Nicaragua—

So I was lying along in my last post that my next posts would get quicker. It has been just under 2 months since I last posted. Anyway, so I’ve done alot since my last post, been all through Guatemala, then when to an island in the Caribbean, off the coast of Honduras, to do free diving and SCUBA diving, and am currently in San Francisco to catch up with mother, before I head to Panama. I have about a week of not doing much here so will drip-feed these blog posts. Also haven’t checked for grammar so please be kind. Thanks for being patient!

Volcan Telica

I wanted to go up the volcano at night and see the lava and the stars on a clear night. I highly recommend doing the ‘Queztaltrekker’s overnight Volcan Telica hike`. One of the staff at Bigfoot recommended to do it over the one they offer at Bigfoot (he/she shall remain unnamed), because it was $50 USD, leave at 2pm, arrive back at 9pm with Bigfoot. Versus Queztaltrekkers $55 USD for 6am to 1pm the next day, 5 meals, free hire of tent, sleeping bag and tent, and camping at the crater overnight so you have the opportunity to see it in the pitch dark.

Waking up at the 4:30am with Marina, a Dutch girl I had met through Troy, one of the Aussie guys I had spent some time surfing with, we ventured off to the Queztaltrekkers HQ to ready ourselves. I managed to fit a tent, sleeping bag and mat, 8L of water and everything else I needed into and onto my 38L pack. I also made sure to bring my ukulele, wouldn’t it be awesome to jam on it at the top of the volcano. We were then introduced to the rest of the hiking crew. Amazingly enough, we were all of different nationalities, an English guy and Swedish girl as our guides, and a Canadian, Irish, Norwegian, Dutch, German, Finnish, Danish and then me. We enjoyed the home-cooked breakfast and coffee of the volunteers at HQ before navigating the streets with all our gear towards the bus terminal.

After an hour bus ride on the local chicken bus, we were dropped off at main trail entrance. The actual trail is not difficult, as it was a clearly marked path, but the hot and dusty conditions and relatively steep incline towards the end of the 5 hour hike upwards made it miserable. We did regularly stop, and at one stop under the ‘banana’ tree, we sampled the herb tasting termites. Just after 2pm, we arrived at old crater, the original Volcan Telica crater, which had filled up with vegetation over time and was the location of our campsite. We had a quick nap before having the Queztaltrekkers special lunch of vege burritos, with the added Doritos for some crunchy goodness.

After filling our stomachs, we went up to the new crater, and peered down into the 120m deep crater. Unfortunately, there weren’t flowing rivers of bubbling lava, just small pools. Because of the lack of security around the crater edge, I’d crawl to the edge, in fear of misstepping into an unpleasant death. Before we continued around the new crater to the bat caves, we spotted a guy with a chilly bin (cooler, eski), and our mouths salivated at the prospect of cracking a cold beer. To our demise, he was only carrying ice cold Coke’s. Most of us gave it a skip and went onwards.

I can’t remember the last time I saw a large concentration of bats so it was a novelty to see the bat cave. By the time we were finished inside, it was time to wait for the sunset before heading back to camp. While waiting for the sun to droop below, the chilly bin guy came running towards us and had procured several ice cold cans of Toña. Enjoying these well anticipated cans and taking the opportunity to capture a few more camera shots made for a memorable sunset.

It was evening by the time we reached the camp. We setup the campfire, and helped prepare the dinner meal. Dinner was some sort of pasta dish with some sort of tomato based sauce, nothing out of the ordinary but delicious and there was enough for everyone. Satisfied, we gathered around the campfire to enjoyed caramelized marshmallows over the fire. This was the perfect time to pull out my ukulele and play a tune for my fellow compardres. The only song I knew how to play and sing a.k.a nasally talk at that point was Japanese Squeeze by Sashamon. You’re probably asking, what is this song? who is Sashamon? These were the exact same questions the others were saying after I had played.

While they enjoyed, they were in for a treat when Marie, who I had only taught some of the basic chords to a couple of hours earlier, delighted our aural senses to her beautiful renditions of a popular Ellie Goulding song and then Blue Jeans by Lana Del Rey. We found out that she is a singer. Afterwards, I was getting praised for bringing up the ukulele for Marie to play. Ahhh, funny times. Dead men walking by the time we’d finished up the campfire, we all went straight to bed. Unfortunately, in the process of splitting the guys and girls into separate tents, we had two equal sized tents, one with 2 girls, who were relatively small and then one with us 3 guys, where it could only really fit 2. Being the smallest, I sandwiched between them and drifted into and out of sleep throughout the night.

Most of us got up around 5:30am, to get a glimpse of the sunrise. Reached the top of the old crater, we realized with the overcast that it wasn’t going to be a great overcast. Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough time to get more shut-eye as we were to head off soon. Packing up the camp, we went the same route back down towards the bus stop, and only took 3 hours. What I remember of the walk down was helping carry Marie’s gear, whose backpack was just a little shorter than her whole height, and had a bit of trouble from exhaustion as she came on trip after a 20-hour chicken bus ride. It was also funny how us guys argued who would have the privilege of carrying it, either we were being empathetic or trying to be macho.

As part of our package, we even got a meal at a comedor back at Leon before we returned to the Queztaltrekkers HQ. After exchanging Facebook details to share photos (photos that I will have not shared until right now), we dropped off our gear and parted ways. I had only planned for 1 more evening in Leon before leaving for El Salvador in the morning, so at the advice of Marie and so we could hang out, I looked at staying at her hostal, but there was no space so ended up returning to Bigfoot. Despite that, we decided we would go out for dinner together.

Nutella crepes, drinks at the empty bar playing death metal one minute then house then dancing on the street. One thing led to another, and when she asked that I should go to Ometepe with her, I thought “Porque no?”. I hadn’t been to Ometepe yet and I can delay El Salvador for another 2 days, though this meant travelling about 8 hours in the opposite direction.

In the morning, we went to the travel agent to ask if there were any more seats on the shuttle. “Lo siento, pero este esta lleno”. Damn, I’ll need to catch public transport there. We also had no clue where we were going to stay, so we looked at the ferry schedule, which showed the two ports of Ometepe ferries were coming to and from, and simply picked the port which had boats running the latest, given the reliability of public transport. We parted ways, packed by stuff.

Took the same minibus from León to Managua. This time, I had to take a taxi to Mercado Roberto, and was able to share the fare with an Irish guy I met at Bigfoot. When we arrived there, I’m pretty sure we got scammed by some German who said he had no money and needed a dollar. And we gave him two. He was helpful though in showing us what bus to catch, but at the same time, it wasn’t a big terminal and we could read easily read the signs on the bus. The bus went to Rivas. One thing I learnt is not to sit anywhere there the wheel well on long trips, it wasn’t that cramped but the position I was sitting in eventually put me in pain.

At Rivas, took a $4 taxi to San Jorge (guess what, I got charged extra for my surfboard again). Waited for an hour and took a boat to Moyogulpa. $1.50 ferry. Played the ukulele for some of the people on the ferry.

Ometepe

Arrived at Ometepe at 6:30pm. Went to look for internet, only found a Pizzeria that would only give me the password if I bought food, which was relatively expensive. Found the place. Visited the most bizarre playground that had at least 8 pairs of swings, all non-functioning in different ways. Scored ice-cream from the tienda before it closed.

Stayed a place called Hospejade Central. First full day, we got bicycles and had a bike down the main road, then onto some dusty road where the bikes wouldn’t be able to get enough traction. Watched the local baseball match. Biked down further away and down some other roads till we got to the coast. Camped out and I worked on actually filling this blog in while she filled in her diary. Biked back, and just hung at the restaurant/bar of the hostel which had decent ventilation. Sunday Funday, Moyogulpa style consisted of going to a local comedor turned bar in the evening, us the only patrons in the bar, dancing and singing to Abba on their boom box and shotting Flor De Caña. A side note, at the actual Sunday Funday in SJDS that particular Sunday, Margo Robbie, the actress most famous for playing things wife in Wolf Of Wall Street, who was spending some time on vacation in Nicaragua, was partying amongst all the others, as I found out through friend’s posts on Facebook later on. Argh.

We thought that we should do something more than just chill so we thought we would check out the Laguna Charco Verde and go for a swim and use the GoPro. She was adamant that we should avoid all paid forms of transport and hitchhike, except that she restricted the type of vehicle to hitch-hike onto pickup trucks (utes). This wouldn’t be an issue as that is certainly a popular type of vehicle in Central America but we are on a small island in the middle of a big lake. 30 minutes later, we submitted and took the chicken bus. We asked them to tell us when to get off to go to the laguna. Up to the point where we had to switch buses, but managed to find a pickup truck to take us all.

It was 5:00pm when we reached the main road. Marie was still fixated on pickup truck hitchhiking so that was our method back. Time passed, and I was the one getting agitated, but she didn’t budge. Another group of people were dropped off at our location and were also hitchhiking so we had to move up the road as I don’t think anyone would want to pickup such a large group of us. This was a good move because there was this little pulperia that sold a bag of pan de dulce (sweet bread) for 50c NZD that we munched on while sitting on the side of the highway. A few pickup trucks passed us, but only one stopped and it wasn’t going near our hostel. It turned dark at 6:30pm. A taxi van came by I convinced Marie that we should really take this as I didn’t want to wait in the middle of nowhere for any longer. Her only request was that we would ride on top of the van and hold on the roof racks. Being the responsible person I am, I agreed and we clambered on top. It was a nice way to end the trip.

Looking at the map back at the hostel, I realise that we ended up overshooting our intended destination by double the distance. The lady at the hostel was pretty slow with trying to close off our tabs, and managed to leave at 9:45pm to go find postre (desert). We went to many places in town but no one was selling. On the way back to the hostel, a small group of locals drinking in front of an apartment called us over. I got schooled by Marie with her grasp on Spanish, which she had learnt by ear over the past 3 months. They were incredibly nice people, sharing their beer with us.

In the early hours of the morning, we took the ‘luxury’ ferry over, which was about $1.50 extra, but enough of a cost to make the locals wait for the next cheap ferry leaving 30 minutes later, evident when there were only 4 of us on a ferry that was 3 times the size of the packed budget ferry. A much calmer ride, it was pleasant to enjoy the sunrise over the volcanoes of Ometepe. We had planned to taxi to Rivas and split from there, but luckily I spotted a bus leaving for Managua. In fact, it was on its way out of the port and had to chase it. I didn’t even farewell Marie but I stopped the bus to run back to give a proper goodbye, and then chase the bus, again (all my stuff was on the bus at that point).

Ometepe was a nice place to relax. In the end, the only unique attraction there are climbing one of the volcanoes so that you could see the other and the surrounding lake. Having done the Telica hike prior and not enjoying the hiking bit, we crossed that off the list. Marie was awesome to hang out with, a brave and special human being with killer voice and an idealistic view on life. Hope to see you some time in the future!

Back to Leon

I’m guessing Leon just didn’t want me back. First, I lost my little pouch that had a credit card, some cash and my driver’s license. I’m sure I lost it at the hostel as I only used it there. Then attempted to only stay one night in Leon, wake up at 3am to be able to catch the 4am bus. But I woke up instead at 4am while my alarm woke up everyone from 3am onwards, packed my stuff then said I was going to take the 6am, wussied out as I didn’t want to get to San Salvador at night, so just went back to sleep. Because my headphones had lost sound in one earpiece, I spent a couple of hours scouring the town for some new ones. Bought one pair, listened to it, worst quality that what you would get at the $2 shop, tried to return them and couldn’t get a refund. Did this twice over. Spent $30 USD on rubbish. Ended fixing my current pair by contorting the cable into working and holding it in place with Duct-Tape. Duct tape has been very useful. It’s currently holding one pair of my flip-flops together.

A day later, I manage to wake up at 3am, to embark on the longest chicken bus trip. Note to self, spend the extra $20 to save 6 hours of time, stay in 1 vehicle and get have Wifi in a comfy shuttle. As this post is already too long, I’ll save it for next time :)