So a lot has gone on since we last gave you guys some news. I’ll try to keep this brief. Our Costa Rican experience ended on a sour note. We got to this town Liberia and were waiting at the bus station to take us to the Nicaraguan border. We set our bags down and were sitting a foot away from them having breakfast. At bus stations you always have people trying to sell us stuff and numerous guys came up to us while we were eating to try and sell us music CD’s (most likely pirated). Very rude indeed but we did our best to just say no and keep eating. But we got up to leave we found that while we’d been distracted by one of these guys someone had made off with my small backpack. Needless to say I was livid. I lost my Bible, my journal, and a book that was a birthday present from Jordan and Amanda, all of which upset me to various degrees. The monumental loss though was my Ipod was also in that bag, and my Ipod is where we’ve been storing all our photos over the trip. Think of that: six months worth of traveling photos lost in a second. I’ll not repeat the words I used here as it might offend someone’s sensibilities. But in general I was just majorly dissappointed in the human race. Such is life. Fortunately we have the site where we’ve been storing pictures and I always put the best ones up, so thank God we didn’t lose them all.
So we went to Nicaragua and took a boat to this island called Ometepe. It’s shaped like a figure 8 and has two volcanos on it. This place was lush with flora and fauna and a total paradise. The first day it rained cats and dogs. So we sat in our hotel and played cards and marveled at the pet deer named Bambi (I’m not kidding). The next days we lounged by the beach and explored the surrounding area. Jordan and Amanda went kayaking in the serene waters one day, but mostly we were just here to relax. Mission accomplished. We also admired the wildlife as just a few yards from our hotel was a large group of howler monkeys. They make a ton of noise I’ll tell you.
Then we took a bus to Managua, the capital. We were only passing through as we wanted to get north quickly. We were standing on the bus waiting to get off and figure things out when the taxi guys came along. These guys clamor for your business and it can be hard to disuade them. Sometimes you have to say no more than ten times before they’ll leave you alone. This time we had two guys offering their ride. One of them shoved the other one right out of the way and started picking up our bags. Does this strike you as sketchy? It did to us, but we went along anyway. So he’s driving like a maniac and I’m praying for my life when he decides to stop for gas. He asks us to pay him now so he can fill up and the price he says makes our jaws drop: a little over $10 a person. I should also mention that initially he had said his fare was a certain amount per kilometer and we were not going that far, so we had a complete turn around here. So were arguing with the driver about how ridiculous that is to only go a mile and he’s getting rather angry over it. He then enlisted the help of some fellow cab drivers to convince us this was a fair asking price. We can’t understand the majority of what people are saying so really we just have a lot of shouthing back and forth. Then our cabby starts to call a cop over to settle this. The cop didn’t seem interested in actually coming over to the car although Jordan and I were ready to fight this out. But then we decided it would be better to just pay the man what he wanted and he would take us where we were going. We realized that it wasn’t a good idea to upset the man as we were in his car and our bags were in his trunk. I had visions of getting out of the car and him just driving off with them and thought it was better to submit in this case. True to form as soon as he had his cash he did a total personality shift and became a friendly joking guy and was saying things like “Look the pretty girls are waving at you!” I found myself hoping that his crazy driving would catch up with him and his engine would fall out.
We finally got to the bus station and were hounded by people to stay at their hotel. This can be useful at times but right then it was just irritating. And it rather irks me to have people shouting “Hey gringo, this way!” We told them politely to buzz off (they didn’t listen) and bought our tickets out of the country for the next day. We ended up staying at a hostel owned by this very sweet little old couple. They were very helpful and we felt secure there. We made our way to a mall and saw the movie Cassanova, which was better than I expected it to be, and then tried to sleep in the blistering heat.
The next day we awoke at 3:30 a.m. (ugh…) and boarded the bus to San Salvador, El Salvador. The bus was airconditioned and very comfortable and the scenery of course gorgeous. We jetted straight through Honduras without stopping. Technically we can all say we’ve been in Honduras for about three hours or so but I don’t think any of us actually walked there.
We’ve made it to San Salvador where I’m currently writing this. Today we will make our way to Suchitoto for a day and tomorrow we’re on to Guatemala. Is all this exhausting? You bet it is, but it’s worth it in the end. Be sure to check our new pictures of Costa Rica and Nicaragua. Later.
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) We when got to the viewpoint where we could see the volcano, it was very interesting. This was my first time at a volcano that was active ALL THE TIME. We watched several eruptions as we sat there and watched as lava streamed down its slopes. The volcano also made strange sounds that sounded like drum beats. In the distance we could hear the the cries of the howler monkey. The atmosphere was really surreal. I could have sat there forever just watching the volcano and listening to the song of the volcano and the jungle. But, we had to move on to some natural hot springs. Darn. The hot springs were not touristic at all which was really nice. We had the place pretty much to ourselves. The temperature was perfect…hot but not too hot. There was a small little water fall that we could slide down into a pool below. My favorite part of the hotsprings, however, was a small underwater cave that led to another secluded pool. When Jeremy told me about the cave, he didn´t say that there was a whole other pool on the other side. I was curious about it and submerged myself, felt around, and discovered an air pocket. I thought it was just a place in the cave where the water didn´t rise to. But, instead, I got to the other side and found a huge pool. As you can tell, I really liked it. Anyway, after that we went back to another viewpoint of the volcano so we could watch it at night. That volcano at night is simply amazing as you can´t see the volcano itself but the lava glows bright red. We watched several small explosions and were able to see the lava as it zoomed down the slopes.