How to get "stuck" in a place, and flying by the seat of your pants

As I've mentioned previously, a reoccurring theme on this trip has been the severe lack of time that we have if we want to fit in everything that we want to do here. Central America is chock full of interesting things to do and see: diving, seeing volcanoes, bat caves, ziplining, ancient ruins, surfing, kayaking, hiking, volcano boarding (google it), swimming, really cool colonial architecture, wildlife.... the list goes on. However, at each place it is very tempting (and much more enjoyable) to stay for a couple of extra days in order to really get to know the place, participate in the must-not-miss activities, and develop friendships with other backpackers. This is how we have ended up getting spending more time than anticipated in a few places, instead of spreading ourselves really thin and trying to see everything. Getting "stuck", we call it. Some of our most enjoyable time has been because we found a place we liked and stayed for more than one or two nights. Unfortunately this means that we have missed big sections of Central America but I think we've made the right decisions for us.

Good times with good friends: this is why we get stuck

After spending close to a week in the Corn Islands in Nicaragua, we thought we would take a few long distance busses, mostly skip Honduras and just make our way to Guatemala. However, one aspect which we failed to take into account was Semana Santa, Easter Holy Week, which I mentioned in a previous blog post. We left the Corn Islands by catching our flight back to Managua early in the morning, and then made our way to the bus station where we quickly learned that only one long distance bus was leaving Managua that day, and it was heading to Tegucigalpa, the capital of Honduras. No other busses would be leaving for several days after that. Well, that made our decision easy! It was off to Honduras for us.

Our TransNica bus left sometime around 2 and was quite comfortable. What was not quite as comfortable or enjoyable was our arrival in Tegucigalpa itself. We had been warned and had read about Tegucigalpa's unenviable crime rates, and upon our arrival we were greeted with barren empty streets, heavy metal bars on every window and door that existed and metres of razor wire around every complex. It was quite a creepy feeling to be honest. We spent much more time hotel-hunting that we were anticipating but did manage to find an overpriced hotel with an Italian and Swedish girl. Quite frankly we were relieved to have found anywhere as most hotels in the areas we were in were completely closed by 10:30 at night. Very strange. I highly recommend to give this city a pass to anyone who can avoid it.

You know, just our own chartered flight

When we settled in and contemplated where to go next, we had a dawning realization: It was still Semana Santa. We were told by the girls we met as well as by our hotel owner that no busses would be leaving Tegucigalpa for several days either. Lovely. This was NOT the kind of city we felt like spending several days in, especially on our short time budget. On a whim (and with the encouragement of the girls we met, since they were doing the same thing) we decided to take advantage of the fact that we were in Honduras and fly to the Bay Islands, a set of islands on Honduras' caribbean coast with the cheapest diving in the world. It was currently whale shark season there, and an old friend who I had travelled with in Asia was getting certified for diving on the island of Utila, both compelling reasons to visit.

Now, this is the part of the story where a tired me was not at my sharpest. We wanted to go to Utila, the more backpacker-friendly island where my friend was, so I thought it would be sufficient to fly to Roatan the neighbouring island, as Utila itself doesn't have an airport. I just assumed that we could take a ferry between the two. However, because I was a dummy, I checked for ferry times AFTER booking my flight. Whups. Turns out, the guy that ran the ferry died a couple of years ago, and no one has since took up his ferry service. Because of this I tried to cancel the flight 10 minutes after booking it, but because we were only 8 hours before departure I couldn't do it online. Whups again! This is how we ended up at the airport, only a couple of hours before our flight, attempting to cancel our flight and immediately book another one going to the mainland where we could actually catch a ferry to Utila. Things did all work out thankfully but it was a bit of a nail-biter, and our flight was actually only officially cancelled 6 minutes before takeoff. Aghh, so nerve wracking!

However, our long travel day(s) were not done yet. When we finally flew into La Ceiba, the town from which we could actually catch our ferry from, we learned, surprise surprise, that the ferry wasn't running either due to Semana Santa. At this point, we probably should have just stayed in the La Ceiba but we had the good luck of meeting Captain Angelo, an friendly American pilot who owned a tiny blue airplane and operated "Island Air" as his retirement job. He shuttled people between La Ceiba, Roatan and Utila, and although he already had a flight booked he thought he could fit in two more people into his tiny plane. This concurred a bit more cost than we would have preferred, but at the same time we were excited about the prospect of taking a little 7 seater plane, and with getting to our destination so quickly. Our flight was pretty exciting, and we didn't regret the extra money a bit.

After this epic bit of travel, we decided.... maybe it wouldn't be so bad to get stuck in another place, and Utila turned out to be just what we needed. Friends, diving, and even a dolphin and whale shark sighting while diving were quite different than the Guatemalan countryside and markets we had tentatively planned just several days prior, but we ended up being quite okay with that!

 

Finally in Utila

 

Posted with Blogsy

Notes from the road

So, uh, I'm no longer in Nicaragua, but here are some belated notes from the road...

• Religious holidays are annoying when travelling. I mean, I knew this already (Eid ad-Fitr in Indonesia last year was a prime example), but I'm definitely being reminded. Its difficult enough to navigate travelling normally, never mind when busses don't run when they normally do, and things that do run are booked. Stupid Semana Santa (Easter). Can't you just come in May?
• How impressed both Amanda and I both were with our first hotel after Little Corn Island. Clean sheets? More than one electrical plug in the room for charging our devices? Internet? Electricity that is turned on 24/7? Towels to use FOR FREE? What is this madness?
• How much I always feel like dancing to the pumping reggaeton, salsa, and reggae music that the chicken busses play, despite how packed these busses become. This morning our chicken bus from the airport could cheer up anyone, anyone who likes latin music, disco lights that blink in time with music, and sparkly tape wrapped around various parts of the bus, that is.

 

• I'm currently not sure if the people in Nicaragua are very helpful, or if being a smiling young female has smoothed our way more often than not. This morning, a security guard let us take our preferred shortcut ACROSS the runway on the way to our flight on Big Corn Island. We had snuck across when we had first arrived, saving ourselves 25min of walking. Now that we were leaving, we were a bit sad to see a security guard toting a rather large gun guarding the hole in the fence. We asked him, smiling, if we could please run across very quickly, and after briefly debating, he opened the gate and let us cross. Success! We also later had a cab driver go out of his way multiple times to help us find the coffee shop with wifi that we wanted to kill time at (before our bus leaves later today). This included bringing us to several spots (without charging us extra!), waiting upon dropping us off at one spot (it was closed, so he picked us up again) and consulting with several people on his cell phone. He also will be coming back at an agreed upon time to pick us up. I know that he wants the business too, but he definitely went out of his way as well. ...Of course, these benefits are unfortunately balanced out with the creepy unabashed stares that occur more often than we would like as well.
• How important it is to know some spanish. If you're heading this way, practice even a little bit! I used Rosetta Stone before I came here which has helped a little bit and we're surviving, but in Latin America people just expect that you'll know a bit of Spanish. In South East Asia, the languages are tonal and much more difficult, and people either learn a bit of english or they just expect that you won't speak any of their language. I think I'd like to come back here and do a several week long Spanish school and home-stay program. Spanish really isn't that hard to learn, and it sure comes in helpful.

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Island Living

I'm currently writing from the Corn Islands, and am still in Nicaragua. Man, we are going to have to get a move on if we plan on making our flights out of Cancun! Turns out there's far too much to do and too many places to go in one month in Central America. Who knew. Good thing flights are cheap. I'm going to have to come back to this region!

The Corn Islands are a couple of small islands off of Nicaragua's Caribbean coast. Because we began to realize our time-crunch predicament, all three of us girls decided to fly from Managua to the Corn islands, and back. A little more money, sure, but several days on a bus saved. The more island time the better!

I suppose I should fill in the time since my last post as well. After Ometepe, James, Linda, Amanda and I travelled by ferry and chicken bus to the colonial city of Grenada. I love colonial towns! I've visited a few now, and I never cease to be amazed at some of the beauty of the architecture. It blows my mind to see these structures still standing, often in quite good condition, despite being built so many years ago. We spent a few days in Grenada enjoying the ambiance of the city and staying at the lovely Oasis hostel, situated in a colonial building itself with open courtyards, lush plants, hammocks casually distributed. I especially enjoyed the small but pretty pool the hostel had in an open to air courtyard. The heat and humidity resulted in me jumping in for a dip multiple times a day.

We also made up for our volcano failure at Ometepe. On a whim, we decided to sign up for an evening tour without really reading through it. I was almost glad I didn't find out more, because I was pleasantly surprised again and again on our tour. We visited an active volcano, viewed it from different angles, watched the sun set over it and learned a lot from our knowledgable guide. Next we visited a bat cave where we stood with thousands of bats zooming by our heads as they left their home for the night sky. We hiked through the cave, and then returned to our lovely volcano again to look for lava in the crater at night. The tour just didn't stop! We decided this was a much nicer way to explore a volcano, and much more impressive as well.

As I mentioned, after Grenada we made our way to the corn islands, which is where we are now. James stayed in Grenada, and Linda sadly left us for Guatemala after spending a few days with us here. Amanda is busy getting her PADI Open Water scuba certification, and I've been very busy doing very, very little. Little Corn Island is pretty undeveloped, with no roads and no vehicles of any kind. It's a pretty relaxing place. I typically fit in one to two dives a day, read my book, swim and explore the island. It's a rough life I tell you! Although I think after our week here, I might actually be ready to come home and study and do things again.

Till next update friends!

 

 

Posted with Blogsy

Update on Nicaragua: Surf, swim, and volcanoes

We have now been in Nicaragua for over a week, so it is probably time for a bit of an update.

Our first destination after our disastrous border crossing was San Juan del Sur, a tiny surf and party town on the Pacific Ocean. It was a great feeling to discover that backpackers were the main types of tourists here. Without a doubt, Costa Rica was lovely but it was also full of older, richer tourists and it sometimes felt a bit too, well, manicured. Nicaragua is a much poorer country and the infrastructure is not as good, but much of the natural beauty found in Costa Rica is found in Nicaragua as well but for much cheaper.

At any rate, we were quite happy to meet other backpackers, most on extended trips, and all with interesting stories. This seemed to be the case even more so than when I was in Asia. Here, the age is more varied in the backpackers we meet, and the stories often more out there. It's funny, because at home I can be considered an adventurous person. Here, I feel rather straight-laced and definitely not amongst the most adventurous if such a scale even existed. In Central America I meet those who haven't really been home in years, or who are slowly travelling and working at hostels as they go, and some who have been quite happy to give up the usual societal conventions in exchange for a more carefree lifestyle. In San Juan del Sur, a lot of people get "stuck" due to the excellent surf and party atmosphere. It has made me reflect a bit on my own life as well. Even though I enjoy the atmosphere and being a free spirit for now without an itinerary on this trip, I am equally as excited to begin a new chapter in my life as a nurse. I also suppose that I'm ok with not being a hippie. Anyways, I digress...

Medeiros beach

We spent an enjoyable three nights at Casa de Olas hostel where we enjoyed their beautiful infinity pool, free shuttles into town in the back of a pickup, and time spent on the beach. I was happy to get some time to surf again. I'm still not fantastic, but at least I'm standing up pretty consistently! We also were proud to complete the "Loose Moose Challenge". Of all places, San Juan del Sur had a Canadian bar. What do they sell, you may ask? That's easy. Poutine, sushi, and caesars of course. Totally Canadian. The Loose Moose Challenge involved doing 5 shots of extra EXTRA spicy caesars in 15 seconds, more of a spice challenge than a drinking one though, with only a bit of vodka in each one. All three of us girls completed the challenge, although we had to explain to Linda what a caesar was. Challenge completed, and we have the shirts to prove it :-)

After a bit of time to relax and enjoy San Juan del Sur, we left for Ometepe, an island in a large freshwater lake that was made up of two volcanos. At this point we continued to travel with Linda as well as James, an American that we had met during our border crossing into Nicaragua. This was the one place that I wasn't particularly thrilled with. We started with a much longer travel day than we were supposed to have, and once settled, decided to get up early to climb one of the volcanoes the next day. This was one of the main activities on Ometepe and the main reason people seem to visit. I won't go into all the exciting details of our climb, and maybe some people truly love trekking no matter the conditions.... but 10hrs in incredibly hot and humid conditions, often with a foot of mud, was not really a highlight for us. This was especially true when our guide announced, "Ok, this is the top!", upon reaching a random post in the ground surrounded by trees. No view at all to reward our efforts. Perhaps we should have taken it as a hint when we asked him what his favourite view was during our first break, only 45min into the hike. His response? "This one!" Next time we think we'll choose a slightly shorter hike....

The best views of volcanoes are from the ground.

 

Posted with Blogsy

A tale of the worst border crossing of life.

Costa Rica is a beautiful country with many beautiful natural wonders, excellent infrastructure, and incredible wildlife. It is also considered to be quite "safe" and has a booming tourism industry -the biggest industry in the country according to the country information section of the Lonely Planet. Because of all of these reasons, it is also quite expensive for a backpacker on a budget. Therefore, we decided to leave after only a few days in Monteverde and Tamarindo (or Tamar-gringo, as I've heard it referred to. lol.). Our next planned destination: San Juan del Sur, a beach town in Nicaragua famed for its renowned surf and thriving backpacker culture.

We had become quite close with Linda and decided to continue to travel together for awhile longer. After a breakfast (serenaded by a group of Howler Monkeys in the trees above us) we boarded a local bus en route to Liberia where we would transfer busses, head to the Nicaraguan border and then cab to San Juan del Sur. A bit of a long travel day, but not too bad, we thought.

While on our first local bus, we met three Canadian guys who were heading the same way as us. The longer I travel here, the more Canadians I meet. It's actually kind of crazy. I swear, every other person we meet is Canadian! These guys were fairly nice and we chatted on the bus. We lost them briefly when we took a different bus at our stop in Liberia, but when we reached the Nicaraguan border we were reunited, in addition to a friend of theirs. It was here that our problems began.

The crossing started innocuously enough. We stood through a line to get out forms to fill out, and then were directed to a machine that would scan our passports and allow us to pay the $7 Costa Rican exit fee. After this we would be allowed to exit Costa Rica, walk the 1km of no-man's-land, and then cross the Nicaraguan border. Sounds simple enough, and it really should have been. The only problem was the silly $7 fee. The machine that was supposed to scan our passports simply would not work. We stood in line for 40 minutes as more and more people tried and gave up, and sadly enough our passports didn't have the magic touch either. Just. Not. Working.

"Can we just pay cash instead?" I asked the solitary English speaking border official.

"No" he replied. "Only card".

"But it's broken" I implored. "What can we do?"

"You can wait."

"Wait for what?"

"For it to start working."

Ok then, thanks for that buddy. I tried a new strategy. "Here I can pay cash right now. I can even, you know, pay a little extra....."

He wasn't having it. I could not sway his mind, and neither could the fairly large amount of people who were experiencing the same problem. We had no other choice but to hop in a cab, pay the outrageously inflated price of $20 (its a lot here, ok guys?), and head to the nearest town to pay at the Western Union. Thankfully, our cab driver was playing a mix of 90's throwbacks and the music was bumping, the sun was shining and the entire predicament had turned into a bit of a joke with the Canadian guys helping to reboot the machines at the border. We were just imagining what it would be like if random people tried to reboot the official machines at the Canadian border!

Good times at the Western Union!

Things were not that great at the Western Union as the long line up of people (mostly locals) circled the entire building. However, our little thrown-together group decided to make the best of a crappy situation and brought out food to share, bought some cheap local beers at a close by store, befriended another traveller standing in line, and brought out someone's bluetooth speakers to play some music. After a 2.5hr wait our $7 was paid and we were back to negotiating cabs, making our way to the border, getting processed by both the Costa Rican and Nicaraguan sides and splitting a cab to our nearest hostel. It was quite late by the time we got in, but we were surprisingly full of smiles. It was a much longer and sometimes frustrating day than we had planned, but at the same time, things really weren't that bad. It's hard to be upset when you arrive in paradise with new friends.

Ah, travel. There's always either a good time.... or a good story!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Belated post on Costa Rica

So. I had written up a really great post on our stay in Monteverde, had just about finished and only needed to add some photos before it was ready to post online when my iPad decided to be unreliable and not save the document properly. Arghh, so frustrating! Now I will attempt to recount our few days there and remember how I had written the previous post, but I'll have to warn you: the last post was one of the greatest pieces of writing known to man, but now that it's gone I just don't know if this one will measure up ;-)

Resplendent Quetzal

As mentioned, our next stay was in Monteverde, where we stayed in the small tourist hub of Santa Elena. The entire area is quite popular and a bit touristy because of the famous Monteverde Cloud Forest Reserve. This is an almost permanently cloudy and misty rainforest located at a high altitude of 4600ft, that does not have the same sort of wet and dry season that the rest of Costa Rica has. Apparently, the trees don't even have rings due to the lack of distinct seasons!

We were quite happy to find a reasonably priced hostel with a few other backpackers, and a hostel owner who spoke English. On our first evening in Monteverde we met a dutch girl, Linda, and went along with her for a night hike in the forest with a guide, Donald. Donald was a biologist around our age with excellent English and an encyclopedic knowledge of the forest and its inhabitants. We spent our evening scanning the trees and path with our flashlights, gazing in awe at various animals/birds/insects/reptiles, and running ("vamos chicas, vamos!!") through the forest towards something found by the other group, who we were in constant communication with via walkie talkies. Between the sloths, white nosed coatis, kinkajous, olingos, tarantulas, snake, and a lone sleeping toucan, it was a pretty incredible introduction to the wildlife of Costa Rica!

With our guide, Donald

The rest of our time in Monteverde was spent doing some of the longest (and highest!) ziplines in Latin America, learning and tasting our way through a local plantation of coffee, cocoa and sugar cane, and going on a day hike in the cloud forest reserve. We were pleasantly surprised to have Donald as our guide again. He brought his scope, knew where all the nests were and how to make various bird calls, and we lucked out when we saw a beautiful Resplendent Quetzal.

Unfortunately the nightlife in Monteverde had a bit to be desired. The winds that we appreciated during the sunny days turned into chilly and very strong gusts at night. I actually found myself wishing that I had brought a hoodie -very different from the 36 degree highs and humidity the rest of Costa Rica had!

Linda was heading in the same direction, so all three of us headed to Tamarindo next. This was our last stop before Nicaragua, and a place where various species of sea turtles come to nest. It was a long night of exploring a dark and secluded beach by moonlight only (flashlights disturb the turtles) with our guide, but it was definitely worth the time and money. We saw three large Black Pacific Sea Turtles come up onto the beach -pretty incredible stuff! I was glad that conserving and not disturbing the turtles was a focus as well. We weren't allowed to approach the turtles until they had turned around and were heading back to the water, and the only light we used was a dim red one that didn't disturb them. Unfortunately no flash photography meant very poor photos, but the experience was great regardless.

Tarantula during our night hike

From there, we have made our way to Nicaragua, where we are now... but thats a post for another day!

 

Posted with Blogsy

Central America: the beginning

Hi friends! So, as promised, I've decided to revive this blog. I'm out on another backpacking trip, and what better way to keep in contact than to update this thing every once in awhile. It's also a nice way to avoid having to make an itinerary so that people can know where I am -instead, they can just read this. :-)

So, to fill in the gaps a bit, I am on a month long trip to Central America with my cousin Amanda. We flew into Liberia, Costa Rica yesterday, and in a month's time will be flying out of Cancun, Mexico. We'll be making our way up through Nicaragua, Honduras, Guatemala, perhaps Belize or El Salvador, and finishing in Mexico. After my extended four month long trip in Asia, only having a month here is sounding like a very short amount of time to cover everything, but we will definitely be doing our best! For those of you who aren't aware, I've been doing my last nursing placement for 40hours a week for the last few months, with 3-4 work shifts/week as well, so I simply haven't had the time to do research on this trip the way I'd like. It's going to be an adventure for sure, and we're really just going to play it by ear.

Up at 4am for the flight! 

So. To the good stuff. I am currently writing from Monteverde, Costa Rica. Yes, folks at home, we have arrived safe and sound! We landed yesterday and were quite suprised to see that we were the only backpackers on the flight. Everyone else was made up of families, older people, and people dressed in beautiful clothes with large suitcases and floppy hats. We made a quick change in the airport into our shorts and tanktops (man is it weird to have my legs exposed after this brutal Canadian winter we've had) and stepped out of the airport, into a cloud of 35 degree, sunny, humid weather. All the other people on our flight flocked to the the resort staff who were lined up with name cards and fancy shuttles waiting, while we stumbled outside to the bus stop to pay $1 to ride the non-airconditioned local bus. Saving money already!

Once in Liberia, we found a very simple hotel/homestay with a very sweet owner who spoke NO english, and went venturing out in the city to see what there was to see. We had several findings. One: we were one of the only tourists in the entire city. However, many of the locals looked quite similiar to tourists. This was quite interesting because in asia we couldn't blend in if our lives depended on it. Here, things were not always as clear. However, VERY few people spoke any English. If anyone is thinking of coming to Central America and not just staying at a resort, learn even a little spanish! Two: The streets were very clean and well maintained despite being full of people -also not like asia in the slightest, and Three: Fried chicken and fried tortilla chips seems to be the standard cheap meal to buy here, with nothing green in sight. Unfortunately, this was our introductory meal in Central America.

This morning we woke early and were quite proud of ourselves as we were able to use our halting and fractured Spanish to take local busses (transfers and everything!) to Monteverde, and to get our breakfast before the bus left. Again: turns out any type of Spanish is REALLY useful as English isn't really spoken in Liberia.

Pinto Gallo -
rice and bean breakfast

And that is where I am writing from now. Monteverde is at a really high elevation and is where the cloud forest is. From pictures, it looks really beautiful, but I guess we won't really know until tomorrow when we see it first hand. I think the plan is to do some zip lining, maybe a coffee farm tour, and a night walk through the jungle to potentially see some nocturnal wildlife. Costa Rica is great, but I do have to note that the backpacker crowd isn't really here the way that it is in Asia and from what I've heard it is in other areas of Central America, and I think this is largely because of the prices. We're thankfully paying reasonable amounts for hotels/hostels (usually $9 or $10/night) but food and activities are really expensive. We'll have to see how we're feeling in a couple of days, but it might be time to head to Nicaragua sooner rather than later.

Until then.. Pura Vida!

 

Posted with Blogsy