Last lesson Friday came by quickly, I took Nivelacion out to
play football, knowing that last lesson on a Friday is usually hard enough
without the promise of a week at home with their families, and a week of good
food and adventuring for me!
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| Quote outside Bigfoot Hostel |
We ran home, Kate had to pack – not at all like her to leave
it to last minute – and before we knew it Omar and Edgar were outside waiting
for us in the car to take us to Santa Barbara. We picked up H and Nicole and we
were off. Found a place to stay and then all went out for some food before we
went to bed and they travelled home.
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| Eating giant balleadas with Edgar |
We discovered this beauty of a comedor that sold the most
gigantic balleadas we had ever seen. Yes we did eat it all, easily, in our
defence we were going to be without our staple balleadas for over a week and so
we had to stock up!
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| Nicole sleeping on the bus to Teguc |
The next morning we travelled to Tegucigalpa to pick up our
car and the other half of our travelling group. Half way to the capital we
received a text saying that they had missed their bus and wouldn’t be getting
into Teguc until about 11…so much for our early start. The car people had also
messed up and decided that there was no way we going to be allowed to take a
car across boarders at all…CRISIS...However, in true central American style, this
information changed after one phone call…the cost of the hire was just going to
go up significantly. It had to be done however, so all that was left to do was
the take over the Hertz office and set up camp to wait for Riley, Joe and
Shayma to arrive.
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| We love Nicaragua, and each other, and the combination |
It took a long time but eventually we were off in our Toyota
Hillux in search of the border. Many, many, many hours and burnt faces, backs
and legs later we arrived in Leon, our first stop. Bigfoot. If you are ever
going to go to Leon, stay at Bigfoot, an incredible hostel made for
backpackers, bar, hammocks, friendly people from all over the world…It even had
a welsh guy called Dave (which made me extremely happy) We chilled after our
long day of travelling eating their in house pizza and drinking the staple
Nicaraguan beverages.
The next day we woke up early; it was Volcano Boarding day.
Unfortunately Kate was horrendously ill that morning, so I undertook my first
experience in eight months without her. It was extremely bizarre and made me sad as I had my first experience of life 'post-Kate', the difference being that Kate wouldn’t be back at the hostel waiting for me when we go home…’twas weird..
Volcano boarding was awesome, and added to our ‘death inevitable,
challenge accepted’ memories, as Nicaragua – Leon especially – had recently
suffered the brunt of 6 earthquakes, resulting in the closure of the national
park where the volcano stood, and the president calling for red alert and for
people to STAY AWAY FROM ACTIVE VOLCANOES! So of course, what did we do? Go to
the most active volcano in Nicaragua, which was long overdue an eruption, right
in the heart of Leon, climb up it and sledge down it! Everyone survived, just,
Riley hurt his shoulder pretty badly after flying off the board at 73km/h which
resulted in him acting like the old man that he is for the duration of the
week.
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| Riley being an old man |
Bigfoot also had a beach resort and so the rest of the day
was spent there being attacked by the Pacific ocean, playing volleyball on the
beach and consuming more local beverages.
Bigfoot Beach House
Kate, feeling better woke up to do the volcano boarding the
next day, but there had been a 5.5 earthquake during the early hours of the
morning and so it was cancelled. We spent the day waiting for Bryan, the final
member of our travelling family on the beach, where I entered a pool tournament
with fellow welshy Dave. We picked up Bryan and drove to our next destination
of San Juan Del Sur. We arrived just in time to watch the red eclipse which was
incredible. We stayed in another awesome hostel called Casa Oro, also filled
with lovely people, hammocks and a bar; all the backpacking essentials.
After a day at the beach where we saw our teachers from home
(weird) we went out and I was in ac actual real life dance off… One of the best
nights out of my life. Riley and Kate declared me the winner and I slept very
happily that night. I love central America for many reasons but one definitely
is the fact that people actually dance, they salsa or bachatta or hip hop or
krump on the dance floor instead of just jumping up and down like people do at
home..it’s amazing towatch and be a
part of.
Travelling in such a large group only became an issue when
we had to leave somewhere, as we all seemed to move and different paces, over
the course of the week I think we settled into a routine, and an understanding
that not everyone moved as quickly as Bryan and myself.
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| Doing the Macarena |
Our next stop was Isla De Ometepe, and it was surprisingly
easy to find a ferry that would take the car as well as us across the lake. The
girls rented scooters, damaged one scooter, two legs and a shoulder and the
boys got motorbikes and didn’t destroy anything.
Shayma after the fall
The ferry back to the mainland wasn’t quite as fun as the
first as we were trapped on the sidewalk with no escape. At least the view was
a beautiful one.
The drive to Grenada and Riley’s home six years ago (not
that he likes to talk about it ever) in the back of the truck was a beautiful
one. Lots of practice meant that we had near enough perfected the bag
organisation in the back. Leaving enough room for two to sleep relatively
comfortably and be able to watch the road unfold under the tires.
The final and beautiful stop at Oasis hostel in Grenada was
a short but pleasant one. Free water, free breakfast, coffee, a pool and
hammocks….(are you beginning to see a trend?) Unfortunately we had to leave
very early the next day in order to drive cross country back to Honduras and
return the car.
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| Having told Shayma that we had been aimlessly driving around for the guts of two hours |
A police officer ruined our practicaly perfect experience of
Nicaragua by making us pay a fine for going over the yellow middle line in the
road (pfft), and going too fast (pfft) and various other accusations. It’s
funny how road laws only exist for white people in central America.. A
combination of everyone’s efforts got the bribe down from $C1000 (about $40USD)
to $C350 ($14USD) which we had to put into his notepad in the car so that the
transaction was not visible to the outside world.
The border between Nicaragua and Honduras were the worst
that we have encountered in our eight months here. Passports had to be viewed
by several different unclear stations, and you were only told about some
stations if you had missed another. Lots of cues later we eventually got back
on the road, leaving us only 15 minutes to get from the border to Teguc…which,
even if we could fly would be nearly impossible!
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| Family photo. Every time we've seen Riley and Joe we've ended up in a river, and that tradition has to be maintained. |
Although we brought the car back four hours later than
originally scheduled, the lovely people at Hertz didn’t charge us anything
extra (thank goodness) and they even took us to the mall.
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| Plaiting hair in the Angry Beaver Bar in Tegucigalpa |
We spent the night in non-other than the house of the US
ambassador, when asked how this happened, all we could say is that “we’re
connected” such a beautiful home and we were so lucky to have been allowed to
stay there, being neither American nor Honduran. All four girls fitted
comfortably into the most luxurious bed I have slept in in my entire life and I
had a powerful hot shower for the first time in what seemed like months..
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| View of Teguc |
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