Blogs from Nicaragua, Central America Caribbean - page 9

7.6. Vor der Rückfahrt nach La Ceiba im «Vomit Comet» haben wir uns unnötig gefürchtet: sie dauert nur 60 Minuten und verläuft absolut ruhig, es kommt keine einzige Tüte zum Einsatz. Wir haben den einfachen Weg gewählt für unsere Fahrt durch Honduras und haben einen Touristen-Bus gebucht. Allerdings - entgegen der allgemeinen Empfehlungen, Honduras gilt immer noch als unsicheres Reiseland – die zweitägige Variante mit kurzen Ausflügen. Unser «Fahrer/Guide/Freund», wie er sich vorstellt, beruhigt uns jedoch, seit zwei Jahren sei die politische Lage stabil und es gäbe keine Schiessereien mehr. Leider habe sich aber der Tourismus noch nicht erholt und die meisten Leute würden nach wie vor so schnell wie möglich das Land durchqueren. Nach vierstündiger Fahrt erreichen wir den Wasserfall Pulhapanzak. Ein lokaler Führer bringt uns mit abenteuerlichem Klettern, Klippenspringen und Schw... read more

The local means of transportation in Central America, both famous and feared among travelers, is the chicken bus. The chicken bus is basically an old American school bus, bought from or donated by the US, sometimes recent but mostly in the previous millennium. The benches are made for small childrens' bums and fit easily three kids in the US. Although there is not always (well to be honest almost never) a schedule, and if there is a schedule nobody really seems to care, in Nicaragua there are quite frequent busses leaving to really every corner of the country. We have been using the chicken busses to go anywhere at almost no costs. They go to some of the smallest places, even when there is not even a real road. How easy it is to get off ... read more

Geo: 11.249, -85.8633The Pacific Princess arrived in the harbor of San Juan del Sur, Nicaragua early this morning—about 7 a.m. She anchored very near the port and tenders started running as soon as the ship cleared customs. Our tour was scheduled for the afternoon, so Philip and I had a leisurely breakfast in the dining room. He did the final upload of grades before we left on the tour and checked for messages from students about their grades when we returned in the late afternoon. Everything is fine so far. He'll check again tomorrow, I imagine.Our tour was rated E for easy by the cruise line so that means it would be very, very easy. I only walked about 1800 steps during this tour and that included getting from the tender to the bus which was ... read more

We decided to travel down de San Juan river, straight through a pristine bio reserve, all the way to the caribbean coast of Nicaragua. After stamping out of Costa Rica, walking across the border and stamping in to Nicaragua we got to the small but busy river town San Carlos. We emptied the only cash machine in this whole region, had a very nice diner overlooking the river and lake and next day shipped ourselves into a ‘bote’, a long but narrow riverboat. We got out in the middle of ... read more

We had a lovely breakfast and great coffee at our hostel. While relaxing over breakfast we realized that a shuttle to Granada was leaving right from the front door at 9am and only cost $10 each. We realized at 8:55am. Thankfully we were already packed and ready to go, so off to Granada we went. On the shuttle we bumped into Brian and Dara, who were on their way to the airport. When we arrived in Granada we happily realized that the shuttle dropped us off only a few blocks away from our next Guesthouse, Hostal La Mexicana. The owner was super-friendly and though I wouldn't eat off the floor, this place was much nicer than our accommodations in León had been ... and there were two fans in the room that both worked :) Granada ... read more