Extreme Nicaragua, land of Volcanoes

Nicaragua is gorgeous! It's lush and the skies are rich with clouds and storms. The first thing we noticed is the abundance of horses, still a predominant means of transport. The second thing we noticed is the abundance of Volcanoes!!! We got so excited to see all the volcanoes, scattered sporadically across the land. Their shape is so iconic and really lets my imagination run wild!

One of the many Volcanoes seen in the distance in Nicaragua.

We arrived in the dark to Leon, and thankfully Michael remembered the name to a hostel: BigFoot. It was very clean and comfortable, but lights out after 11pm and no outside alcohol allowed in made it feel like a school trip. nevertheless we had a very enjoyable time there playing pool, swimming, chatting and much more!

Street food is the best! I can't express how amazing it is, the flvours, the richness, y es muy economico! We endulged in some great street food, the typical rice & beans, grilled chicken and tortillas. A huge plate all for  less than $1. Heaven! We ate at some place, and my zero Spanish had no idea what I was eating. Eventually immitated a cow, nope, not a cow, then I baaed like a sheep and they said something and giggled, so we think it's goat or something. I don't really care it was delicious! Feel like a complete retard not being able to communicate with the locals though. No Espanol no es bueno!

The amazing street food 'stall', packed with pollo (chicken) and carne (meat).

 

La Ceiba to Leon, Nicaragua

This is more for people who want to travel between the two cities, which is quite common. Honduras isn't the safest of places, and Capital cities are generally great places to avoid. We got a taxi to the La Ceiba bus terminal at 3:00am. Took a long bus (Christina) to Tegus (Honduras Capital), another bus to Choluteca (to the west) and then another collectivo to la frontera (the boarder). We were completely bombarded by people, and it was luxurious to have so much room for haggling, got a A/C bus for cheap, great day.

As the collectivo stopped at the boarder I noticed a plathora of horses! Oh no- I'm allergic, and they were everywhere! Michael, Rob and I jumped into the first Central American style Rickshaw and drove off. The boarder is so chilled, Rob waited with our bags while I got the passports stamped. As we crossed over the bridge the man who was cycling us across told us to say we are in transit from El Salvador and paid $6. There was no time to ask why, and I pulled the stupid "I don't speak any Spanish" told them what I was ordered to and had no worries going across. Don't know what that was on about, but it was all relaxed.

We continuously asked the guy how much he is charging us for this trip. "Just give me what you feel like"...ja, whatever. We almost arrived and he wanted 200 cordobas each ($9). Hahahaha, funny joke. There's no way he got that, gae him 50, and that was 20 more than I wanted to give him. It was a hard bargain but he could see we weren't going to budge. Plus I thought it was really amusing that he actually asked for that much, I was laughing and it was a losing battle for him.

The same bugger tried to get us to get in a collectivo to Leon over over 1000 cordobas. Oh my sack, what is he on?! We got a chicken bus for 40. Never trust those guys, and always take the breesy chicken buses! Please don't be a stupid tourist and give locals that much money, it's robbery and if it happens once, they will get naggy and annoying!

Pico Bonito & Carnival in La Ceiba, Honduras

La Ceiba is hosting its annual Carnival this week, and Michael, Rob and I were lucky to have a couchsurfing host to show us around this pretty city. We arrived at the port, got a taxi to an internet café and waited to meet our host.  While we waited in there, a man knocked on the window and pointed to a lady across the road looking for directions. We thought it was Andrea, our host, but as we turned around, Michaels small bag was gone! They tricked us, and were bloody quick. Damn! Luckily there was nothing  too important in there, as Mike had just taken his camera, passport, diary etc out 5 min beforehand. Lucky...

Met  Andrea! An amazing girl!! She took us to her lovely house and we chatted the night away. Late in the night 2 more couchsurfers arrived from the US, who have made an amazing journey from Patagonia to Honduras. The next moring we walked to the closest road leading towards Parque National Pico Bonito. The city was crazy with traffic and large floats being prepared for the carnival. Being paranoid, I didn't bring my camera, so I have no pics. We hitchiked up the road to the entrance of the National Park. where we hiked all morning.

Robbie in the National Park getting fresh water from the waterfall.

 This place is really picturesque. There is a mountain range here in La Ceiba, which has a beautiful river that flows along it that is great for rafting. We walked across a suspension bridge, while the boys slid over in a rickety cage. Very funny watching them expecting the cage to slide fast across the cables, when it just stop mid way!

Over the bridge we go! Rob, Mike and Michael slowly paddling across the river at Pico Bonito.

 The hike was great - very humid. The jungle is so awesome, it's just like every David Attenborough documentary. We saw very distinct tracks running through the forest flood, looked like someone had scrapped all the vegetation away, but it's very clear that it was all due to Leaf Cutter Ants! Beautiful, and highly efficient. Some trees were completely stripped by these ants, and there didn't seem to be any sign of them stopping.  We also saw a little lizard, completely camouflaged with it's head shaped like a leaf.

Honduran lead-cutter ants on their mission to clean up the jungle!

Beautifully camouflaged lizard, note the shape of its head.

 We walked to our goal: the waterfall. As we arrived a bright green snake was slowly slimbing the leaves up the waterfall! Yay, I love snakes. As I was about to let the cold water splash all over me I looked up to see where the snake was, and right then it's went, BAAM, splat right next to me! The silly snake slipped. Got a great view of it though, so smooth and pretty.  We had a lovely day walking around. The area is beautiful and the scenery is really calming. We natuarlly had our after-hike beer at a beautiful lodge, where a red Macaw had been tamed and screeched !Hola!.

Pretending it meant to fall out of the bushes and onto the rocks!

All of us, with Andrea in the middle next to me, enjoying the cold, refreshing water!

!Hola! Buenos dias...

After that hike it was time for an epic meal, and we did not skimp on the meal at all. We went to a  local vendor on the street, and ordered the grande..the biggest roti with everything on it! It was so large I had to video tape the awesomeness. Delicious and cheap!!

The most amazing tortilla...mmmmmm!

That night we went out to see the Carnival. Too bad we missed the parades, it took us all a while to get ready with over  8 people needing to shower and get ready. But it was nothing short of amazing! Andrea is a fantastic host, she took us to the main road where everyone was covered in beads, sombreros, with beers and glow sticks. The men liked the beads more than the ladies :) We saw some amazing bands, and all danced the night away. It's hilarious, the men where on stage dancing and inviting all the ladies to come shake their asses. And Boy, can those ladies move! The decendants from West Africa have a unique culture here and are called the Garifuna. Their traditional dance is called the Punta, which basically entails gyrating your butt to quickly I couldn't even try to try it! Brilliant!

Yo no quiero agua, Yo quiero bebidas!! (I don't want water, I want to drink) came blearing out of the speakers and we all joined in singing & dancing. Was a fantastic night, and Andrea and I stayed up chatting long after everyone had gone to sleep back at home. A truely amazing day was followed by a delicious meal - veggie green curry with amazing vietnamese rolls. Our feast was a great way to say thanks to the lovely people we met here in Honduras.

Andrea and I cooking the delicious curry!

Home-made Vietnamese rolls...

Utila Diving

Utila is a major diving hotspot and is world renowned for it’s cheap diving courses. We decided to spend a week here doing our Advanced Divers license ($260). The boat trip there was the worst possible design for a speedboat - you can't get fresh air or see the horizon and is aptly named off the 'vomit comet'. Go onto the docks just in time to avoid seeing some people chundering. Were completely bombarded by dive schools trying to get you to see their place. I love it, being African has completely prepared me for hoards of people begging and hassling you. It’s a great way to get good deals if there’s so much competition! Unfortunately Utila has pretty much standardized diving prices, so we went to Parrots as the girl spoke Dutch and we were talking Afrikaans to her. Lovely place, great atmosphere!

Parrots in Utila...

Signed up for our Advanced, but needed a stupid medical certificate to get my asthma checked out, I hate that – R200 wasted! Stayed at the nicest place on the island: Ruby’s Inn ($20/room) with an incredibly kind owner, Tony Ruby. Met two beautiful Canadians – Haley and Niki, whom we immediately befriended and celebrated being on a beautiful island together having sundowners watching the huge red sun in the distance. Yes, life was great…

Haley and Nikki, our lovely Kenuks!

That night we had a great party – everyone was in a great mood. Haley & Niki were starting their divers and were so excited. We partied with them, drinking at a few pubs – one in particular is worth mentioning; The Treehouse/ Jade’s Seahorse Garden. It was beautifully decorated with bottles and had a fantastic psychedelic feel to it. Afterwards we went to a few other bars where Niki, Haley, Rob and I danced like freaks , good memories were made.

Hundreds of colourful bottles decorating this lovely Guest House.

 Woke up the next day, went for a refreshing swim off the docks at Ruby’s and went back to sleep. Walked around the island and met a nice girl whom we had met the night before  – black eye, bloodshot eyeball looking shocked. Oh my god, what happened? Someone followed her home that night, waited until she was asleep, opened her door (she left it open for her friend to come home), took his shirt off and strangled her. Thankfully she is alright, shaken up, but she is one brave cookie: she fought him off and he made a run for it. That poor girl, she got a huge shock and was understandably frightened. We are so proud of her for fighting for her life and being so brave about it. All the best to her, we wish you a speedy recovery and you should be proud of yourself for turning a dangerous situation around – you are a trooper.

We were all shocked about this news, of course. Tony Ruby was amazing, he hired a guard to watch the premises and especially her door, changed the locks and was really supportive. Sunday was a crap day, just feel bad for letting our guard slip because we are on holiday. Shit happens, even in paradise.

Monday we started our divers! Yay! Walked into the office to have a pre-dive tutorial with our awesome Dive Master Javi from Spain. And guess who we saw? Our favourite Dane – Michael. I think he’s stalking us :P This was the beginning of the rest of his travels in Central America with us, and we have had tons of awesome stories. First dive Night Diving. It was full moon and really beautiful. I felt like there were too many people and we kept bumping into each other, otherwise it was fun and we saw bioluminescent plankton.

One of the many fish we saw during our dives on Utila island.

Had a lekker braai that night that turned into a bit of a party. Took half a bottle of terrible booze and a can of lighter fluid to start the coals! No wood on this island...Spatchcocked a chicken and had a fantastic dip with all of us joining in. The water is warm and beautiful.

Woke up late for our diving the next day - Deep Dive & Peak Performance Bouyancy Dive - very fun. Saw an egg float like the death star at 30m deep. Fun stuff. Enjoyed the coral here - it's a wall dive and we saw tons of types of coral, all colours and a span of fish. Really stunning. Relaxed all day and went for two more dives the next day - Wreck Diving & Navigation. Great fun the wreck diving was fantastic! As we jumped off the boat into the deep blue water, we couldn't see anything below us - just sheer blueness. Then the outline of the ship appeared and it was like discovering it for the first time. Amazing, wreck diving is probably my favourite after wall dives. We could swim through the Captain's bridge. They had cut the cargo ship's deck off so we could swim inside - wow! Can't believe how quickly the coral has grown over the ship, it's minimal now, but give it another 20 years and hopefully it'll create a wonderful ecosystem.

A stunning cowfish swimming amongst the coral.

 Spent a wonderful night with our mates, "watched" hockey. Rugby is better. Spent the last night with two extra fun dives which were the most enjoyable. Michael was on our little diving exhibit and we saw 3 beautiful turtles, one when we were snorkelling during our surface interval. On our last dive my weight belt fell off and I almost shot to the surface - not cool. Swam down and managed to get it back on with the help from my Buddy Rob!

We spotted this little guy during our SI, watched it swim, feed and come up to breathe. Stunning!

An interesting point to note of Utila was the awareness of the invasive Lion Fish that have colonised and completely taken over in the Atlantic/Caribbean. I knew about the lion fish, and how their population has exploded much to the detriment of the endemic fish species. Posters and flyers were everywhere raising awareness of these (and other) invasive species. Lion fish are endemic to the Pacific coast, but have been introduced (e.g. people flushing them down the toilet when they don't want them as pets anymore) into the Caribbean. They are predators, and the local fishes lack the natural 'fear' to evade them, so all local fishies get eaten by the fat invasive lion fish. They are decimating the indigenous population, and management efforts are trying to find an effective way to decrease their population. But sofar, the easiest and most efficient method is through manual removal. Die lion fish die!

Lion fish are invasive and must be removed to conserve the ecosystem, Headshot!

The last day we went snorkelling around the island, free diving down to check out what creatures live in the airconditioners, tyres etc that is rubbish at the bottom of the ocean. We found a whole population of Lobsters! We thought about catching one and eating it, but that was quickly forgotten as they are so beautiful and their population is being severely over-fished. We kept the location a secret and hope that no-one will find them and eat them! 

Met Michael the next day and we went to La Ceiba together to couchsurf at a girl named Andreas house for Carnival.

We saw a pub with the SA flag (upside down though!) and were super excited! Our mate Rick from Oz..

Rick, Chissie and Nikki with the delicious coconuts we opened to make a snack and juice for Rum!