Blogs from Matagalpa, Northern Highlands, Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 2

We headed out this morning without a shower. I still feel clean from the multiple showers a day at PBR. Plus, shared showers are not my fav. We went on the search for Baleadas. Since today is our last day in Honduras & we've been told there aren't any in Nicaragua we have made that a priority. We sat in a little Comedor & had coffee (cup with saucer, love it!) & a baleada. Not as good as Mayra's on Jewel Cay but I can't imagine any will ever hold up to hers. Then we began our search for a cigar factory. Danli is supposedly the town in Honduras known for cigars. However, after asking different people & being pointed in different directions & getting several looks like they had no idea what a cigar was, ... read more

Thanks to Google Maps we were able to find the village of El Chompipe quite easily. Google Maps gave us a satellite view of the houses and school we helped build. If not for the map we’d have been lost as nothing on the way was how we remembered it. The road that was once horrendous to drive on is now beautifully paved for more than half of the way (with the rest under construction) and tiny townships have sprung up along the road. Driving along anticipating El Chompipe around the next corner was nerve-wracking. Would the houses and school still be standing? Would families still be there? Would they remember us? Would our Spanish be up to scratch? I’d forgotten how beautiful the surroundings of El Chompipe were. It is nestled among high, green hills ... read more

From San Fransisco Libre we managed to bypass changing buses in Managua - the capital of Nicaragua, and a terrifying and traumatic place to change buses! However this did involve us having to board an already over-full chicken bus to Matagalpa, our next destination. This was twice as busy as any of the Guatemalan buses that we had previously claimed to be the busiest buses in the world and entered the Guiness Book of Records for the most people you can fit on a bus..... but it was fun! (...once i'd got a foothold and a handhold and felt confident about hanging onto the outside of the bus and not falling away and onto the tarmac to meet my maker... - Ben) We started off with both of us hanging out the front door (after the ... read more

Aside from the intensely painful sunburn covering large portions of my body, the heat rash taking over both my legs and bum, the itchy bug bites occupying my legs and feet, and the diarrhea i’ve picked up along the way, i am really liking Central America. Currently we are in Matagalpa, Nicaragua for the next few days before heading to El Salvador via Honduras. We are planning to bypass Honduras due to the whole military over throw and all. Hopefully without incident... The landscape here is utterly amazing, forested hillsides, winding roads among small valleys and large patches of tropical trees. Prior to Matagalpa, we spent some time in Granada, Nicaragua, which is a very nice and interesting town. The road our hostel was on was a bustling market street. Rather dirty and polluted, yet full ... read more