanwhile, I was terribly exhausted and would try to eek every ounce of speed I could from the bumpy and treacherous downhill segments. This combination ends as you might expect. In disaster.
I was going down one of the hills about as fast as I could given the rocks everywhere when I felt with a sickening certainty that the handlebars had given way. They no longer supported my weight, they just pivoted freely. I attempted to brake and slow my progress but it was too late. Within the blink of an eye I knew that I was going to go flying from my bike as it hit a rock and then I was gone. I had enough presence of mind to try to land on my feet and also enough to know that I wasn't going to be able to stay on my feet flying downhill from a fast-moving bike in flip flops. I think this is what saved me a more serious outcome. I hit feet first and my legs collapsed, absorbing some of the shock even as I was thrown into a roll. I must have hit with my right hand and hip first, bending my thumb pretty well and also bruising the hip before going over onto my backpack and continuing to roll a few more times. Behind me, Jez thought I was done for but I stood up, nauseous, with a bit of sunstroke, physically exhausted and shaking but for the most part unharmed. My knees had very minimal scratches on them as did my left hand. Only my right hand might have sustained a bruised or sprained thumb.
Jez had saved his last candy for whoever did something spectacular, and that little bit of sugar did wonders for me. We fixed my bike as much as possible, untwisting the handlebars and stretching/bending the brakes so I could limp it home. It couldn't possibly be that far now. This was the theme. Every light, we thought we were there and yet never seemed to be getting nearer. It started to rain for a bit on us as darkness crept closer then subsided as darkness fell. Eventually, we made it most of the way around the volcano to Balgue, tired, hungry, out of water and food, and stopped to eat and drink. While this did wonders we managed to get a ride back the last 5km in a truck to Santa Cruz where we returned our bikes, drank a Coke, and walked back to the hostel, beaten. Ometepe, you win this round.
Getting a ride back that last stretch was the first smart move we'd made in a few days, and we were determined it not be the last. We didn't skip breakfast in the morning and in fact woke up early enough to eat, pay our bills, pack, and catch the 9:00 bus. We took a minibus to the dock instead of the chicken bus. We didn't try to find a cheaper lancha in the rough seas but took the ferry and took a taxi back to Rivas where we caught the bus to San Juan del Sur just in time for lunch. This would be where we'd spend the next five or six days, where we'd be for New Years Eve, and hopefully where we'd reunite with some old friends and hopefully make some new friends as well. And it looked like it would be a lot kinder to us than Ometepe had been (knock on wood). Time would tell.
First things first: by this point, we had a cadre, a crew, a group of travellers hanging out together, which I have to admit is something new to me. Generally I'd keep it down to one or two people but it's Christmas and everybody is great. Plus this is Central America, and there's safety in numbers. So the dramatis personae: Myself; Phil, a friend from Saskatoon; Jez, an Englishman whom Phil and I met in Semuc Champey, Guatemala; Fran and Ronja, two Sydney girls that we met up with in Leon; Lizzie, an English girl that Fran and Ronja had met elsewhere; Andrea, a friend of Lizzie's from Switzerland. Today we were all setting out to buy gifts for our Secret Santa, and I had Lizzie. Now contrary to having the crew, I wound up setting off on my own to explore Granada and try to find a good Secret Santa gift and, due to a misunderstanding, the rest took off for the markets of nearby Masaya on their own thinking I wasn't coming (while I was changing). I ran out the door but they were long gone. Oh well, I've never been very good at shopping with other people anyway.
I set off and decided pretty quickly that I really liked Granada. They really take pride in the appearance of their city here and it shows. Brightly coloured buildings line the streets, fresh and glowing paint that looked like it had been applied yesterday. Maybe some would call it artificial, but I had no such thoughts. Nor did I have a mission plan; I just bounced from place to place, church to church, checking out landmarks. Had it been my first stop in Central America, I might have burned through all my camera's memory, but it did have a striking resemblance to Antigua or even Leon for that matter, except well-loved. I found my way to the teeming markets, which is something I really enjoy: people everywhere, singing and crying out the various wares they're selling, chickens clucking, carts carrying supplies pressing through narrow gaps in stalls. Maybe this is why I like going shopping when it's busy (say, Christmas Eve). I like the hustle and bustle. And in the markets, you never have to wait in line.
I found Lizzie a monkey to hang out on her backpack and a Santa hat as she was new to the group and didn't pick up a Santa hat with the rest of us in Leon. That, wrapping paper, and a nice box put me just under the 100 Cordobas ($5) limit, and I was free to explore some more. I met up with the group later at our hostel, The Bearded Monkey, which was a pretty cool place all said (and the inspiration for Lizzie's gift). They had not liked Masaya at all, and the photos they showed me looked like a garbage dump with a market on top. Moreover, most of them hadn't found gifts, so they ran out to the Granada markets to find some Christmas presents and returned. I went out with Phil to help him pick out something for Jez, and in the end Jez got a small bottle of rum, some water wings (to protect him from the surf), and a baby bottle to drink his rum from. Of course, Jez wouldn't know that until Christmas day...
'Twas the day before Christmas, and through the guesthouse not a backpacker was stirring nor even a mouse. Instead, Fran, Jez, Phil, and I took off for Laguna de Apoyo, a beautiful lake set in a collapsed volcano crater near Granada that I'd heard about from some Managuans I'd met in El Tunco, El Salvador. We grabbed a taxi who tried to charge us $30 to get there. Then when we told him the price was $12 he said $10 to the road at which point I said to Crater's Edge, which is a hostel on the lakeside. He would take us to the top only. OK, OK, he said and ushered us in. About 10 minutes later, however, he tried to drop us off at an intersection of the highway saying we'd reached the top. Nope. We weren't having it and he shrugged, somewhat annoyed that his fare hadn't been as stupid as he'd initially hoped, and took us up the road (it would have taken us 3 or 4 hours to walk) to a town and then told us THIS was the top. Well, we definitely didn't believe him and I told him he had better drive us where we agreed as an apology for trying to leave us stranded on the highway and he now very angrily drove on. This is the price everyone charges and we'd asked around so we knew when we were being ripped off. Eventually he realized that he was still getting the regular fare and was nice again, then dropped us off and we were finally at the crater lake of Apoyo.
We walked along the waterfront until we found a swimming area that looked pretty nice. The water was crystal clear and quite warm though still cool enough to be refreshing. We swam around until about 10 locals came to our swimming spot and then decided it was time to find lunch and hopefully some kayaks or water activities we'd heard about. We went over to Abuela's which was quite pricey (200 Cordobas minimum) and then backtracked to a more local spot closer to the road in. Phil and I had some great fish soup, Jez had some chicken dish, and Fran chicken soup. She has a thing about needing a disconnect from the animal to the food, so if it looks remotely like the animal she can't touch it. Needless to say she was a bit grossed out by our soup but she handled it well. We got a taxi back from Monkey Hut where they charge $6 to use their beach but it includes use of kayaks and a floating dock. What a great place this would be to spend Christmas, we thought, and decided to convince the others to return tomorrow.
That evening the hostel put on a Christmas BBQ which, to be honest, wasn't really worth the mention just then but we all had it anyway and sat around, visiting and having a few drinks. We met some really cool Columbians and pretty much the whole hostel hung out with each other along the big table. Fran and Ronja were chasing down some Aussies at another hostel so they left a bit early to go visit with them. Here, they celebrate Christmas at midnight on Christmas Eve and so, aside from Fran and Ronja, we all made our way to the waterfront via taxi as fireworks and firecrackers filled the streets with smoke and the skies with light. It was a great night out at a local club, and we had a lot of fun before finally getting our cabs back to the hostel and calling it a Christmas Eve to remember.
Christmas day we woke up and exchanged our gifts which was a lot of fun. There were some pretty funny gifts all around the table. For my part, I got a small bottle of rum and a Nicaragua leather holster for it, which would probably save my life two days hence. It seemed like we were going to be too late (most people slept in quite a bit) to get to Apoyo but in the end we got reception to organize us a taxi van and filled it with hostellers when it finally came an hour and a half later. Even though our day was a lot shorter than we would have liked it was very worth it and an excellent way to spend Christmas. Sitting out on the floating dock, swimming, jumping, and laying on the beach, it was as good as Christmas can be without family there. And we had our great crew there with us, too. A few more drinks, some food, and we returned to continue visiting at the hostel, where I finally managed to call home and get a Video Skype session going to Nicole's house where the whole family, aunts, uncles, and my grandparents had just finished dinner. I had been looking forward to seeing everybody all day and thanks to the wonders of the internet, I got to. Boxing Day, Phil, Jez, and myself were trucking off for the lake island of Ometepe to spend a couple days before heading down to San Juan del Sur for New Years on the 28th where we would be reunited with many of the friends we'd spent Christmas with. It may not have been a traditional Christmas, but I'm happy that I met so many great people with whom to spend it.
That morning I was in for a pleasant surprise. I checked out of Hostel La Clinica, grateful that they’d taken me in last night but not really eager to spend another day sleeping on stained sheets. It was fine and cheap for the most part, but it was pretty quiet and I was ready to meet some people. So I went to the Bigfoot Hostel and checked in at 11 AM, which has plenty of people everywhere not to mention a layout I feel much more comfortable hanging around in than somebody’s home. And after checking in, I walked out of the hostel and saw a familiar face. There, sitting in Via Via, was Jez waving at me. I went over to say hello and noticed he was sitting next to somebody else I knew - Phil! Who would’ve thought we’d be arriving within 8 hours of each other in Leon, Nicaragua, but here we were again, three of the original four Semuc Champey crew missing only Amanda, who’d gone home to Canada. It was now six days to Christmas and the timing could not have been better. They had just spent a good deal of time at Rancho Tranquilo in a town called Los Zorros near Jiquilillo and it sounds like I missed out, but then that’s how it works on the backpacking circuit. The best places are the ones you hear about, not read about, and of course you need to be spending time with people to hear about them. And now here we were.
The three of us explored the town for the day, keeping our eye out for a volcano-boarding tour. Volcano boarding is basically snowboarding except with volcanic ash instead of snow, and I was determined to try it and also break the 80km/h speed record. Well, maybe. But there were no tours on Sunday and Monday was already sold out. We found nothing but yet more churches and interesting locals, so the day was a success in the end. That evening, after some very delicious mojitos at Bigfoot and chatting with some English crew, we celebrated that success at a little pub where a girl that Jez had met was also celebrating her birthday. However, it was her, her sister, and about 10 guys, one of whom was getting on my nerves. Phil and I decided to venture elsewhere and came across a bar called Bohemoso. It was 150 Cordobas or $7.50 to get in but then it was all the rum, vodka, and beer you could drink. Yeah. A situation like that spells only one thing: trouble.
Phil and I were the only gringos in the place, which was pretty cool. We already had a decent amount of alcohol in our systems but were determined to get our money’s worth. We then took turns getting shot down by all the amazing “Nica Chicas” and wound up sitting with a local couple who insisted on over supplying us with beer. Like two to three beer at a time. I had taken in more than I could handle and had to leave early to go home, but Phil pressed on and wound up at their place for a house party afterwards with some Danish people that came into the bar later. Pretty cool. The next day was a slow start and a ‘chill day’ being that it was a Sunday and there was nothing to do but go to the beach anyway. We hung around the hostel, called home, and managed to get ourselves on a morning trip to the top of a volcano. With snowboards and toboggans. Leon would get one more day after all. That evening, we went out for dinner with a couple Aussie girls from the hostel, Ronja and Fran for some of the best street food I’ve had since Mexico. Some cabbage roll type things, greens and rice, and tasty homemade beef patties. We also had a chat with some travelling El Salvadoreans. And we were joined by a very unfriendly American girl who would always give me a look like I had just killed a puppy. Luckily, she joined us for drinks, but she did warm up after a couple beer.
The next morning was unseasonable and inconceivable rain. It hasn’t rained here in a month but this morning, a freak rainstorm. We were supposed to be volcano boarding but clearly that wasn’t in the cards anymore, so we decided to add yet another night to Leon. The five of us decided to get in something cultural and walked (I should say trekked) across town to a museum only to find it closed. Closed and very uninspiring from the outside. Still, after such a long walk we decided to hang around for another 40 mins until it did open at 2:30, only to discover how uninspiring it was from the inside as well. Uninspiring and/or creepy, worth neither the walk nor the wait but amusing nonetheless and we DID find some Santa hats in the end so it wasn’t a total write off. We were looking for a local restaurant but everything was closed for mid-afternoon siesta, so we found ourselves scarfing down some Hollywood Pizza, which was appropriate as we were heading to the movies after. Or should I say movie. There was only one in English (with Spanish subtitles), The Surrogate. Bruce Willis or not, it wasn’t much of a movie but it was nice to just sit in a theatre with some popcorn and watch.
We did manage to get volcano boarding the following morning – at last! The drive out there is about an hour in the back of a pickup truck but when at last you arrive, you’re faced with a very steep cone of solid black fury towering over you. I had been sandboarding in Australia and it wasn’t really that exciting, so I had my doubts about this, but craning my neck to look up at Cerro Negro disabused me of any notions that this would be a routine box-ticker escapade. We set off climbing, boards and bags in hand, and soon realized that the climb was worth it for the views alone. Lava flows in all direction crept over the land like a shadow on the green landscape while a line of other green domed volcanoes stood in formation ready and waiting for their time. We made our way into the steaming crater, sulphurous gases oozing out of cracks in the earth, escapees of a magma chamber 30m below our feet. The climb continued and there was another yawning crater looming over the crater we’d just climbed into, sticking out like a black and angry red pockmark on the horizon.
At last it was time for final instructions. Weight placement, balancing techniques, I took them all in. But somehow it did me no good. The girls went first and Fran actually went down quite fast – not 84 km/h fast (the current record, set by a German, but a respectable 50-something I’d guess). Some of the other people on the trip went and then Jez took off and was probably the fastest of the day, maybe even flying down the 40 degree slope at over 60 km/h. Finally, Phil and I squared off. The problem, which I discovered as soon as we set off, was that I was not properly centred on the board. I would veer quite a bit to the right and as I stuck my left foot into the air to correct, it would over-correct and start the whole thing again, but at a higher speed. I soon had to start digging my feet alternately into the pebbles to slow myself but it was too late for a weight adjustment. I went for broke anyway, trying my best to keep the board moving down the mountain quickly though Phil was long gone, and just as I got moving at a respectable weight I wiped out. Aside from a few scratches and a damaged ego, I was fine but there was no hope of gaining any speed by now and I limped into the finish line sadly, knowing that I wouldn’t hear the end of this for some time. All I wanted was a second try.
But we were off again, the red truck waiting, first to Leon for our complimentary (and delicious) mojito, then for a quick lunch, a bit of time online booking a place for New Years Eve in San Juan del Sur, and finally a bus to Managua, the sketchy capital of Nicaragua. We arrived in Managua just fine and switched busses for Granada, two drivers vying bitterly for our five butts in their seats. It’s regularly 20 C but the one said 15 and we were sold. Of course, once you get on the bus and are well underway, they don’t remember anything about this arrangement and charge you 20 C ($1) anyway, which upsets me on principle but not economically. We arrived in Granada at night but Ronja and Fran had been here before so getting around was no problem, and we found our way to the Bearded Monkey where we would be staying until Boxing Day, celebrating Christmas, and hopefully meeting yet more cool travellers. We went out with some for dinner where I was again charged more than what I had agreed to because “it was imported”. I did argue the point but I think only succeeded in annoying the others, but it's the principle. Sigh. Different cultures can only excuse so much but I paid the difference which, again, was trifling and we called it a night. Tomorrow morning would bring Granada by day, always an entirely different experience and one I was much looking forward to.
