My Trip over Christmas

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Hey Everyone,

I know it has been a long time since I have posted anything. The internet has been really unreliable lately, and I have been keeping really busy. My trip over Christmas was awesome. We went through Honduras to the Capital of Tegucigalpa and then to Nicaragua. All on buses, and no nice, expensive buses.

Tegucigalpa was really nice we stayed there for three nights( we only wanted to stay two, but missed the bus one day). The city is in the mountains so everything is built on hills. There is not really any flat ground. We hiked to the Jesus statue on top of the mountain. You will see this in pictures.

The day we traveled to Nicaraqgua was crazy. I will never complain about traveling again after this day. When we left to go to Nicaragua we had top get a bus at 6:00 am. We got to the bus station early to get a seat. Of course the bus did not leave until about 7. When the bus left, it went down the street for about 100 yards and broke down. We then backed up all the way back to the station. We got on another bus and actually left again pretty quickly. The bus we took was only going to the border. We got about halfway to the border, to another bus station when our bus brokedown again. Luckily we quickly got on another bus and kept going. When we got to the border the real fun started. We tried to go through customs to Nicaragua, but they said we could not get in because our visas were expired. We had been in Honduras for more than 90 days, and Honduras and Nicaragua have an agreement so you can not be in the region for more than 90 days on one visa. We had Honduran residency, but only had a temporary paper and not our cards. The Nicaraguan customs guy said that this was valid for us to be in Honduras, but not Nicaragua. What this actually means is: we do not like Americans so we do not want you in our country. Well, we went and talked to the Honduran migration guy, and luckily he was really cool. We told him our story ad he got up from his desk immediatly saying, "Those assholes, lets go." We all went back to the Immigration and he talked to the Nicaraguan guys for about half an hour. They said that we needed an ID number, so we went with our friend to call to get that. Apparently our paperwork was in between San Pedro Sula, and Tegucigalpa, so no one could get our number. We went back to the Nicaraguans and our the Honduran guy talked to them for about another half hour. I do not know what he said, but somehow they eventually let us in. It only took two hours. When we finally got across the border we went to look for a bus to Chinendega, where we wanted to go. Unfortunatley we never looked at a map of Nicaragua, and we went across the wrong border to get to Chinendega. We had to take a crammed full bus to a town about 15 minutes away, then take a bus to a road in a small town, Then take a crammed full bus to Leon, which is not Chinendega, but is a lot nicer actually. We ended up staying here. So in total for the day counting the buses that broke down we took 2 taxis and 6 different buses and didnt even get to where we wanted to go. Actually we originally thought we might be able to make it to Jiquilillo, which was our final destination.

The next day we went to Chinendega to get a bus to the place we really wanted to go called Jiquilillo. This is a small town on the beach that our friend in Honduras used to live in. Even though this day was not nearly as bad as the day before, it was still not the best day traveling. In Chinendega we sat in a little market waiting for this bus to Jiquilillo, and we had no idea what time it was coming. Also, Chinendega is the hottest city in Central America. Finally the bus came, and once again it was packed. We had to stand up the whole time. >There is a joke that says: How many people can you fit on a bus in Nicaragua?.............................Three more.> This is definately true. So finally we got to Jiquilillo on the afternoon of Christmas Eve. We had no idea what to expect in this place, but saw a flyer in Leon about a place that was run by a gringa in Jiquilillo. We found this place and there were a bunch of foreigners there. The onll room she had was in a tent she had set up, which was actually great because it was only $3 a night.

I am getting really tired of typing so I am going to put up some pictures and then write another entry this week. We stayed in Jiquilillo for 6 nights. I will tell you about my Christmas later.

Farley

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Comments

[nick b]

Hey Farley. I didn't know you had been writing this, but It's good to see everything seems to be going well down there. Isaac has kept me somewhat up to date on everything you've been up to and he said he may be going down there soon. Will you still be around there in the end of August or will you be back up here? I have some time off school and was looking for somewhere to go.