Look what I done got myself into this time…

After a few days of relaxing on Ometepe, I decided to head on to my final destinations in Nicaragua and off to Costa Rica. There are two ways to cross the border into Costa Rica. The easy way and the hard way. I chose the hard, more scenic route, with a stop off on the way. On the day I started traveling, I picked up the bus from Merida back to Altagracia, the town where I was woken up by the marching band. Waiting for the hellish bus ride ahead, I met Wass, a Belgian woman that I had met on a bus on the way into Nicaragua. Two hours and a sore ass later, we were in Altagracia, where we hooked up a taxi to take us to the port, just as it started to pour. The whole time in Altagracia, all I wanted was not to run into Jonas. Well, we got in the taxi, and guess who was sitting in there. Yep, it was him. Damnit. We went to the port, stood in the slowest ticket line ever, and sat under some shelter waiting for the ferry to arrive, enjoying some nice warm homemade beverage that was like porridge with cinnamon. Mmm. The ferry was coming from Granada, and would take us to the town of San Carlos, the whole ride being at night, arriving in San Carlos early in the morning. [read on]

My next stop was the island of Ometepe, formed by two volcanos connected by an isthmus in Lake Nicaragua. The crew from Granada parted, each heading our separate ways. I found myself in a bit of a sour mood as I made my way to the island, probably due to an overly expensive cab ride and an overly expensive lunch, which was crap. This was quickly dissolved by beautiful scenery as we approached the island (by boat), my favorite being National Geographic quality views of flocks of white birds flying low over the water, with lush jungle behind. The boat arrived in Moyogalpa, the largest town on this island of 35,000 people. I made a last minute decision to head to the other side of the island, to Altagracia, the second largest town, which was recommended to me by another traveler, since it has less tourists. What a cute little island. There were cows running all over the place, walking down the street, to where I don’t know. Tons of pigs (this is the first country where I’ve seen pigs), and, well, chickens and roosters aren’t even worth mentioning anymore…they’re everywhere. I got into town at dark, found the hotel that was recommende to me, laid down my bags and went for a walk around town, mostly to search out where this loudspeaker blasting music and somebody’s announcements was coming from. It turned out to be some little store…I have no idea why they needed such attention, but so it was. On the way around town (which is small), I was joined by a local named Jonas, who insisted we speak English. He didn’t speak too badly, but it was peppered with swears and a sort-of ghetto sound to it, and I was quite curious about where he had learned his English. Anyway, it ended up that he worked at the pharmacy that was part of the hotel I was at, and was pretty interested in taking me around the island, which didn’t really jive with what I had in mind. To get rid of him, I just had to go back to my room at the hotel. [read on]

Off to Granada, probably the most popular tourist destination in Nicaragua, which usually means the town has been, or is starting to become very westernized…1st world-ish, with coffee shops, little boutique clothing stores and the like. Most of these places are run by gringos, so it’s not even locals making money off of them. Anyway, I decided to splurge a bit on my hostel, paying $6, nearly double the going rate, just for the use of a pool. Well, they had free internet, coffee, and 10-minute phone calls to anywhere in the world as well, which was all cool. The town was cute, though I really wasn’t as impressed with it as all these people said (which is probably why…hype it up and it never lives up to it). Within Nicaragua there has always been a sort of competitive vibe between the cities of Leon and Granada (sometimes getting bloody), and it seems to have spread to the traveler scene as well (oh, I didn’t like Leon…I thought Granada was a lot nicer). Personally, I enjoyed Leon more, but these sentiments have everything to do with experiences and just however my mood was at the time. Anyway, I met some interesting people that day…some kids screaming Gringa! Gringa! at me, wanting me to take their picture. And another. ¡Un más! ¡Otro! And more and more. Another little man cracked me up by asking, while I was eating lunch “Do you want to buy some cheese?”, carefully pronounced in English. I gave a polite no thank you, but couldn’t help but wonder what this man thought I would do with this cheese, like where would I put it? What need do I have for this perishable food item in a hot, humid climate? Another woman, after asking me for money three times (first with hand gestures, then in Spanish, then in English), well, after the third time I said no, I do believe I heard her say “Fuck ’em”. And my favorite was some guy who offered me a duck. Well, maybe he offered me a duck. He said something, to which I replied no (a standard reply to someone saying something to me on the street that I didn’t understand), and he tried to hand me something. It was a little baby duck. [read on]

The next morning Laura and I went to go meet Maria in the park, at 9:00, as we had planned. On the way there, Laura felt a little sick from a heavy night of drinking. I gave her some Pepto, hoping it would help, though the heat and humidity is bound to make the best of hangovers last a while. In the park, there was some sort of fundraiser for children with cancer and had something like 15 speakers blasting music, which was simply shocking to the system at that hour. We were a little late, and I didn’t see Maria, still doubting that she would show up. But, a few minutes later she walked up, and I immediately felt bad for doubting her. We decided we would walk, and we were off. A few seconds later, this truck was pulling up (like those army trucks with the back covered with some canvas…they use those here for mass transportation), and Maria said something and started running toward the truck. We just kept walking, but she waved us on, so we ran to the truck and, following her lead, we jumped on. So much for the walking idea. The truck has 2 benches on either side, facing the middle, which we were not lucky to acquire…we were standing up in the middle. The truck took off, barrelling down the road, the bumpy, hard road, stopping and going without consideration of the 15 or so people in the back. All we had to hang onto was a bar up top, and I didn’t think I would be able to hold myself up straight for long. I looked back at Laura, who I was sure would lose her stomach at any second, but perhaps not before she fell off the back of the truck, which was ‘secured’ merely by a chain. [read on]

On the way into Leon, we passed a cemetery, which reminded me that it was the Day of the Dead, celebrated on Nov. 2nd. There were tons of people in the cemetery, with flowers and all or sorts of pretty decorations, but we passed by rather quickly…I wanted to check this out a little further. When I got into Leon, I found a hostel and ran into a guy I had met in Antigua, who told me the way to the local cemetery, and off I went. This was the liveliest (hehe) cemetery I’ve ever seen; it was like a festival. There were tons of food vendors, and ice cream men pushing their ice cream carts through the cemetery. Nearly every grave was being decorated in some way with candles, flowers, confetti, and all colors of paint (seriously…red, yellow, pink, orange, green, white, blue, purple). Local kids wandered around with machetes, offering to clear the grass and/or weeds for a small fee. Some of the graves were big monuments, some were small metal-bar crosses. Heck, some of them didn’t even have any monument, it was just a mound of dirt that had been trimmed of weeds and the soil turned. It was such an amazing celebration…a very joyous occassion, not mournful at all. Some graves were new, some were 100 years old, and they were all recognized. I think this is a great holiday, and people should start celebrating it around the world. Now get to it! [read on]

The border at Nicaragua was loaded with trucks, huge semitrucks, some pulled to the side of the road, some in the middle of the road, some trying to navigate between all of them. Our bus driver just sat there for a little while, almost as if he was confused about it all, not knowing what to do because he couldn’t go any further. The thing was that this was the end of the line. Maybe he could have gone a little further, to really get us to the border, but it was only maybe 100 meters away, definitely walkable. So, without further ado, we gathered our things and went for it. [read on]

Tegucigalpa got old fast. It’s a big city, but there’s not really all that much to do. The real reason I went to the city was to change my flight out of Costa Rica…I thought it would be easier than doing it over the phone. I decided to give the city a shot, seeing as how I didn’t see any of Guatemala City, and I was curious about the big cities. I checked out an art museum that was decent, but nothing earth-shattering. I ran across some Garifuna dance troupe performance one evening, which was pretty cool. But mostly I just walked around the city stopping traffic or sat in the park making friends. It was exhausting. I thought I would stay two days – enough time to see the city, but there really wasn’t much to keep me there longer than that. Plus, Hurricane Beta was hovering off the coast of Nicaragua, where I was headed next, so tht would give me some time to see where it was headed. [read on]

There aren’t really a whole heck of a lot of buses leaving Gracias a Dios heading south through the mountains. The roads are bad, the towns are small, the scenery is breathtaking…sounds like the perfect route to Tegucigalpa. The main method of transportation south is by jalón, which literally translates to ‘pull’ in english. Essentially, you just hop in the back of pickup trucks who are going in the same direction as you. Some people earn their living this way, others just take the extra money when they can get it, and others just have no problem allowing people to sit in the back of their pickups while they just do their thing. [read on]

I left the Garifuna village and went by taxi, bus, taxi, bus, bus to my next destination, Gracias a Dios (thanks to god), which is in the mountains in the western part of Honduras. I was absolutely after the second taxi driver charged me 50 Lempiras for a cab ride…I thought it was worth 20 Lempiras at best…the next bus I took cost 50 Lempiras, and was at least 2 hours long…how could a cab cost just as much? Now, 20 Lempiras is just over a dollar, and 50Lems is just over $2.50, so if you do the math, you can see that I got ripped off a whole $1.50, so it’s not all that big of a deal, I know. The guy needs that $1.50 more than I do. But, it’s the principle of the matter that he upcharged me 150% just for being a tourist. But enough of that… [read on]