Nicaragua | BexBAtoRio

4.30am start; Walk with my backpack portered in a wheel barrow along the beach, boat, taxi, plane, taxi, bus, taxi (properly ripped off!!), boat, chicken bus, walk….travelling in these parts is tiring! Twelve hours later arrived on the volcanic island of Ometepe! Checked in to Little Morgan….rustic party hostel on the shores of the lake, (a lake so big you think it’s a sea!). From the blue Caribbean Sea to the slightly more murky but equally temperate and refreshing water a quick swim to wash the dirt of travel away. The start to three great days on this island.

In my dorm was a 21 year old guy from Norway, Freddy, he’d been travelling for 8 months including the Middle East and Africa. He was near to the end of his trip having bought a motorbike in Texas and journeyed all the way down. I don’t think I was doing anything nearly as impressive as that when I was 21! He’s not telling his mother about the motorbike bit till he gets home safe. Our dorm room was on the bottom of a very open style three tiered bamboo hut, the top being a crows nest that you could watch the sunset with views of both of the island’s volcanos….another pretty memorable spot to watch the sky turn shades of pink and red.

Next day Fredrik and I went horse riding, his first time at that. Within five minutes we were on a three mile beach galloping at full pace. We were only on the horses for and hour and half, and over half over that we were galloping flat out. We were also able to take the horses into the lake, which was all good till mine decided to go swimming and I had to jump off to save my daypack with camera in getting soaked. It’s topped my Ecuador riding day, totally amazing! BUT we both paid a price, me more so than Freddy….I stupidly wore denim shorts over my leggings, and coupled with a different shaped saddle seriously chaffed my bum. Red raw. I’ve thought long and hard and decided not to publish the photo of my wounded rear…it’s just not that pretty! We ended the trek at a natural spring which they’ve made into a huge swimming pool and the guide took the horses back. When we both first got into the water our butts stung like mad! After a long walk back along the beach to the hostal, we had time for a swim in the lake before dark were we met Juliette a Dutch girl who’d checked into our dorm also. She’s bravely hired a moped from other side of the island to get over to the hostal, even though she’s never been on one before! These kids have some guts…I need to start taking some risks and living a little!

The following morning Juliette had to return the moped, so Freddy followed her and bought her back on his motorbike. Meanwhile I’d headed to another hostal up the road with better wifi and met a fellow English lass Jade who has done pretty much the same trip as me in a different order. I took her down to the beach to meet the others, and she’d already met Juliette elsewhere. Us girls swam and soaked up some sun watching the locals cycling bikes and riding and training horses on the beach, whilst Fred fulfilled his dream of riding his motorbike through the lakeside shore (it being freshwater didn’t hurt the bike). It looked too much fun, so all three of us begged him to have ride on the back and screamed like total teenagers as we got soaked through! I want a bike now…..

We’d been told by several people of some great Pizza place, so we walked in the dark with torches to a hippy hostel for the most overpriced and salty pizza ever! None of us were impressed….

Our last full day we returned to the natural water swimming pool, us girls hired the worst bikes I’ve been on in eight months…luckily it was only half hour. We had a few hours mucking around and enjoying some Coco-Locos (fresh coconut with rum) before heading back to the beach for a final time. I made the mistake of splashing some kids with water which they took as full on declaration of war. I spent ten minutes trying to out sprint the three of them before they launched handfuls of wet and dry sand at me….I lost! We decided to cycle back along the shoreline instead of going back upto the road, and for some reason cycling along the lake with a volcano in the distance was really special for all of us. There’s definitely something a bit magic about Ometepe.

Our last supper was a restaurant that all the staff at our hostal seriously raved about, unfortunately it was a forty minute walk along a dark road….fuelled by a bit of rum we set off in an overly hyped mood following the few days of fun we’d had. This time the restaurant did not disappoint! The best curry I’ve had since I left the UK hands down. A few more drinks later we started the return journey in the dark along the road, in even more silly mood attempted to recreate the Beatles album cover, at which point the only vehicle we’d seen all night came round the corner and I had to rescue my camera from the middle of the road. We managed to get a lift with the vehicle, which turned round to drive us back to our hostal and saved us half hour walk. I have to confess both the driver and his passenger were pretty inebriated, the fact that one of them had his three year old kid asleep on the back seat indicated a slight level of responsible driving. I know not my wisest move, but we got back safe….

The following morning we left the island on the Ferry and all parted ways. I had planned on climbing a volcano on the island but after my sore bum incident whimped out and had a blast anyway. That was my last stop in Nicaragua, and was a pretty cool couple days in a beautiful place with great company. Again I wish I’d had more time for Nicaragua, but what is saw of the country was great…just means I have reasons to return.

Like most travellers other than Utila I was pretty much sweeping through Honduras. If I had more time I would have liked to stay in a few places before crossing over to Nicaragua.

“According to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime, Honduras has the highest rate of intentional homicide in the world, with 6,239 intentional homicides, or 82.1 per 100,000 of population in 2010. This is significantly higher than the rate in El Salvador, which at 66.0 per 100,000 in 2010, has the second highest rate of intentional homicide in the world.”

Whilst the cities are notoriously dangerous with mostly gang drug related problems the rest of the country is fairly safe, with very friendly people, and with so few tourists some really exciting opportunities. As it was I was crossing from San Pedro through to Leon in Nicaragua in one day. Boarding a bus at 5am and arriving about twelve hours later. My cold had notched up a gear and I was a disgusting ball of snot sat at the back of the bus, luckily no one had to sit by me. Passport control at both border crossings was taken care of by the bus steward, we just handed our passports over. The only thing we had to do was take our bags off the bus at the Nicaraguan side to go through a half hearted security check, they just passed me straight through, and then reload the bus. The border crossing was incredibly hot, but I found on my arrival as was Leon!

Leon is one of two colonial towns in Nicaragua, the other being Granada. I’d decided only to visit one as I have seen so many towns now, and I had also planned on going volcano boarding. However my garden variety cold struck me pretty viciously, and the two nights and one full day I spent there pretty much in bed lying under a pathetic fan trying to not to sweat. A kind Dutch girl I met on the first night even went and bought me a sandwich and juice for my breakfast so I didn’t have to get out of bed. I had a very half hearted wander about town, but didn’t even take any photos. I did meet up with another girl I’d met in Ecuador for dinner briefly, but other than that was a hermit for me two days.

With the heat I’d decided to get out of the town and up into the countryside. This meant getting another super early minibus at 5am which arrived at the city of Estelli by 7. I then had a few hours to kill before my midday bus out to Miraflor natural reserve which is area of traditional coffee growing communities. Again I tried to do a bit of sight seeing but still felt like crap so actually checked into a hostel for three hours sleep. Headed back up to the bus station for my 12pm bus only to discover that the 12pm bus ran everyday of the week but Wednesday! This meant I could have got up much later to catch the actual bus I did get out to Miraflor at 3pm! Sitting round the bus station feeling rubbish was testing my sense of humour. The reserve was only 40km away so I assumed about an hour in the bus….wrong again! It was steep twisty track and the crammed chicken bus barely seemed to move at times…two and half hours later (and one driver change as the first was too drunk) I finally arrived at the Finca (farm). Also getting off the bus with me were three Finns.

The place was beautiful and within half an hour after a shower and sat down to an early dinner the unenjoyable day gradually dispersed. It was heavenly going to bed that night, as the temperature all though hot in the day there really dropped at night. Snuggled up under a heavy duvet with the sounds of crickets and frogs, and my windows and doors to the cabin wided open….I think I was asleep by 8! I was awoken by a very confident chicken who jumped up on my bedroom window….I shooed him out and shut that window, two minutes later he was in the bathroom, shooed and chased him off, two minutes later he was in the door and jumping all over my bed….I gave in and got up. The mist was rising up from the fields, and the workers were out cutting down sugar cane. Kids were going to the local school on the back of motorbikes and horses…it was such a relaxing place to be.

I had a very lazy morning between breakfast and lunch and then mid afternoon with the three Fins set off for walk to a waterfall with a swimming hole. We probably set off a bit too late, and the guy at the Finca made it sound much nearer than it was. After an hour walking and asking a few locals we were getting a bit frustrated so played the “what am I” game to pass the time…..the Finish guy went first, we’d established he was a American, a singer over fifty, famous for ballads, homosexual and black….after we couldn’t guess who he was he revealed it was Tom Jones……???!!!!WTF. At least it passed twenty minutes and we found the waterfall swimming pool, it was a nice cold dip. But we didn’t have long as we had to get back before dark. Literally ten minutes after we got back to the Finca it was pitch black!

The following morning we headed off on horses for a trek, it was definitely a stroll. My horse was pretty small and I felt a bit chunky for him. The landscape was beautiful, and after an hour we started to descend into a valley at which point my horse decided I was definitely too fat and stopped walking. The guide tried to drag him, but he was a stubborn youngster. So I dismounted and walked the steepest bit. We arrived at some jungle and carried on foot without the horses. It was a short steep hike up to another waterfall, but as it was dry season it wasn’t overly impressive and we couldn’t swim there. My horse was better behaved on the upward journey thankfully, the sun had really come out and after the five hour round trip we were all ready for some shade, water an lunch! I had to leave that afternoon, and needed to walk a mile to the bus stop which I was dreading with my backpack. I managed to hitch a ride on the back of a pickup to the bus stop…but better than that they were actually going all the way to Esteli. Stood up in the back of a pickup truck with a bunch of farm workers, the journey only took an hour instead of two and half on the chicken bus and it was free…What a result for Jacko!

Back in Esteli which is quite a bit lower than Miraflor it was pretty warm again and getting to sleep that night was hard work again. I was really glad I’d gone up to the farm area, it was really good to get out of towns and cities for a few days. It’s a beautiful part of the country with very friendly people, lots of animals and good food!