Hello again everyone,
We started this post from laid back Puerto Viejo, Costa Rica. As a Carribean beach town, Puerto Viejo oozes with the laid-back Rasta vibe we became accustomed to in Belize. With the hand-made bracelets and painted feathers, Lisa is once again in craft-heaven.
For this blog, we'll recap our final 2 weeks in Nicaragua, update you on our brief stint here in Costa Rica, and then, the moment you've all been waiting for, The Big Announcement (because the readership of this blog in comprised primarily of our parents, who already know The Big Announcement, it may not be that exciting).
Picking up where we left off: the glorious Laguna de Apoyo. Our friends Maddy and Emily told us that this was the best place in Nicaragua, a hidden gem a bit off the main tourist beat and easily the best swim in the country... or maybe even the world? We loved it there, without doubt, and stayed four nights sleeping in the open air on mattresses that we were free to put anywhere. Its too bad that our options were limited by the rainy season's persistent appearance in the middle of each and every night. Seeing that we didn´t want to be drowned in a downpour, our dreams to sleep out on the floating dock were squandered.
A view of the Laguna from our hostel. On a sunny day the water is blue, blue, blue but on those days we were too busy to take any photos.
We absolutely loved Apoyo, and our original 2 nights stretched to 4 pretty easily. It was by far the most relaxing 4 days of our trip; our activities consisted of lying on docks, floating in tubes, cooking, and, sometimes, going for a kayak. We had one hiking day planned but it was cancelled to stomach issues on my part - sunstroke, my nemesis! Luckily, it passed within a day, and Tor was more than content for another day of lake activities. He's quite fond of floating docks afterall.
Sunrise over the laguna.
Even luckier was a member of the local furniture company that threw its staff party on the hostel's property that day. The party involved heavy drinking on the part of all the company members, including a guy who decided to mix his rum with kayaking instead of coke. While I was sleeping away in my hammock,Tor and our friends Jimmy and Melanie were lazing on the floating dock when all of a sudden a bunch of Don Juans (I don´t really know what that term means, so if it is offensive I apologize!) started making a commotion on shore and then diving into the water. Tor realized that these guys were swimming to rescue their friend who'd abandoned his kayak in favour of sinking about 50m beyond the floating dock (Jimmy is basically blind without his glasses so he is excused for not noticing). Tor got to play the hero that day, reaching the man first, and holding him above water until Jimmy arrived to help swim him in to shore.
The man was fine (having a beer about 6 minutes later), and the party-goers felt they needed to thank Tor individually. This was all fine and well, but they weren't really happy until him and the man he'd saved had hugged. As he was receiving his heroes treatment, a few of his friends in their "bathing suits" (underpants) still felt that is was appropriate to blow me kisses and extend a few "What's up baby?"'s my way. That's Central America for you!
Relaxed, well rested, and feeling good (Mystery sickness/sunstroke had passed, and Apoyo's crystal clear, mineral infused water had healed all mosquitos bites - good news for Lisa the Itch Queen) we headed south for Isla de Ometepe on the humongous Lago de Cocobolca/Nicaragua. The island is pretty much two huge volcanoes that jut right out of the lake, one of them, as lonely planet describes, in epic Lord of the Rings fashion. Concepcion (the epic one) has such a forboding presence that you might feel like Frodo and Sam marching through Mordor to Mt. Doom - except that it's so damn sunny and beautiful all day everyday (plus, no orcs)!
Tor and I on Volcan Maderas with Concepcion (hiding behind clouds) behind us.
With some friends, we decided to tackle Volcan Maderas instead of Concepcion. After our relaxing days at Laguna de Apoyo, climbing a steep, dry, open, buggy volcanic slope (of a still active volcano) seemed a little bit too ambitious. Maderas is less high, but still a gruelling hike. It is extremely beautiful, moving from avocado fields to cloud forests bursting with monkeys, to rainforest and finally to a serene crater lake at the top. Our guide, Hector was great (though a bit of a quiet talker) and spending 8 hours in the jungle was a great experience.
Although it is one of Nicaragua´s most visited places, Isla de Ometepe feels like you have stepped out of the ordinary world and into a safer, greener, simpler one. Throughout the country´s violent periods of history, this island, a tropicalS altspring Island, has remained isolated from that violence. There are lots of hotels, restaurants and foreigners, but the hotels/hostals and restaurants are all small and low key and it is just as easy to either climb into the jungle to a remote little property to camp or to find a locally owned hospedaje with friendly owners. Back in Leon we met Nacho and his wife Roberta, aS panish and Italian film-crazy couple (Roberta films for survivor which pays for her to make documentaries) who have a small property on Volcan Maderas and they invited us to set up our tent on their jungly lot. It worked out great, especially seeing that we got to play with Chulo their German shepard puppy for the four days that we stayed! In case you are wondering, the direct translation of Chulo to English is ¨Pimp¨, but I think it must mean something more endearing when applied to a dog...
From Isla de Ometepe we went to San Juan del Sur on Nicaragua´s south Pacific shore. It is a cute little town with a nice feeling. We´d planned to stay on a nearby beach, but because of the hockey finals we stayed in San Juan which turned out to be a wonderful decision, even though the hockey turned out to be disappointing. While I may be called a bandwagon fan and would have probably been subject to mean name calling back in Canada, Tor is an actual fan and because of that, structuring a week of our trip around hockey games actually made sense.S an Juan was a lot less built up than we expected (no McDonald´s or anything like that) and was full of friendly people (and funnily enough, a lot of Canadians), good and cheap local food, great body surfing and the most beautiful sunsets you can imagine. We did end up camping at one of the northern beaches, Playa Maderas, for a night, but we were drawn back to San Juan for a couple more days.
Playa Maderas.
At this point we were making decisions...with only 5 weeks left before I had to return home we (unfortunately) had to decide what we wanted to do...stay in Central America? Go back to Guatemala? Go to Cuba? Go back to Guatemala? Go to South America?
Eventually, after booking plane tickets and then changing them (relationships are all about compromise, right?), we ate a final plate of gallo pinto, swam one last time, watched one last Pacific sunset, and then said farewell to San Juan and Nicaragua.
An amazing sunset at San Juan del Sur.
In all we spent just over four weeks in Nicaragua. It is, like every Central American country we have visited, completely unique from all the rest. Even within Nicaragua, the north and highlands were distinctly different from the south, but both areas had highlights for us. There are large portions of the country that we didn´t see, but I´m sure that these too are regionally distinct. Although Nicaragua doesn´t have the same something that Guatemala had to us, Nicaragua has something different. The people are highly political and to have a people for whom an election campaign of pink signs, flowers, peace signs and messages about family may prove highly effective shows that people´s perspectives, expectations and values (which are maybe not so different from your average Canadian´s) make political platforms and will hopefully continue to be listened too. There is no denying that the job market is currently very bad in Nicaragua, that land is too highly priced, and that many, many Nicaraguan´s leave to work in Costa Rica and the US, but you still get a feeling that despite this, people are very loyal to their country and, for the most part, happy.
Amazing.
So we left Nicaragua, and two days later -and two looooooooong bus rides later- we were in Puerto Viejo, a rasta-version of San Juan del Sur on the Carribean coast of Costa Rica (this is where compromising comes in). I had my heart set on going to at least one place in Costa Rica! And, in particular, my heart was set on Cahuita, a small national park and town, just north of Puerto Viejo. We´d been told by some travellers way back in Guatemala that if you go just one place in Costa Rica, go here, and that if we did we would, absolutely guarunteed, see a sloth. And even though we´d already fufilled that in Nicaragua, I couldn´t let it go. And we did see sloths, three of them (two a mom and a baby). We also saw, in a short 5 km of trail, about 25 capuchin monkeys only 2m away, a poisonous, bright yellow pit viper, a coati also very close, tons of birds and your average backyard racoon (but here they are crab-eating variety). We spent the remainder of our time in Costa Rica swimming in lagoons, cruising on bikes, and watching Vancouver destroy itself (first the team, then the city).
The beach at Cahuita National Park.
Look closely. The sloth slothing in the tree has a teddy bear-like baby sitting in her lap!
Mono Capuchino - a whole troup of these guys passed us on the trail, no more that 2m away.
Punta Uva, south of Puerto Viejo.
So Lisa had talked me into a few days in Costa Rica, and it turned out to be great (expensive, but great). After 3 days in Puerto Viejo we crossed our second border in a week, crossing into Panama. After a few days on the bus we found ourselves in Panama City - the cosmopolitan capital of Central America. Picture Vancouver with less mountains, more skyscrapers, and humidity like a punch in the sternum - and you´ve got Panama City. Beautiful waterfront, diverse, modern - I´ve got to say, for a city, it´s not half bad here. Today we went and saw the Panama Canal, the pride of the country and possibly mankind´s greatest feat of engineering (so they say). It was really cool. The huge ships, machinery, timing, and the general history of the place really appeals to the nerdy grandfather in all of us. We had a lot of fun. Then we swung down to Casco Viejo, the colonial city, than to the harbour for lunch in the fish market, then back to the hostal. And you think we´re not city people?
A view of (part of) the Panama Canal Miraflores Locks.
Culture shock.
We´re getting ready for bed early tonight, as we´ve got a big journey again tomorrow. We´re moving off, heading to my last country of the trip (Tor will stay longer). Where did we decide?
Get ready for it, The Big Announcement!
Drumroll............
Tomorrow we fly to Colombia!
Yes, Colombia. Parents, we will be careful. Lisa and I are really excited, we´ve met tons of people along the way who have loved Colombia above all else, and we can´t wait to get there. Our flight lands in the seaside city of Cartagena, and we´ll explore from there.
Thanks for reading! With love,
Lisa and Torrance
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