Nicaragua.....wheww, what a country. From active volcanoes in the middle of fresh water lakes, to white sandy beaches on caribbean islands, this place pretty much has everything a dictator/revolutionist would ever want to start another civil war over.

Civil wars have raged throughout the last century, that in some places (remote caribbean coast) the locals have been oblivious of them....¨what war, i din´t know der was anada war on man!¨ Fortunately for me and julz the only power struggle we encountered was getting outta bed the day after an arduous 8hr hike up a volcanoe.....

Let the tales begin...

Our first experience of Nica was through the windows of another chicken bus. The state of the bus was ´nteresting´ to say the least....However, we made it to our first destination in one piece....Estili.

Estili fought hard throughout the civil wars of the 60/70´s and the town still had walls where bullets had ricashaded off them. We thought this would be a good place to learn a little bit about the history of all this turbulance, so we went to the history museum and proceeded to look at old type writers, paper mache models of surrounding hills and different currency denominations from around the world!"·$·$%&. The museum relied on donations, so we left them a fine 1 Limpera note (Hounduras currency) to add to their growing currency collection (in a glass display).

Anyway, our next stop in Nica was the town of Leon. This place had an edge about it...raw, chaotic, bustling with activity and the best natural fruit juices ever. We had quite a few days in Leon and loved it. The main square had an impressive church, that prior to being built the locals fooled the spanish catholic authorities by submitting a rather dumbed down version of what really was built. I guess back in the 1600´s it probably took years for mail to be sent and arrive from overseas...so they got away with it.

We witnessed a famous folklore celebration in honour of the virgin maria where you run around the town with everyone else up to as many door ways as possible. The owners call out ¨ÇQuien causa tanta alegria¨....from which you reply ¨La concepcion de Maria!¨ and then get handed sweets and other goodies. It´s fun for a while until the suger goes to your head and you end up with glucose stuck between your teeth....

My watch I bought in Belize (refer back to that blog) stopped. I wasn´t too surprised, as the price I payed for it came with far too many features to actually be real. The annoying thing about it, the alarm still goes off at 7am every morning.....So, I went out and bought another watch....a Casio F-91W. While it sounds like an old german fighter plane, its one of those watches that was cool to wear in the 80´s and is suppose to be water resistant. For $5US i´m not expecting it to last that long (still going strong on the 28/12/07).

After about 4 days in Leon we headed to Granada, which is the complete opposite of Leon. Granada has the sophistication, finesse and classier feel about it that Leon has resisted. It´s know wonder that both these cities have been at logger heads with each other from day dot. It got so bad that the government was moved to be directly in the middle of these two places to avoid any more conflicts.

We also loved Granada. The restored colonial buildings, the colours, the rare beef mignon fillets wrapped in bacon, coffees and the sunsets from atop of a 16th century bell tower.....

We did a couple of day trips out to some neat little villages around Granada and also spent the night up a Volcanoe called Mombacho.

Spending the night on an active volcanoe was pretty interesting. To get up the volcanoe you need to register at the park entrance and then get taken up to the top in the ¨eco-mobile¨. The ¨eco-mobile¨ is a old desiel mercedes 4x4 russian troop carrier, donated after the cold war......This caused a few laughs with the other couple that spent the night at the top with us..

So, back then to Granada where we spent one more night before heading out to the Corn Islands (Caribbean side).

The flight to the Corn Islands is in one of those really small twin prop planes that the majority of people would look at and go...¨whewww, i´m glad were not flying in that!¨ There was none of that initial walk down the aisle checking seat belts and safety demonstration that we´ve come to expect as the norm...instead, the ¨larger than the cockpit seat¨ pilot shuffles to the front, fires up the engines and takes off.

None-the-less, we arrived safetly on the Corn Islands (big Corn) and then jumped on a little boat (called a punga) and headed out to the Little Corn Island. This was a pretty bumpy ride, but we were rewarded with seeing a double rainbow along the way.

Little Corn Island was amazing, and not without it´s history that (still) included pirates, treasures and a great stop off point for drug runners between Colombia and the States. We thoroughly enjoyed our 10 days spent there. The locals were great and had that neat carribean accent.....¨yowsa man, what dis going on wit ya!, git yurself a rum man and a hammok¨...

Julz ended up doing her PADI Advanced diving with a great dive shop called ¨Dive Little Corn¨ and I did quite a few dives also. Our last dive was a night dive that also coincided with the full moon. It was simply amazing being underwater in the dark with the moon casting eeiry silhouettes over the coral. We managed to see two turtles, spook a shark and watch two big stingrays looking for food. The underwater torches made you feel like you were in a cross between a star wars movie and a deep sea odyssey movie.....Anyway, i found it amusing swaying my imaginary light saber through the dark water cutting in half all the unlucky nocturnal fish in my beams path!"·$·"$%....

On a side note, the PADI slogan of ¨go places, meet people...do things¨ is, for all intense purposes pretty corny.....but actually right. We meet some great people on the island and had good fun socialising.

We also stayed at our favorite place so far in Central America......¨Dereks Place¨. This was a 20min walk through lush jungle from the village to the northern tip of the island. The cabanas were just right and Derek and Anna (owners) could open up a gourmet restaurant anywhere in the world. The food was fantastic and comprised of whatever was caught from trawling behind the boat and in the cupboards at that time. Needless to say, it was tough leaving the island. However, the adventures must continue! 

We flew back to the mainland and jumped on another local bus and headed south, down to a place called Isla Ometope.

Isla Ometepe comprises of two volcanoes perched on a fresh water lake. The island supports eco sustainability and all that stuff. In actual fact, most of Central America is pretty sustainable as nothing is really over developed and private cars are almost non-existant. Public transport on local buses is dirt cheap and a ton of fun....

We had Christmas on Isla Ometepe and stayed on a working co-operative coffee farm called ¨Finca Magdalena¨. It was pretty rustic accomodation to say the least, with what looked like a barn cut up into little cubbyhole rooms. The views over the lake were stunning and the surrounding coffee plantation relaxing to wander through. This finca is also the base to hike up the Volcanoe Maderas....

Now, you may wonder what we did on Christmas day. While sitting around eating, drinking and ´general being´ would have been the norm....we hiked up to the top of the volcanoe.

Volcanoe Maderas is a 5km hike to the top and it´s gruelling. Whatever inspired us to do this we will never know. We hiked a total of 8hrs up and back, and this has gotta be the hardest hike we have ever done....completely unrelenting through mud, grabbing branches, slippery rocks and then into the cloud cover. The beer at the end never tasted sweeter. The legs however, were jelly.

After a day of recovery we left Isla Ometepe and headed over to the Pacific coast to a fishing/surfing village called ¨San Juan del Sur¨, where we hung out at the beach sipping G&T´s and watching stunning sunsets as our legs still recovered from the hiking.

We´re now on our way south to Costa Rica for New Years.....and have no idea as yet where we´ll celebrate it. I think probably on a beach somewhere to continue the general overall theme of our travels so far........¨lifes a beach¨

Until the next blog, have a wicked NY´s wherever you may be......

Ciao Chicos..