Nicaragua

The bus ride from San Jose, Costa Rica to Granada, Nicaragua took about 8 hours. Translated into English, Nicaragua means near water. On our second day here we went on a boat tour of Lake Nicaragua, which is a huge and full of fresh water. Interestingly, it is the only place in the world that has fresh water sharks. On the boat tour we saw some local people on the lake's islands going about their every day duties like fishing and washing clothes. These islands were formed by a huge volcanic explosion that blew about 1/3 of a mountain to bits, some of which ended up in the lake. Today these islands are forested, and some have houses on them. The lake has the look and feel of a tropical paradise. We also saw and heard some howler monkeys in the tree tops. There are plenty of birds here too. In the afternoon we got a taxi to the top of an active volcano.

From a distance, as you approach the summit, the volcano looks like a bushfire burning, with light grey smoke coming from the top of the hill. At the summit are a couple of huge, deep craters. The smoke is so thick that you can't the bottom of the craters. The smoke smells sulphury and occasionally you get to taste the sulphur in your throat. The signage warns you to park your car facing the exit, no doubt to help you get away fast, as well as to hide under your car if rocks start hailing down on you. Thankfully, there was no real action when we were here.

We stayed in Granada, which is a beautiful, historic city of about 150 000 people. Most of the buildings are pretty old and painted in contrasting colours which look really good. The streets are narrow and horses and carriages cart tourists around. It reminded us of Cartagena in Colombia.

Granada used to be one of the biggest cities in Central America, because it was once a major stop-over on a freight route through Lake Nicaragua in transit from the Atlantic to the Pacific Ocean. This is how freight was moved before the Panamá Canal opened. There are many American tourists here too, some of which are looking to buy properties to retire in.

We went out a few times and had our meals in a street dining restaurants. While eating you get approached by people trying to sell you stuff. We have been looking for hammocks for a while and one night we were approached by a bloke selling hammocks for about $7. He was a nice bloke so we ended buying two for $10. Later he came back and showed us his deluxe model, which was more like solid material than stringy like the ones we already had. So we reluctantly bought a third hammock. I offered to buy him a beer and he sat with us for a while. He said that he made the hammocks himself and it was his only job. Later in the night another bloke came along selling hammocks only these were much stronger looking than the stringy ones we had purchased. We ended up buying one of these as well, so that now meant we now had four hammocks. Next thing the first bloke came back and offered us one of the stronger hammocks. We told him that five hammocks would really be overdoing it but he persisted. Finally I made a deal with him to swap his deluxe model with one of the stronger stringy ones. So in the end we went came home with four hammocks, more than enough. It is so hard to say no to people sometimes.

After Granada we headed to an large island in Lake Nicaragua called Ometepe. Ometepe is big enough to support a population of 40 000 people and has two volcanoes on it, one of them is active. Even though there are so many people living there it still feels pretty rural and small, so the island is pretty big. That puts the size of the lake into some perspective.

When we arrived at the wharf where the ferries were, it appeared that we would have to wait for a few hours for the next boat, or chance taking an old wooden hulk across the lake to the island. With all our luggage and the heat it wasn't worth waiting so we got on the old boat. That was a bit of an experience. As the boat lurched through the waves water was coming inside and splashing up on our legs. Kim and Mikayla were not that impressed.

When we arrived at the island we were hounded by people wanting us to get a taxi and we kept telling them that we were OK, but one of these people persisted and kept following us and talking to us. He turned out to be a self-employed tourist operator and was really helpful. We had to use his phone to contact our accommodation that somehow had lost our booking, so our new friend recommended another place which was really good, drove us there, carried our bags and was really nice to us. I thought at first that this might have been a scam of some sort, but it turns out his only hidden agenda was that he did tours for $50 US so we took him up on it the next day. The tour itself was pretty average, visiting a pretty dodgy museum, a swimming pool built into a river and a restaurant on a beach. We drove around in his old, beaten up 4 wd over some really rough roads, but still, it was an interesting experience.

After 3 days we headed back to the 'mainland'. I went back to Granada and Kim and Mikayla went to San Juan del Sur. In Granada I managed to go on one of those horse-driven coach tours and took a few photos.

Nicaragua has had some issues with political instability, and these continue today. Possibly you might remember hearing of the Sandanistas and the Contra Rebels from news stories back in the 1980s. Even while were we here there were massive protests in Managua the capital city (we weren't there). The protests are basically the about the old communist-capitalist debate, where both sides hold very strong views. There was a civil war in Nicaragua over these issues in the 1980s and many people died defending these views. Today, other than the protests and some graffiti, there aren't any obvious signs of this conflict and Nicaragua feels like a safe place, if not, a tropical paradise.

Cruising

We have been on our cruise around the south of South America for about 8 days now, still with another week to go. We saw some fantastic glaciers yesterday, and went around Cape Horn the day before. Got some great photos too.

The Internet on the boat is ridiculously expensive (40-70 cents per minute) as well as ridiculously slow. Just to load the gmail inbox takes about two minutes then another two just to open one email.

So the updates have been almost impossible.

But we are going well. We have a great cabin (stateroom :-) ) and there is plenty to do on the boat, and probably too much to eat.

We'll be home in about 3 weeks now, unbelievable how fast the time has gone looking back.

Costa Rica

We caught the bus out of Panama and into Costa Rica. At the border was a big bridge going across a river. Up until the border, the bus had been travelling along a sealed road, when suddenly it climbed up a hill and onto a dirt road. The bus struggled with the ups and downs of the dirt road then stopped just before the bridge where we all had to get off and walk across. The one lane bridge was in a similar condition to the road, greatly in need of some form of maintenance. On the bridge we were met by a few beggars asking for money. On the other side was the immigration office where we had to get our passports stamped. After that, back on the bus and along a dodgy road with sealed sections separated by rough potholed bits causing us to slow down to about 7 kmh. The contrast between the 1st/2nd world and the 3rd world couldn't have been any more stark.

We got to San Jose, the capital of Costa Rica, in the late afternoon then had to catch another bus to Las Juntas where Mikayla has been living. So after a few more hours we were at our destination, a small country town, then had to wheel our luggage about 1/2 a kilometer through the street to get to where we were staying. The room was a small 'dog box' with bunk beds. It was really hot and humid, the bedding felt damp and there was no air conditioning, just a fan, also no TV or Internet. But it was better than sleeping outside .. I suppose. The next day the owners of the accommodation offered us a bigger, better room with air conditioning and TV for just another $3. At $15 per night instead of $12 it was hard to resist.

While we were here Mikayla turned 18. Kim bought her an iPod touch and I bought her an electronic photo frame. The iPod has been getting a good hard workout ever since. On the night of Mikayla's 18th, after we had tea together, she went out with her friends and had a big night out. A couple of nights later we went out for tea with her host family from Costa Rica. The highlight of the night was Mikayla getting her face pushed into a cake, which apparently is a big tradition in Costa Rica. Another tradition apparently is getting pelted with eggs!!

I sat next to the host father, and managed to have a reasonable conversation with him in Spanish. Among other things, we discussed the temperature, the price of fuel, I found out that he had lived his whole life in Las Juntas. Pretty basic I know, but last time I was in South America all I could say was yes, no and thank you in Spanish.

We spent a few days in Las Juntas before heading off to Manuel Antonio which is a more tropical location near the sea. Our accommodation was owned and managed by an expat Polish-American. His name was Andy, he was an alcoholic and proud of it and he had very strong right-wing political views. He thought that Barack Obama was a socialist and that all socialists were stupid. Kim and I had a few drinks with him the first night we were there. I asked him if he thought the Scandinavian counties were dumb given their socialist systems and high standards of living. This is not a political statement, just an observation, particularly when capitalism, especially in the USA, seems to be going so badly at the moment anyway.

While we were here Kim celebrated her 40th birthday. Kim got some silver jewelry that we picked up in Bolivia, some really nice Costa Rican timber (rainforest) jewelry boxes and got shouted out for tea.

During the day we went out to one of the local beaches, where we were treated to drinks service on the beach by a local person that bordered on having a manic personality disorder. He kept referring to Skippy when talking to us, so at least he knew something about Australia. While on the beach we were constantly being asked to buy things like drinks, ceramics and towels. The towel bloke would have asked us at least four times, on different occasions, each time getting the same answer.

After Manuel Antonio we headed back to San Jose on our way to Nicaragua. We had to stay one night at the bus terminal which was excellent accommodation and good value. While here we went for a walk up into the San Jose shopping district. Here we discovered bingo machines which are a bit like poker machines, only better. Kim went really well and won some money while Mikayla and I probably lost a couple of dollars each. It filled in some time for us while we waited for our next bus to Nicaragua.