Nicaragua is the place to be!

Central America Caribbean » Nicaragua » Southern Pacific Coast » Granada
July 18th 2010

Published: July 21st 2010

SO after the ridiculous challenge of attempting to get seats on a bus that went to Nicaragua on Saturday, we were perfectly happy with our only option of the executive bus! I´m not kidding when I tell you that I don´t think any of us have ever been so amazed and excited about a mode of transport! Not only did our chair recline back seriously far, almost to the point that we were flat, we also got served hot food and drinks and snacks and had films played! It was pure luxury and definitely needed for the 8hr coach journey or so! We kind of got lumped with the unlucky option of being very near a pretty large guy that snored for england...i don´t think i have ever heard someone snore so loudly in my life! The guy next to me also had some wierd flehmy cough thing going on to the point that i really just wanted to give him a tissue and say here...use it! But hey ho, with some head phones in, all was sorted! The guy who served us on the bus was very sweet and thanks to him he recommended a few ore places to hit in Nicaragua, one of which was San Juan from where I am typing now and this has proven to be very fun (more to follow later). He did also offer to but my blackberry.....to which i did have to decline seeing as i am still out here for another 6 weeks or so and a phone is prewtty crucial! haha. We seemed pretty lucky with our border crossing as well, probably because it was later on in the day but apparently some people had taken 5 hours to cross. We pretty much flew through, after issue of it looking like a pretty vital part of the bus had some how broken or wasn´t functioning properly! Anyway, the bus arrived safely in the gorgeous town of granada at about 8pm that night.

We eventually fouund the hostel we wanted to go to...Hostel Esfinges after walking around the town for 20 mins or so with a couple of americans we had met on the bus. Mike could speak pretty good spanish so we again found this very helpful as our ability to speak the language is pretty hazy! The hostel was so so cute! It was run by a very religious elderly couple and was a gorgeous old town house with extremely tall ceilings and ornate furniture. For 5 dollars a night we got our own room for 3 of us with 3 double beds so a pretty good deal me thinks! The elderly man contiued to run us through a map of the town, indicating all the banksm internet cafes and places where not to go at night! Such a cutie! The budgeting issue on this trip has seemed to be a little more difficult then expected so we have now decided that cooking for ourselves is the way forward and I can certainly say that it is a very good option. That night we hit the super market and made probably one of our best meals of the trip so far! Bingo....we were al pretty chuffed with ourselves!

Granada was a bustling place, there were numerous markets around on the SUnday and so we had a good nosy around them, unfortunately the heavens started to open again.....we are not beginning to like this large amount of rain that seems to be a recurrent occurence at the moment is central america! Anyway, we had a wonder around the cathedral and old church and around the town in general and funnily bumped into the two americans who we had met on the bus the night before. Unfrtunately the view of lake nicaragua weren´t as spectacular as they coul have been due to the rain and so after the morning of gettng soaked, we kind of decided that it would be best to move on and hit san juan as recommended by our friendly bus guy. Luckily our two american friends were doing the same thing so showed us the bus station and we were al on our way!

The bus journey was an experience in itself. It took around a couple of hours and isn´t the most comfortable of things when you have two rucksacks on your lap but the views were great and pretty interesting especially as we drove through some big western show with horses everwhere tied up next to the road and cowboys amongst tem all. Street vendors would also coninue to get on and off the bus, selling various merchandise rannging from religious pocket calendars with pictures of babies on them to peanut brittle which we al sampled! Once we arrived in Rivas, numerous taxi drivers were approaching up all as we needed to get to san juan....this was definitely the turning point for me accepting our ´dick of the day' award as in my disrçtinct british accent asked the taxi driver 'accepto dollares' which really means i accept dollars so yes, th girls thought that very amusing! We got the raw deal with the taxi ride i definitely feel and put it this way, i do not think that M.O.Ts really exist in nicaragua! Not only were 5 of us fitting in the taxi, the windscreen had some seriously huge cracks down it, the door handle on the outside of one of the doors was not there, a hole took its place instead and the windows ceased to go down, hence some over heating ocurred for sure!

As we arrived in San Juan, we were definitely getting a good vibe! This funky little surfer town semed pretty hapening and we kicked off the afternoon by having our first macua..a pretty damn good guava and rum cocktail before even getting to the hostel 'casa oro'. Casa oro seemed pretty cool and chilled and we were lucky to actually get space....however, one of us would have to sleep on a matress on the floor which we started freaking out about slightly after hearing there were rats seen around the place! Wakin up to a rat on your face in the middle of the night wouldn´t be the best wake up call! We were definitely all up for a good night out and had heard that Iguanas was the place to go! The hostel did however seem to be a bit more stingy than we first thought in the fact that bringing iin alcohol from supermarkets was NOT ALLOWED....what a stupid rule....never the less that did not stop us! A bottle for 4 dollars...ouch thats not gotta be god for you! haha. Another coincidence was that a group of the Irish girls we met in Bocas del Torro were also staying here so we were able to share our numerous stories of so far!

Sunday night kicked off in the hostels roof terrace where we met our three american friends to be: josh, steve and alex. These guys were in the US military and had some epic stories to tell! At first, we were all not quite getting the difference in the american and english humour.....however, this proved to be a great topic of conversation for the next couple of days! Josh´s attempt at his english accent was needless to say quite special..he liked the idea that he could sound like Russel Brand...unfortunatley this was an epic fail! But we loved him for it! Aparently we were snoty little twits...said in the most complimentary way.....after that we knew we were going to have fun! The ripping and banter from al of us was alot to laugh about! Unfotunately Alex was a little worse for wear that night...much to our amusemen t however! I think the half a glass of neat rum (which he didn´t realise was actually that) that he downed definitely finished him off for the night!

The Irish girls loved all our drinking games and we have to admit that the nglish version of ring of fire is far more suerior to the Americans! After numerous glasses of rum and the smuggled in vodka, we hit Iguana bar! The music was somewhat not what we wanted...surely REM is something that gets played in your dads car and not on a night out! Anyway, we had a good laugh and loved watching the locals singing to the songs at the tops of their voices to the competely wrong words! We actually witnesed that Josh was a pretty damn good dancer..yes he was apparently on the salsa team at his school back in the days and so free salsa lessons were had by us all! We even had the engagement of Josh and the spawn of satan....a very long story and to be honest not even sure how it really came about so won´t delve into that one much further! Eventually the bar shut but the night was still young so next stop was the Crazy Crab....down the end of the road this local hot spot was obviously the place to be with the electronica music playing in the strobe lit smoke filled dance floor! The guys bought us drinks so us three girls were definitely not complaining. Steve was hilarious with his chat bout his cat sophie......actually named after the daughter of oprah winfrey as he was oprahs body guardfor 2 years. Hearing some of these guys stories from the military on the walk home definitely made us girls feel pretty insignificant as i really don´t think our chat about sticing our hands up cows bums could really compare! However, the guys seemed to find it amusing and being the first group of British girls they had met on their travels we hoped we hadn´t let the side down! Some more voda was consumed along with some grapes but the Belgiums in ou dorm tçdid´t ake to this, to be fair, it was 4 am but we headed up to the gys room to continue the party! Alex was the best source of amusement for the rest of the night! We could not stop laughing at him as e awke from his drink coma after pasing out at 11 earlier in the night, but the best bit was making up stories that he had in fact gone out......making up taht he had got with a 40 year old who actually had a husband that owned the bar was probably the best one! However, y the time 5am came, we decided that it was best to probably call it a night as the security guard was getting pretty p´d off by us...so with the deal that th guys cook us breakfast for the next two mornings as long as we cooked dinner for them the next night we headed back to our dorm where the Belgium guys with some serious BO issue were sleeping! Hoowever, we were awoken in the midle of the night but one of the crazy belgium guys jumping off his bed and launching himself for some reason unknown t us at the german guy who was staying in our room also. The security gurad was pretty hopeless at breaking up the fight as the beligium guy threw hist fists in the direction of the poor german! We didn´t even wnt to get involved in what that was about so went back to sleep!

Monday morning we awoke to omelettes made by the guys and then all headed to the Manderas Beach, about half an hour away on a pretty funny taxi ride! We all pile into the back of this open back taxi and some serious off roading was done. The weather was still pretty clody and raining but the temperature was warm and we wanted to get in that sea! We were little concerned about the rip tides seein as the guys said that some Irish guys the other day were out there and actually thoght they were goners and not going to get back to the shore....brilliant! Needless to say that didn´t stop us and we all had our frst attempt at surf boarding courtesy of Josh and his teaching! Lots of poker and othercard games were played on the beach.....pebbles were used as chips but my rock collection failed when i brought a load of boulder like things to the table. The animals in Nicaragua are unfortunately not in good condition and 2 beach dogs were definitely intrigued as to what we were doing and begging for food the entire time! WE have seen some apulling sites whilst being in Nicaragua, in Panama and Costa Rica, the animals looked pretty much ok, yes agreed nothing like our british pets but the dogs in Nicaragua are in very bad ways! We were in Granada, i am not kidding when I say we literally saw walking corpses....this has definitely made me want to come out to these types of countries at some point and help the animals. Some of the horses are not in the best of ways either..agian in Granada, the horses used for tourist rides looked like they could barely carry a child let alone pull a carriage and people with their under weight appearance, sores where tack does not fit properly and lameness. Anyway, enough vet chat and back to the Nicaraguan loving! The beach where we were also hosted a small herd of cattle that just sauntered about all over the place....Alex seemed to quite like the idea of being a cattle herdsman and showed us what he was made of! Our taxi gyuy eventually picked us up and the ride home proved to be even more bumpy as we sang pretty much every disney song under the sun! After showers and getting ready it was time for the party to begin!!!!

Nicaragua is the place to be!

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