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Published: July 21st 2008
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Central America
hot, relaxed, and tropical Onwards to Central America! Another 20 hour bus ride across the Andes to Lima, relatively uneventful, in the way only a third world bus ride could be "relatively uneventful". I´m really starting to look forward to them if only for the " Holy s$%t, can you beleive that just happened" value. There is no doubt that many of the biggest laughs we´ll have when we´re old and grey are seeded in the fertile grounds of challenge, discomfort, and disbelief experienced on the roads of South and Central America. As I learned standing on a trading floor in the close proximaey to Mark Maurino during much of my twenties, a truly great prank, a classic, is only appreciated for what it is after many years after the incident itself. Time needs to heal wounds and mend fences and all that, before all parties can sit back and really have a good laugh and appreciation of the experience...such is true, I´m learning, for any good travel story. You really need to pay now to play later, so to speak, if you want any really good memories. I reminded myself of this as our bus broke down on the edge of a cliff in
Busing it To lima
The Broken Bus and the Magic Ice Cream boy the very center of absolutely nowhere. Luckily, it was sweltering hot and we had a tight shedule with a flight to catch! Appropriately for such a situation, out hops the driver, takes off his uniform, walks to the back of the rather large two story bus and hops into the engine, literally disapears amongst the cogs and gears and grease with 40 or so rather tense passengers looking on. "DING BING CLUNCK BANG" from the back of the bus. Vultures circling overhead now. "how far down does that cliff go" CLASH BANG SMASH CLUNK from the back of the bus "how long can a human live without water Lee?...f&%k it´s hot." more vultures now (what do they know, it's like they were waiting here)..."DONK BASH CLANG" from the back of the bus...after about an hour of this, and I'll remember this till the day I die, walking down the side of the mountain dressed in full yellow and red uniform, comes an ice cream man with a bucket full of ice creams. God only knows where he came from, but talk about a captive audience and a good sense of business timing. As he sells his last ice cream, out
Busing it to Lima
Great road for a double decker bus. At night they weren't so wide, Luckily the driver had a few in him to calm the nerves hops the driver covered in grease, puts his uniform back on and starts the bus up first try. And just like that we're back on the road as if nothing ever happened, except we have the magic ice cream man along for the ride, which gratefully proved to me i wasn´t hallucinating.
Anyway, short story long, we made it to Lima, hopped a flight to San Jose, Costa Rica where we stayed in our first genuine Dump. No need for a rooster when the slut next door is in full throttle. I wished she could´ve at least waited for daybreak though. The water in the whole city was out, which meant the toilets wouldn´t flush, which meant...well you get the picture. We left promtly in the a.m and headed out to Puntarenas where we caught a ferry to the Nicoya peninsula on the Pacific and hopefully a taste of the "pura vida" (pure life) the local Ticas keep reminding you of. Another hour long bus trip of the "farm animals ride for free" variety and we finally wound up in the little town of Montezuma, where David and Liesel and two very cold, very welcome Imperials where waiting for
Puntarenas
Port town waiting for the ferry. Introducing myself to Imperial, the Costa Rican brew us. We got some great digs right on the beach and spent a comfortable and relaxing 5 days beachcombing, swimming and sipping beers while listening to some awesome tropical storms in the afternoons from our balcony. The locals truly are a friendly bunch, and the general area is gorgeous, despite the fact that it needs a good cleanup after the most recent hurricane did some pounding along the coast. It´s very much a region in transition and you hope that it plays out sensibly so that the holy trinity (locals, tourists, environment) all come out winners. I would guess greed and common sense will fight it out for those bragging rights. There are two things I won´t soon forget about the place that will give you a clue as to the type of spot it is. The first being all the locals high fiving and lighting up when the only police car pulls out of town every afternoon. The second being the afternoon when we were having some lunch at the local bar enjoying the view when this guy pulls up with a big bag of something and an even bigger smile on his face. We curiously watched as the
Puntarenas
The misses having a cold one bag was handed to the grinning bartender and its contents dumped into a giant blender with a bunch of pineapples, and then as if some invisible beacon had sounded, we watched literally half the town scurry over for their cup of magic mushroom smoothies, compliments of nature. Thats "pura vida" for you, good sun, nice breeze, the cops just pulled out and half the town is giggling their asses off on mushrooms.
After about a week, we headed back on the bus, ferry, bus, and after about two hours of waiting on line(the computers were down), walked across the border into Nicaragua. We found a cab, which looked like it got condemned somewhere else about 15 years ago before it´s introduction to the nicaraguan "worst possible car the still runs " circuit. The driver was friendly and his charriot proved us wrong, and we arrived without much fuss in San Juan del Sur. San Juan is another "in the process of being discovered by the masses" pacific towns know mainly for it´s proximaty to good waves, cheap lodging and decent fishing. After a couple of nights in the main town, we found Camping Matilda, a really cool little spot
Puntarenas
The ferry was great quality right on the beach, close to one of the most well known surfing spots in Nicaragua, Playa Maderes. It was an awesome set up right on the beach. Read a book, get hot, hop in the ocean, go for a run, listen to the howler monkeyss, swim in the rain...pretty close to perfection and shared by many nice folks doing the same thing.
After a few days we swapped the idealic setting for the not so idealic roads and made our way up to a place called Playa Gigante. Despite the roads being mangled by rain and neglect, the drive up was at times beautiful and always fascinating, a real glimpse into real life Nicaragua. You begin to understand why someone delivering food at 4 in the morning in the snow in New York still does it with a smile on his face...it´s relatively easy. At Gigante we spent four rather listless days in a house that will henceforth be referrred to as the Insectorium. Being basically in the woods and out of luck with regards to screen doors and such, we had the oppurtunity to experience the more intricate and lesser know aspect of Nicaraguan fauna. Flies, wasps,
Montezuma
hoofing it to the beach spiders, ants, scorpions, roaches, worms, moths, at least one snake, a thousand other things that enjoyed the taste of human flesh were our housemates. They mocked our bug spray and laughed at our mosquito nets, we were guests in their house. Poor Charles Darwin spent years sailing the world on the Beagle to classify life when he only need one weekend in our kitchen/living room. Outside of the Insectorium, was the gorgeous greenery of Nicaragua, and from it´s roofdeck we could watch the parrots, have dinner under the stars and watch the sunset over the ocean which became a bit of a ritual. One night, we witnessed the brightest meteor sailing through the sky and sat speechless for a few minutes, knowing we would probably never see something like that again. The beach, not more than mile or so away, was another great pacific beach with good waves and made for good relief from the tropical sun, which is frankly getting quite hot at times.
After 5 days at Gigante we moved inland up along Lake Nicaragua to the pleasant little town of Granada, which reminds me a lot of Cusco, if you removed the Andes and inserted lakes
Boy vs wild
Bear makes it look so easy...my kingdom for a starbucks!!! and volcanoes. Lots of local flavor, lots of good spots to eat and a very comfortable place to stay...without bugs...has been a welcome relief from the last couple of weeks. We´ve been here two days now and will be moving onwards tommorow across the country by river taxi to the very promissing sounding Corn Islands, where hopefully the crystal clear waters and white sand beaches of the Carribean await...we´ll let you know...
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kevin
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nice work
hot summer here on the east coast so far...life is good and the girls send love. looks like you guys are true vagabonds now...suits you. enjoy...i'll try skype soon i promise. one love. KL