Isla de Ometepe

It is 9:20 pm on Friday evening and we are in the hostel Costa Azul in Santo Domingo on Ometepe Island. I have been trying to fall asleep for one hour now (yes it is true: our biological clock has changed so much for the last one month that we are going to sleep at around 8-9 every night. This is probably due to the fact that we are almost every day exhausted and also the sun sets at 6:30 every evening, and we are getting up at 6:30 -7)but the ventilador is so laud, it is no cooling me down at all and there are also many strange insects which make me constantly flick as they are buzzing around my ears or landing on any parts of my body. We finally moved out from our Camping Matilda after 4 weeks. We were surfing most of the time although in the third week I suffered from a minor injury and couldn't walk for a week. We got to the island by an old lancha – kind of old boat from San Jorge. It was an hour's trip pretty pleasant with the view of two volcanoes which dominate the island's landscape. The highest one : Concepcion (around 1600 m.) is still active but the Maderas one (around 1350 m.)is apparently good for hiking. The road from the ferry port to Santo Domingo was pretty bumpy, curvy and dusty (as most roads in here) which actually gives it a special atmosphere and we of course travelled it by our favourite chicken bus (it took us 3 hours of 40 km road). We decided to check the most beautiful beach on the island according to the Lonely Planet guide book. I do not really want to be critical but from now on we decided to ignore what the guidebook says as we do not agree with most of their's descriptions. The beach is mediocre, it is sandy but grey sand is dominating and the town is as big as around 20 dwellings. We checked one of the local comedores and they have nice chicken and Tona for 40 cordobas;). The plan is to rent out bikes and try out some of the jungle routes and also climb the volcano. In Nicaragua you do not have to look for information as the information comes to you first so we got all the answers we wanted tonight from some locals, tourists and other strange types. Fist we will rent some the best in the city bikes though tomorrow;)))

We are after the cycle trip. We did a circle round the Maderas volcano. We rented bikes for 6 $ each. The road was very difficult for our bikes: bumpy, sandy, stony. Generally what the volcano trew out during the eruption it stayed there and hence the road. It took us 6 hours to do the circle around the Maderas Volcano and we were really exhausted after it. We ended our trip in “Ojo del Agua” a small swimming pool with natural , crystal -clear water from the spring. We really deserved it. Next day we decided to head back to the land and do the volcano climbing somewhere else (my leg is still not reay for serious climbing). We went to Masaya – a town with an artesania market and stayed there for one night before going north to the mountains to cool down a bit in apparently cooler climate.

Trip to Grenada

Last week (end of April) we decided to leave our beach and camping for a one-night trip to Grenada – once the capital city of Nicaragua, but still definitely a cultural capital of the country. The 80 km trip took us about 5 hours on 3 different means of transport. First we took a taxi collectivo with some people from our camping to San Juan (the camping is not easily accessible , you need to have a Jeep to get here otherwise you can get stuck on one of the roads). On the way we noticed a chicken bus driving to Rivas through the local villages. It was not a good choice as we could have taken a faster bus from San Juan. We travelled with the locals in a bus which we don't know until now why it was working, with two big stinky fish and stinky buckets of god-knows-what- was-there-inside substance. It took us two hours during which I was chatting with an older Nicaraguan man about life in general. After this trip we took another chicken bus-this time a long distance bigger version of the previous one and after two and a half hours we reached Grenada: a colonial town founded in 1524. It is nicely-located at the foot of the Momacho Volcano to which many trips are organised from Grenada. As we are not architecture freaks we just decided to stroll around the colonial streets, take some photos and check the locally-made crafts. We made to it the tower of one of the churches with a nice view of the town and Lago de Nicaragua. Grenada it is a nice town with many tourists but I wouldn't spend there more then one night. There are many things to do around the town like climb the volcano or have a trip to one of the islands on Lago Nicaragua. You can also do a coffee trip. As we will be doing similar things later we decided to concentrate on the town itself only and its night-life. We went there on Thursday night so to be honest not much was happening at the time. There is one street with the gringo- type bars and restaurants and we spent there the whole evening as the lady from the hostel told us that it can be pretty dangerous anywhere else. So we went for an overpriced steak (18 euros for 2 plus a litre of Tona) and really cheap Mojitos. We were quite lucky as they had many happy-hours there so each of us drunk 6 mojitos for 180 cordobas (9 $) for all of them. It was not the best mojito I have ever had in my life and it was not the best night-life either.  It was a nice, quiet evening though. The streets are pretty cosy there and we met a couple of interesting individuals including some artists and also some local drunkards. Next day we decided to visit the local museum and stroll a bit more on the colonial streets and go back to our little Camping Matilda and our beach. After 6 hours trip we were so happy to be back in a laid-back and totally relaxed Matilda. The first thing we did was to jump in the ocean and soak there for an hour as we were  totally exhausted by the heat, noise and crowds in the chicken buses.

Local Cuisine

One of the most interesting things in travelling for me is the possibility of trying different types of food. Unfortunately we are disappointed with the Nicaraguan cuisine. The main ingredients here are: rice, beans and platanos/bananas and the funniest thing is that you eat it three times a day for the main meals: breakfast, lunch and dinner. Typical breakfast is called here: gallo pinto: which is of course a mixture of rice and beans served with huevos fritos/ revueltos/queso (fried egg/scrambled egg/cheese). For lunch you can get gallo pinto with carne (beef), cerdo (pork) or pollo (chicken) with addition of some salad made of white cabbage and tomatoes and fried platanos. Sometimes rice and beans are served separately;) And dinner gallo pinto again or tortilla with chicken (tacos de pollo). If Nicaraguans don't eat at home or the marketplace they will most likely go for a hamburger or chicken wings to one of the fast-food outlets. So we do not really have much choice unless we cook ourselves or go to one of the gringo's restaurants. However the best value is to eat at the mercados. We found one place called “Angelita” where for 5 euros for 2 persons you eat typical lunch plus you get a fresh-made juice from mango, papaya or watermelon. This meal in comparison to the one we had in Grenada (we paid 18 euros for two steaks, rice and salad and a litre of Tona in one of the gringo's restaurants)was so much nicer and of course for us a better value. One of the things that really appeals to me here is the choice of fruit and fruit smoothies: there are papayas, mangos, watermelons, melons, pineapples and of course bananas everywhere;)This is a fruit heaven!!!It is possible to survive here for 15$ a day if you have cereal for breakfast (with some fruit), some salad for lunch and spaghetti or rice with some additions plus a bottle of beer (15 $ includes the bed as well). When it comes to alcohol there are two types of beer (Tona and Victoria) and two types of rum. The cheapest version of rum costs around 80 cordobas (4 $ )in supermarket but I would say that this is a version for the desperate as it tastes awful (We tried it yesterday-you taste more spirit in it then anything else). But Flor de Cana is a decent quality product and you can get it in versions of four, five, seven and 10 years old starting from about 140 cordobas (7 $) per 750 ml bottle.

It is worth adding as well that people eat here a lot of snacks in the chicken-buses. The bus leaves here when it is full not on time (we stopped asking at the stage at what time do they leave) so by the time it is full there are many sellers who pass through it offering everything you can imagine: fruit, vegetables to ready-made meals (tortillas with chicken in a foil bag), strangely looking sweets from coconuts to drinks in foil bags, pens with some lights so that when here is an electricity shortage you can still write your letters, calculators, toothbrushes, the latest razor machines for men etc..And people buy especially snacks (you actually could do all your shopping in the bus without going to the supermarket). We still have not tried them as we are a bit worried about the possible bad effects of this food on our digestive system...

Fishing trip and crab war

Last week we took half day break from surfing and ...went fishing. The fishing trip cost us $ 35 per hour which taking 6 people on board was $ 35 per couple. It was really a nice sunny day, the guys who owned the boat put 4 rods in the water and we were waiting....and I was the lucky one to catch the first jack mackarel;))))It was the biggest fish I had ever caught in my life!!!At least 6 kilos!!!We managed to get 8 of them after 2 hours only...and were ready for a big fire and grilled nice fish. Alvaro helped us to clear them, we made the fire ...and put the first fillet on it. At first sight it actually looked like a big, nice, meaty, full-blooded steak!!!yumm, yummm you would say...But after the first bite-well to cut it short - very intense taste. We had like at least 8 fillets (we gave the other fish away) but we managed to eat 2 of them between 6 of us. We had to kill the taste with the rum-there was no other option. Actually until now I a kind of shake off on the sole thought of it....

But guys what I am talking about...the rainy season came-just four days ago. And actually we do not see it so much by the amount of rain...as by the amount of crabs..we are officially in the state of war against them. It is after 9 on a hot tropical evening and I am sitting on the chair on our beautiful patio with my legs up as the floor below me is actually moving. We have like around 50 crabs around us and all of them are trying to get into our room. It all started 4 nights ago when the first raindrops fell. I woke up in the middle of the night hearing some strange noises: some small tip-topping, some crawling. I got off the bed and put the light on...and here we are: at bunch of nice, quite friendly-looking, black, orange and violet crabs, not so big though-a size of my palm, running swiftly, sideways along the walls. For fuck sake-I said!!!The sole imagination of that small animal crawling on me and pinching my ears gave me the goose skin. Unfortunately we are bigger then them and apologies to all animal-friendly people but we had to kill some of them and throw them away. We slept ok but we found some more of them hiding behind our backpacks and in our shoes in the morning. From our patio we gathered the full bucket of them. Next night was pretty quiet. We figured out during the day that they squeeze in between the spaces between our door (we have one net door and one wooden). We slept with both door closed but there was no rain during night-so no unexpected visitors either. Last night we had enough-even with the both doors closed they slipped in after some rain. We threw them away from our patio. Now we are actually thinking about the strategy to scare them off from our room. I think we must investigate the problem on internet-they are definitely looking for a dry place, we are trying to build some kind of a bridge for them so that they can walk away freely from our patio and find some other nice place under some plants maybe or basically away from us. We will solar-tape our door tonight and will see if it works. For the time being though we are observing their habits and keep our legs up (In the morning one of them managed to crawl on the chair I am sitting in now and jump on my thigh). Alvaro actually told us that the amount of crabs now is nothing comparing to the real rainy season. We are laughing that in each country in South and Central America we are in we have to have a small fight with the local animals: we have had frogs, mice, cockroaches during some nights...but I would never say I would have to fight with crabs (FYI there are not eatable).

The life here seems to really go around nature and animals. Yesterday after morning coffee we found out that a kind of monkey who was hanging on the tree the day before died.....Today a small kitten who was missing for a couple of days was found somewhere near power generator. We will see what will happen tomorrow;))))

First week of surfing

I must admit that it was pretty difficult for me. As I am a beginner who is able to do only white water surfing – I was practising it for the first two days (I am using 7''6 BIC so very basic and Marcin 7''2 Southpoint). Then I went on to try the bigger waves and got really frustrated. This is not an easy sport: you get washed out all the time, when you do not make it before the big wave you get twisted and turned many times, sometimes with surfboard hitting your head. So I was about to leave it and basically try something else: like diving. I decided to make one day break chill out and leave my frustrations behind. It worked: I started paddling harder and catching some of the small green ones yesterday next step will be trying to jump on the board on them. We are staying here three more weeks so I am curious about my “progress”;))))

Marcin is doing better – definitely catching the green and trying to surf along the waves.

Camping Matilda

This is like a little Wonderland. It is secluded from the world, hardly any infrastructure. It is located around 15km north east from San Juan del Sur. You need to take a jeep ride which goes through some bumpy roads and then walk around 20 minutes on the beach. When the tide is low there is no problem, but usually after 6 it is hardly impossible to get here. Our camping :called Matilda as well is simply sweet. There are a couple of yellow-painted shuts with red roofs and green doors. Thw owner Antonio created a very pleasant atmoshere: there are many different things glued to the walls: like different kind of fish, mussels, dolphins, butterflies, pelicans, little sculpture frogs stand around, little mashrooms and god knows only what else. There are plenty of plants of different types, huge trees and loads of hammocks hanging around. Also animals are wondering around: 4 dogs (two of them are named after presidential couple of Nicaragua: Daniel I Rosalia), couple of cats, crabs, lizards and there is one (someone called him) crazy shit animal screeming at night and nobody knows how it looks like. There are also plenty of nice places to sit around and chill out. But my favourite is definitely hammock;)))The person who made it up is a genious. The first thing I do in the morning is crawling out of bed and crawling into a hammock to wake slowly up in the overwhelming heat. Life in the tropic is not easy, it is slow but the heat makes you absolutely lazy. You could spend the whole day in hammock just reading and napping in turns. One must get used to being constantly covered in sweat. Coffee helps though and wakes you up for at least two hours. Well anyway it is better then sitting in the office;)))) 

Chickenbus trip in Nicaragua

So in the end we got to the ocean...The trip from Managua was quite funny as we took the chickenbus -which was completely filled up. At each stop there were a couple of salespeople coming in the bus and selling absolutely everything: from toothbrush through jacknives to ready packed meals in plastic bags: chicken with something I think. If anyone will ever travel from Managua please be careful especially on the bus terminals: when we were getting off the taxi a hord of men attacked us or rather our bagpacks and were trying to persuade us to take their company bus.We got a bit confused but in the end accepted one guy's offer. It appeared later that we wanted a tip from us for this (just for showing us the bus). Bastard!!!Of course we had to give him it as we are still a bit precaucious about everything. But here we are in San Juan del Sur. We found a perfect camping place where all the surfers stay with hammocks hanging in front of our room on a nice patio and crabs walking around (seriously)!!!It is a bit away from San Juan ( around 15 km) but it is worth it. So we decided to stay here for a month to practice surfing;)))we have a beach 20 meters from the camping, nice sand and well.... what do you need more?Beer is here as well;))))
We are going to rent our boards now and hopefully will catch the first waves this afternoon;)

talk to you later!!!