Advertisement
Published: December 11th 2013
The border crossing was fairly simple apart from the friendly people trying to help you, when I say help I mean the kind people who want money from you for pointing you in the right direction! Very good entrepreneur skills! My advise if you find yourself in a similar situation is to not make eye contact, smile, and politely say "no gracias", they usually go away. That may sound a little harsh but if you don´t deal with it straight away your usually stuck with a ´friend´for the next 10 - 15 minutes whilst trying to get your passport stamped and pay entrance/exit taxes.
A short journey and we were in San Juan Del Sur, a nice enough little town with surf shops on most corners. What made our stay in San Juan was the hostel we chose, Buena Onda (which means 'good vibes'😉 and was a 5 minute walk ouside of the centre, situated on a hill overlooking the bay. The owner, Baba (a French guy with an alias...... was he on the run? Who knows but it didn´t stop us making up stories about him), was very relaxed and had such a great place. We wanted to surf
so Baba put us onto a company who would take us to Playa Madera, a good surf spot just up the coast from San Juan. Surfing was great fun, we both had a hours lesson each then spent the rest of the day trying to master it (or should I say standing up on the board). It´s tiring work but addictive ("one more wave before we go in?" We both chanted to each other) so you don´t mind the aching muscles. The next day we visited a different beach called Playa Hermosa, we´d heard about it from someone staying at our hostel. Apparently some baby Turtles were due to be released into the sea, the owners of the only hotel on the beach keep any Turtle eggs safe from poachers, hatch them and them and then release them, we wanted to see this! Plus you could surf there. The surf was great fun, we were both managing to stand up, albeit for not very long but good fun all the same. We helped release the Turtles which was a great experience, there was a few of us so we stood in two lines facing each other, this gave the Turtles
a route to the sea. There must of been about 60 of them in total. We liked this beach so much we ended up stopping there for the next 3 nights! The beach was pretty remote so when the last piece of transport left at 4.30pm we more or less had the beach to ourselves! We had a great fews days of relaxing and surfing. We also had the best lobster we had had whilst away so far! On the last day of surfing I managed to bruise my ribs pretty badly, that was a bummer but I'm told it's quite a common surf injury.
Our next stop was on the Island of Ometepe, a small Island comprised of two volcanoes. There´s a lot of good hikes on the Island but because of my ribs we only managed one in the three days we were there, the rest of the time was spent not doing much apart from enjoying the great scenary. The hike we decided to try was to the local waterfall, it was quite challenging but we were accompanied by a local dog who even kept giving me a nudge when I sat down to rest. The
And he is UP!
Playa Hermosa beach dog was a right little slave driver and it was a pretty hard core hike, we were boiling! We never made it to the waterfall, it was when the path ended and turned into a slippery riverbed we decided we were beaten! We also had to share the path at one stage with a big spotted yellow and black king snake-which Jen managed to scare off by screaming and sweating at it which confirmed to us that we should return home! The hostel was big and a little run down, we felt more in the jungle here than in the Amazon! There were iguanas wandering around, moths the size of our hands, lots of butterfly's and even a rat - it was infested with bugs - we both spent the night itching and scratching. Knowing Jens fear of snakes l decided to leave it till we left to tell her about our little friend the snake which was living in the bathroom! The owner of the hostel was a proper character, I´d go as far to say he was a mini hitler! He wasn´t afraid to tell you what he didn´t like, other hostels, past guests, current guests.... we were
only guessing what he´d be saying about us to other guests!! A lovely island but we were ready to move onto pastures new.
Granada is a lovely town with a colonial feel to it with lots of pastel coloured buildings. We spent sometime here taking some trips into the surrounding area. These included kayaking for four hours around the Isles de Zapatas - these are a collection of 350 small islands on lake Nicaragua. The islands hold a small community of fishermen and some islands are big enough for a mansion, hotel, restaurant or even a bar, these islands are usually owned by the elite of Nicaragua. Imagine owning your own island! This was great fun especially when we were in amongst the reeds and literally dragging ourselves along! We also spent a day at Laguna de Apoyo which is a huge crater lake which was a magical place, the water was so calm and so deep and was great to swim in. The place we went to had its own floating dock you could swim to and dive off. Great fun! We also visited Masaya Volcano were we got to see two massive craters, one was belching out
loads of smoke and Sulphur, which we were told if the wind direction changed and the smoke came our it could cause us some serious trouble! We were supposed to see some Lava but said wind made it impossible made it impossible and we had to scarper in the minivan. But before that we got to venture into a Lava tube, formed by Lava widening cracks in the floor when the volcano last erupted. Venturing into this dark cave that went on for about 100 meters, torch in hand and hard hat on and dodging the occasional bat was so much fun!
We flew from Managua to Big Corn Island as we couldn´t face the monster journey via bus and boat. Big Corn is pretty much a jump off point for Little Corn Island. Little Corn is a small Carribean Island and it could well be in a different country to Nicaragua. It´s more or less just beaches, trees and huts.... and we loved it. We do love our beach time. We spent a morning snorkelling around the beautiful reefs, we even got to see some Nurse Sharks and our guide pulling the tail of one of them! (Eco
tourism hasn't quite hit here yet!) We even caught some Conche, well caught is probably not the right word as they don´t move, we picked some conch!! The guide invited us round to his house to eat the Conche, served up as Cerviche. It was a very tasty and eating it on the the front porch of a local's house was a unique experience, afterwards he took us to the local bar for a game of pool. Considering how close his house was to the bar he had absolutely no idea of how to play pool. We left quickly after the first game before money started to get put down on the next game.
You could walk around the whole Island in about 30 minutes, which was quite interesting at night as the paths were guarded by fist sized grey crabs. I managed to accidentally kick one when it ran into my path, which was as much of a shock for both of us. We also had a resident ´celebrity´dog called ´Bushmaster´ which slept outside our Cabana. All the locals knew him and someone had even bought him a color which said ´I am the Bushmaster´. Bushmaster would see
us in restaurants and come a sit by our table, then he would escort us home, keeping the crabs away!
Leon had a similar feel to Granada but also had the exciting prospect of boarding down the side of an active Volcano, health and safety..... what health and safety? It's a great little town to walk around, we visited a museum dedicated to the civil war which was mainly pictures of the people who died fighting against the dictatorship. It was very sombre and we were shown around by veterans of the war. After the exhibits we were taken up to the 1st floor for a better view of the city. Little did we know we´d be taken up onto a roof made soley of corrugated iron and told it was OK to walk about on it to get some photos, remember I mentioned health and safety, well they hadn´t heard of it in this place either! Next up was the volcano boarding, the hike up to the top was amazing I felt like Samwise Gamgee escorting Frodo up Mordor, the black rock against the green of the surrounding area made a great contrast. The view was amazing. The
ride down was great fun, after donning colourful overalls (that made Jen look like a teletubbie) it was me to go first and I managed to wipe out half way down, after a mouthful of grit I reached the bottom. We were on a roll so we decided to do do the twilight tour of Volcano Telica, another active volcano promising us our elusive lava. It took about 2 hours to get there, it's only about 30 kms but once you got off the main road it was some serious off-roading. An interesting way to see some of the national park the volcano is situated in. The roads were just paths carved through the jungle by what I can only imagine are farmers. Once we got there it was a hike up to the crater, it was intense as it took about an hour and it was literally clambering over jagged rocks, the route was marked out with little x's on rocks along the way, hmm glad the guide knew where to go.As we got closer to the top the smell of sulphur was getting stronger and I could feel it on the back of my throat, it raised a
little concern after our last experience but we powered on. We reached a ridge and made away along it to the crater, when we reached the crater we were told to lie on the floor and crawl up to the edge. At the widest point it's 700m across and a total of 120m deep but what hit you first was the sound, the nearest thing I could compare it to was a jumbo jet passing by at close range. At the bottom you could see where the earths crust had fallen away and underneath was glowing red. It felt very fierce and angry. If you looked around the crater you could see where ledges had called away, considering we were lying on one it all added to the tension. The next stage was to walk back along the ridge to an unmanned monitoring station (basically lots of wires stuck into the floor and wind gauges) and eat our packed lunch. During this we noticed the weather coming in, low white fluffy clouds were approaching us and it was quite cool to be sat high up in the clouds. But a few miles off past the direction we'd parked lightning started.
Hmmmm things weren't quite so 'cool' anymore. But we were reassured by the guide (who was probably about 20) that everything was fine and that we should go back to the crater to see the lava as it was getting dark and it would look better. Well we didn't make it, we were metres away when we noticed the clouds started darkening, we didn't like it and made the decision that we needed to go,
now! The lightning ahead of us was getting more frequent and thick dark clouds were coming in behind us, things were getting scary! We were trying to move as fast as we could over the rocks and it was getting dark so we had to get our torches out, the adrenaline was definitely pumping at this point. The lightning ahead of us was now on the other side a ridge just to the left of us, we just kept our heads down and soldiered on. Once we passed that I felt my nerves ease a bit. Five minutes later the clouds coming up behind us caught us, the next moment the sky was black, the rain pelted us and the thunder and lightning felt like
it was right on us. Things were getting seriously scary. The guide said it was best for us to just huddle on the ground and wait for the storm to pass overhead. So there we were, 3 of us, sat on the floor getting pelted with rain listening to the loudest crashes, booms, cracks and crackles, seeing flashes so bright it lit up the whole sky all the while rivers were forming around us. We were there for a total of 25 minutes waiting for the storm to pass, it was right over us at one point and seemed to stay there. Even when we thought it had move on the thunder would start a few hundred metres away then it would trace a line of noise back over our heads, teasing us! I had to close my eyes at one point as I didn't want to see if any lightning bolts were striking nearby. When it was safe to move on it was a quick dash to the car, well as fast as you can over slippery rocks and knee high water channels! We've never been so glad to get into a car! We were like drowned rats! Fortunately
the only casualty was our small camera. It felt like the thunder storm chased us home while the driver navigated flooded jungle paths, imagine a scene from Jurassic Park but replace the T-Rex with the most intense thunder storm you've seen! Me and Jen both agreed that was the most scariest experience of our lives. We had a well deserved drink when we got back to the hostel.
I know I mentioned health and safety but with it we wouldn´t have had the experiences we did, which I´m greatful for. But for all it´s good, health and saftey would remove the excitement from most things we´ve done. Granted that excitement comes from a slight fear of death!
Advertisement
Tot: 0.37s; Tpl: 0.016s; cc: 14; qc: 65; dbt: 0.0828s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.3mb
Momma Toni
non-member comment
Exciting Times!.
Thank you for the latest news and photos! Wow i love the turtles so cute! the volcano trip sounded pretty hair raising especially the lightning in the dark in an unknown terrain very hammer horrors like! i just loved that amazing pink sunset truly spectacular! your residence in the little red house reminds me of my garden shed but what a beach and to have it mostly to yourself is a gift! for all your hair raising adventures snakes, crabs, lightning and i am sure much much more you both look remarkably well and healthy! its a bummer bruised or cracked ribs as they hurt like hell and you just have to wait for them to get better! i may not get another chance to speak to you before xmas day so here,s hoping you have the best one ever! and the happiest and healthiest of new year wishes! all my love Momma Tonixxxxxx look forward to the next instalment of stories and photos xxx