Have a nice bagel

So after that last message we went and had our Last Meal (bean paste sandwich) with Catherine, and then set off to get the bus to the aiport. A police car was stopped near the hostel so we asked them where the stop was and they told us but said it was DANGEROUS to wait there. So we went anyway, and when we got there, there was the police car waiting for us! They were like “just wait here, be careful, it’ll come soon” and of course as they were saying this the bus went past and we didn’t have time to wave it down. So we got the next one and got to the airport around half 9. We found a place to sleep with a few other people, and got the sleeping bags out, as they were getting excited about the air-con again. Paul went and checked in for his flight at 5am, and his plane left 2 hours late in the end, at 9am. After he’d left I had a very long and boring wait, where I sat and stared at people and got to know the cleaning ladies as I went back and forth to the toilet (yeees). At one point a scary lady also waved at me and started blowing kisses (no, there actually wasn’t anyone else there), so I made it clear I thought she was bonkers (not that easy) and ignored her. My plane left at half 2 in the afternoon, and it took 4 hours to get to Charlotte. “Where’s Charlotte?” you ask. Well it’s sort of in the south and in the east. North Carolina? Something like that. It took a million hours to get through immigration as they tried to find an excuse to turn the Latinos away, and then I went through, got my fingerprints scanned by an exciting flashing green pad thingy, and had my bags searched (-What’s in these sandwiches? -Tuna -No ham? -Er, no, what’s up with the ham anyway? Ooooooh riiiight). And then a couple of hours later I was in New York! HOW EXCITING, people. I settled down to sleep at La Guardia airport, but then a man came and said it was best to sleep in the other terminal but otherwise would I just like to go out for a drink cause he was leaving now and he knew some good places. This time I slept on the floor with a load of other people (why don’t people think to bring their sleeping bags though??) and didn’t wake up til just before 6, so it was a pretty good night really.

I found a bus into Manhattan with the help of a nice bloke at the bus stop (everyone’s nice in New York though, or at least in Manhattan, maybe all the horrible people are in Brooklyn or something), and got a bus and a train to Penn Station, where I left my bag with a beardy Jewish bloke (everyone’s from all over the place there, it’s brilliant, and practically every other person seemed to be speaking Spanish. Love it.) and sorted my train ticket for that evening, and then STARTED WALKING. My walk took me to Times Square where a bloke sold me a bagel and told me to Have a Nice Day (yes, REALLY!). There were a load of garden chairs out in the middle of the road so I sat there for a bit, and then kept walking, up towards Central Park. Central Park is the best park ever! It’s massive! And it’s got great trees! And ponds! And lawns! It’s NICE. There, a group of Young People jumped out at me and asked if I’d like to “draw something for free” (errrr)… so I did, and then came out of the park at 5th Avenue, crossed over Madison Avenue, and got the subway down to the top if the island to have a look at the Statue of Liberty. I’d actually seen it the night before as we were flying over and ohmygod it’s so cool to fly over Manhattan at night, you recognise all the famous stuff and it’s so beautiful. From Battery Park you can’t see the statue that well so I moved on, along Broadway up to Wall Street… all the older buildings are really nice by the way! The old ones are nice, the skyscrapers are nice, it’s just basically really cool. After Wall Street I headed over to Chinatown, which is kind of like being in China, so they’ve done a pretty good job there. And then I got on a bus and slept all the way to the United Nations building, where there are a lot of flags flapping about, and although the building’s not that amazing, it’s still pretty cool when you think about all that goes on in there (actually I have very little idea, but you can IMAGINE, innit). And then I got my last subway (just trying to get the most out of my Metrocard there) back to the station, and go the train to Newark airport, where an exciting AirTrain takes you to your terminal. I spent my last 3 dollars on the New York Times ($2), and caught up on the whole Honduras saga, and on a Nutri-Grain cereal bar (99 cents), which was the only thing that cost less than a dollar. What did I do with my last cent, then? Um, I put it in a charity box, which I’m sure they greatly appreciated (hmm).

New York to London takes 7 hours, and I was with Virgin Atlantic cause they changed my flight (it was supposed to be Air India). And it was lovely, they gave me special socks and there were about a million films to choose from but I didn’t manage to watch any cause I just fell asleep. They gave us muffins for breakfast as we arrived in Heathrow, and there was Molly, come all the way from Cambridge, waiting for me with a sign that said “Luton Express”, which is about as jolly as it gets! The satnav got us to Luton in plenty of time, and we had sandwiches and managed to fit a lot of words into 2 hours, and then it was time for me to fly away to Bordeaux. I had a window seat and the weather was really clear but I kept falling asleep again, can you believe it, and plus it’s hugely frustrating when you can’t manage to recognise which bit of France you’re flying over, espcially when you spent 3 years of your life besically looking at maps. So the effort must have tired my brain out, but anyway, I landed in Bordeaux at 4 and got a bus with a moody driver to the train station, and funnily enough there was no reggaeton blaring, the bus wasn’t a multicoloured ex-US school bus, there was no cobrador (guy who takes your money – not saying it was free, mind) and therefore no-one to shout DALE DALE!! (go) and whack the side of the bus to tell the driver to get moving, no-one to shout SUAVE!! (slow down) when someone was waiting by the side of the road, no-one to grab your bag and chuck it on the roof, no-one to shove you up the step shouting SUBALE SUBALE! (get on!), and when we stopped at a traffic light no ladies got on selling FRESCO FRESQUITO TENGO TAMARINDO TENGO CACAO TENGO PITAHAYA, QUE LE DOY MI AMOR? or QUESIIIIILLO or TORTILLA CON POLLO TORTILLITA CON POLLIIIITO!! Aaah, it’s just NOT THE SAME!

But then I got on the TGV, fell asleep, and got to Orthez at 9pm. Got home, and went to sleep! After a little chat that is…

So that’s the end for now, just have to play Daddy Yankee for the campers to relieve any Central America withdrawal symptoms, and keep the old pinto tradition going, at least once a week. What have we learned over the last few months then? Central America is cool! Good tortilla action! although they say the tortillas in Guatemala are even better than in Nicaragua, so might have to go and check that out… I’ll keep you posted. Hasta next time xxxxx

Not quite pura vida

So we got on the boat and it rained as we left Granada (aaaah), and then we settled down for 16 hours, luckily there were padded benches you sould lie on and we managed to get one each. We got the fleeces out and everything, cause to be fair, if you’re going to INSTALL air conditioning, you might as well use it, right? Anyway it was a pretty jolly trip, nice to see Ometepe again on the way past, and we got to San Carlos (the city at the edge of the lake at the start of Río San Juan) at 5am. From there we got a litle boat down the river to a little town called El Castillo where the main attraction is… A MYSTERIOUS SHIPWRECK, ON TOP OF A HILL!!! No, just joking, it’s a castle, innit. Actually to be precise it’s a FORT, built by the Spanish back in the day, and a pretty cool one, with a story involving pirates and all sorts. And here is a fascinating fact about the Río San Juan: before the Panama canal, the Americans (the northern ones) used the river as their main route from New York to San Francisco. Down the coast they’d go, up the river, across Ometepe, get off the boat at La Virgen (near Rivas), hop on the old horse and cart to San Juan del Sur, and then get on another boat up to California. There were plans to build a litle canal between La Virgen and San Juan del Sur but then the Panama thing came up and it got forgotten. Quite cool though.

El Castillo is a sweet village, the best thing about it is that there’s no cars cause no roads lead to it. The day after we arrived we went on little horseride through the hills with Alfonso, a cocoa bean farmer who knew pretty much everything you wanted to know, and showed us round his cocoa plantation. It was hugely interesting. He also showed us a place along the Costa Rican border (we’re right in the south of Nicaragua here), where the Ticos let the Nicas through for work without a passport and everyone is generally pretty relaxed, they just pop across the border to go shopping or to see their friends, unlike at Los Chiles where we crossed a few days later: every single Nica had his bag checked in slow motion whereas we just got waved through with a jolly smile. Not complaining though, we’ve been living off the drug money ever since!

After El Castillo we headed back up the river to an even smaller town called Boca de Sábalos, where the lady at the hotel was just confused when we asked if we could stay. We went on a long walk along the path that lead out of the village and saw toucans and parrots and monkeys, and a man with two huge pigs that were lying in a puddle and would get out.

After the excitement of Sábalos we were quite relieved to get back to San Carlos, where we got our passport stamped by a jolly official who asked many precise questions about whether we’d enjoyed our stay in Nicaragua, and told me I NEARLY overstayed my visa (I had 2 days left). Back on a boat, the motor was kind of borken so we chugged our way across the border and up the Río Frío to Los Chiles, where Paul had his first yummy yummy delicious black beans (they’re SO much better than the red ones they have in Nicaragua) and rice, and from where we got a very long bus to San José. Actually the bus wasn’t that long lengthwise but it took something like five hours.

We went back to the same hostel I stayed at That Time (after Corcovado), and dropped off our backpacks and travelled light to THE CARIBBEAN! The bus was so jolly, it was like the Holiday Bus! Full of gringos of course but WHO CARES, we were going to the beach. First you go up through the mountains then down towards Limón (the biggest port on the Atlantic side), where it’s just bananabananabanana everywhere you look, and we got off in Cahuita. Cahuita is a cheesy little town where people offer you “ganjaganja” and have dreadlocks and blast reggae. Good old them! And they cook with coconut milk. Which is good but oh my god it was expensive, so it was just as well that we both got horribly ill and missed about 4 meals. More about that in a second though (oh yes). We stayed at a place called Bobo Shanti, where Bobo was PROPER, I mean proper rastaman, and our room neighbours cooked us dinner (ok, so why I am moaning about the price of food, you ask? well I’m not, really, but it was expensive, ok?!). The time they didn’t cook us dinner we rather randomly went for Colombian arepas (another variation on the stuffed tortilla theme), where the owner was a POLITICAL REFUGEE and spent the meal telling us all sorts of crazy tales in a conspiratorial whisper, whilst repeatedly going to the door to check no-one was listening in.

Cahuita is right next to Cahuita National Park, which is all forest and beach and coral reefs you can just wade up to and look down at. We went early in the morning and walked through the forest bit, and saw loads of stuff! Apart from the usual monkeys, Paul also spotted a sloth, about 2 metres away from us on a branch, so we stared at it for ages while the mosquitoes devoured our legs (we reckon they had some kind of arrangement). Other excitement involved Paul’s “er, there’s something swimming towards you… and it’s got a fin”, while I was staring down at the coral and YES it was a shark! Although the ranger later told us they were harmless, gutted. And also an evil monkey came and stole our bread rolls, right near the sign that said “don’t feed the monkeys”. Rude. The beach was obviously really nice, white sand in the park, back sand on the other side of the village, the sea was warm… can’t go wrong with the Caribean, really, I suppose.

So that was all lovely. And then we went a bit further south, to Punta Uva, where the beach was even more beautiful and Paul got coconuts down from a tree by throwing a spear at them (well it worked), and then we borrowed a machete to open them up (harder than it looks), and then I got a horrible freaky fever and Other Unpleasant Things and spent the entire next day in bed, and Paul got some kind of food poisoning and came and joined me, which was nice of him. And we were going to stay there for another day but then we thought “maybe not”, so I gulped down some Imodium and we got on a bus back to San José. That was yesterday. And since then we’ve done very little, but we did meet up with Catherine, who’s flying out the day after us and staying at the same hostel, so that’s LOVELY.

And this is our last day in Costa Rica. Tonight we’re going to sleep at the airport cause Paul has to be there at 4am for his flight, and I fly out later, in the afternoon. Which means that this morning I had my last shower until Wednesday, when I get back! Yay! Don’t worry though, I’ve got wipes…

So this is it, and it’s all very odd, because the whole “OOOH could it be swime flu?!” moment in Punta Uva basically made us just want to go home and eat tuna sandwiches and OHMYGOD I went off beans and rice! Can’t believe it. Aah well, you have to learn to read the signs I suppose, and when it’s time to go it’s time to go, so now I will go back to the hostel and burn my smelly sandals, and when I get back I’ll write about what happened in New York, so DON’T ASK before I put the message up!

Adios, people…..

Por la Panamericana…

The end of one holiday, the other one about to begin (hard life)… aah but it IS though cause we were so gutted to leave El Salvador, what a great place. So here we are back in Granada, the only place in Central America that seems to have realised it’s rainy season, and therefore is acting accordingly. But here is what happened after we left Juayúa.

So the next morning we got on a bus to Sonsonate, and then, after a long wait opposite a man who kept reciting poetry at us, we got another bumpy bus to the Barra de Santiago, a sticky-out strip of sand on the coast near Guatemala. The whole peninsula is a little village, with a mangrovey laguna on one side, and the ocean on the other. The hostel was empty save for us and a couple of paranoid Danes, who asked us a million questions, and I’m afraid I HAD to tell them about the mugging, I think they’d have been disappointed otherwise. Anyway they left the day after we arrived, so then we had the place to ourselves. So on Tuesday we went on a little boat trip through the mangrove with a geezer guide called Julio, who made us take part in the paddling and crab-catching (for his lunch). It was very fun and peaceful, and there were loads of cool herons flying about. Afterwards he invited us back to his house for a coconut (everyone on the peninsula has a garden full of coconut trees), and then took us to his friend’s restaurant (although the restaurant next door was also run by a friend of his… everyone knows each other there), where they fried us some lovely fish, and then we walked back along the beach, in and out the sea, which was crazily warm by the way… all very nice really. The next morning we got up early and built a sandcastle (important), then got the bus back to Sonsonate, and had a chat with the craziest lady ever, who explained to me how to cross the Mexican border illegally (pretty sure that’ll come in useful soon).

And then it was on to San Salvador! Carolina had explained more or less how to get to her house, and we got off at the right stop but then got confused cause it was all very confusing, so luckily four policemen in a pickup stopped and offered to give us a lift there (lovely people! all of them!). We had a very very jolly time in San Salvador, thanks to Carolina who put us up in her reeeeaaally nice hotel, Arbol de Fuego (the nicest hotel we’ve every stayed in, people, and they do the best breakfasts ever), and acted as our tour guide for a few days. That night we went to her friend’s house to watch El Salvador vs Honduras (they lost this time but no-one cared), and then the next day me and Paul checked out the cheeseful botanical gardens down the road from her house, and then a cool anthropological museum. We hadn’t been to a museum for AGES, so we made up for it that week by going to about 4. That afternoon Carolina took us to see the ruins at Joya de Cerén, where a Mayan village was buried when the volcano erupted (something that happens a lot over there, along with multiple earthquakes), and it was really well preserved because of the ashes, AND it’s the ONLY normal Mayan village ANYWHERE. So there you go, it’s cool. I’ll tell you more if you ask me, cause now I know stuff. And then that evening the revolution took place. Not only did we have the best pupusas possibly EVER, but Carolina introduced us to Special Mayan Hot Chocolate and ohmygod it’s the most amazing thing ever, we’re bringing some back so just cross your fingers so my bag doesn’t get lost in the billion transfers involved in my flight back.

The next day we went into the town centre and saw the world’s coolest church (inside it looks like a nightclub), but there’s no photos cause you don’t really take cameras and stuff into San Salvador. But believe me, it was cool, it’s called the Rosario, there’s probably some photos on Google. We walked back via Central America’s biggest shopping centre (it was big), and a museum with stuff about the civil war (you can ask me about that too, now). And then the next day we went to a little town about an hour from San Salvador (Suchitoto), with Carolina and her friend Roxanna, of the colour-coordinated nail polish, handbag and eye shadow. They took us to a hostel with a crazy view over the lake, and then they went back home, after showing us round a bit, and me and Paul stayed for two nights. It’s such a lovely town! Really quiet but also jolly in the evening cause everyone just goes and hangs out on the square. The next morning we walked out to this cool waterfall with weird rocks (best to look at the photo), and on the way back we got stopped by a freaky evangelical guy who made us stop and say a prayer and Take Jesus Into Our Hearts (at least that’s done now). That night we ran into the Australians we’d met in Juayúa (I don’t think I told you about them), so we went for a drink with them and introduced them to the hot chocolate.

And then the next day we got back on the Panamerican Highway and headed back to Honduras, where we stayed the night in Choluteca again, and then moved onto Estelí (where I’d been with Molly), cause we couldn’t be bothered to go any further, and then today we came back to Granada via Masaya, where we stopped to get the last few souvenirs we really NEEDED. So here we are, back at Libertad, Molly and Catherine are already gone but they’d left us some cajetas (good old them). And tomorrow we’re going for a 16-hour boat trip across the Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) to San Carlos, where we’re going to spend a few days bobbing up and down the Río San Juan, and then we’ll cross over to Costa Rica, and head for the Caribbean coast for the last few days. The LAST FEW DAYS. Can’t believe it. But anyway, this week’s lesson is: El Salvador is brilliant, and you can’t have too many pupusas. And beating Mexico at football is the single most important thing EVER.

Thanks for the news as always. Not long to go now til you can give your fingers a rest. I’ll hopefully write again from Costa Rica. More photos in More Photos! Salú!! xxxxxxx

El Salvador 2-1 Mexico

We’re in El Salvador! This is great. Here’s how we got here.

So on Tuesday morning we got the bus to the border, where no-one particularly wanted to see our passports, and refused to give us a stamp even though we asked VERY nicely. The thing is that Nicaragua, Honduras, El Salvador and Guatemala have their own little Schengen thing going on, so you can just go from one country to the other more or less freely (leaving a few dollars with the officials here and there). Over the bridge we went, and there we were in Honduras. One more bus ride up the road, and then we stopped for the night in a town called Choluteca. Every single person we met in Honduras was lovely, the hotel had a large number of large hammocks, and there was beans and rice available from a place around the corner… all was well. The next morning we got back on the bus, this time to El Amatillo, the border with El Salvador. The countryside got hillier and hillier, and in El Salvador it was very hilly indeed, which made for excitingly scenic bus rides. This was a good thing, as that day we got 5 different buses, and therefore heard the same 5 reggaeton-reguetón ANTHEMS (they really are, though) 5 times or possibly more. I have somehow grown to love reggaeton but unfortunately Paul hasn’t reached that stage yet, poor guy.

Our first stop in El Salvador was a town called San Vicente, which was at the base of a volcano (most towns seem to be), and also had a church called the Pilar… good old Pilar lady, she obviously dragged her pillar around all over the place, building churches as she went. I was gasping for a pupusa, but could we find a pupusería in the whole town?? AARRGH!! Still, they had pinto, so that was something. We were only there for a night anyway, and then it was on to Santa Ana, in the west. This part of the country is full of volcanoes (even more so than the east), and is just lovely lovely lovely and pretty and lovely. It’s all green! And relatively cool! We got goosebumps at one point! Santa Ana is the second biggest city after San Salvador but we didn’t see much of it cause we stayed right next to the bus station and market, and what more do you need, really? We were feeling a bit lazy as you can see. The day we arrived we went off to a town called Chalchuapa to check out the Mayan ruins of Tazumal (pyramid!!), and the second we got there we were surrounded by a group of girls on a school trip, who were desperate to know what our favourite band was (Paul went with Aventura and they all squealed delightedly), and asked us to sing Tokio Hotel to them… we tried to explain that our German singing skills maybe weren’t all they were hoping, but they wouldn’t give up so in the end we just had to run away and hide up the top of the pyramid.

The next day we went to walk up another volcano, this one was called Izalco, and last erupted in 1967 (I think). It was similar to Cerro Negro but more rocky, and you could go down inside the crater and wander about, and stand in big clouds of steam that were spurting out all over the place. It also had a cool story – on the volano opposite (Cerro Verde), there was an abandoned hotel that had been built in the fifties when Izalco was erupting every 20 minutes or so. It has a huge panoramic restaurant overlooking the crater, but then one year before it was finished the eruptions stopped and then started up again a few years later but from another crater, hidden from view. And then, just to completely finish it off, there was an earthquake and the hotel had to be closed for safety reasons. Gutted! Cause it would have been amazing, to sit in the restaurant and just see the lava spurting out every few minutes. Even now that it’s “asleep”, the views from Cerro Verde are still amazing. Anyway it was a bit of a trek, but the guide (who was just a local policeman) was a complete geezer, and told us a load of interesting stuff.

That evening we had some incredible pupusas, at the comedor we’d been to the night before, which had the added attraction of a double parakeet (actually just 2 parakeets but they were very very similar).

On Saturday we were feeling active so we got a bus that was heading along the Ruta de las Flores (pretty!), and stopped in a town where we had read there was an amazing waterfall. However when we got there no-one in the village had heard of it so we got back on the bus and stopped again in Apaneca, the highest village in the country, where we dropped our bag off at a pupusería and set off to walk to a crater lake called Laguna Verde, not realising it was 5km away. Luckily we managed to get a lift there AND back (I say luckily cause our legs, well mine especially, definitely hadn’t recovered from Izalco). The Laguna was very pretty (obviously), and they have this crazy hedge system all over the mountains, where they plant trees in criss-cross pattens to protect the coffee plants from the wind. And it looks really cool! We went back to the pupusería for lunch, where the pupusas only had a TINY bit of pork in them (I had fish instead), and then got a bus to Juayúa, where we checked into a hotel called the Mirador, and I have no idea if anyone reading this is planning on going there but oh my god the people are so nice, and I should mention at this point that everyone in the entire country is ridiculously nice, I know I say that a lot but there I think the Salvadoreans might actually beat everyone else. There aren’t many tourists here either, and it’s just GREAT.

In Juayúa there is a food festival every weekend (yes! it just gets better), and there are these ridiculous waterfalls nearby in the world’s deepest valley (possibly), where you can swim in a pool that just overlooks trees and nothingness, and it’s MENTAL. But freezing. Last night El Salvador were playing Mexico in the World Cup qualifiers and there were 2 big screens set up in town (and it’s only a small town) – just as well actually, as one of them had to be taken down when it started to CHUCK it down (rainy season! rainy season!) and get this: El Salvador WON! 2-1!! Craziness ensued, and then everyone went to bed. YAY! And then today we wandered around town eating stuff, and went to see this random little coffee museum up in the mountains, where there was very little coffee-related information, but they had an interesting collection of typewriters.

And now it’s pupusa time again, so I shall have to leave you. Tomorrow we’re off to the beach for a couple of days, then heading up to San Salvador to see Carolina (from the Expo), who KNOWS where the best pupusas are…

I’ll write again when we get back to Nicaragua! Until then enjoy June, thanks for the news! Bye for now xxxxx

If you can’t have big scoops you might as well just chuck yourself off a volcano

Well here we are in León, the other ex-capital of the country. Our last night in Granada was a memorable one… it started with Wolverine at the cinema ay 6:45 WITH air-conditioning, continued at Papas Lady’s where we had our final banana leaf takeaway, and then we took the party (read: chocolate cake) to Big Scoop Lady, where me and Paul had 3 scoops (in case you’re interested, my combination of choice was chocolate-dragonfruit-chocolate orange. The whole family got cake, as well as some other random customers, and we were told we were welcome to stay in their spare room when we came back, hehe!! So jolly. Then it was back to Libertad where Molly and Catherine had prepared the most random going-away hamper ever, which involved a lot of Zeta (the rum lemonade stuff), as well as yeast (for pizza), bean paste and guava jam (for the road), and marshmallow lollies (cause they just wanted to try them).

The next morning they all left for Masaya and we got a bus to Managua and then another one to León. Our hostel here is very cool and has a free pancake breakfast, which is possibly the most important thing, as well as free internet, hence the early blog. Yesterday was very very fun. We went on a hike with Quetzaltrekkers (this cheesy organisation where all the guides are volunteers and the money you pay goes to a local charity) up Cerro Negro, a shiny new volcano that last erupted in 1999. The day started with breakfast at 4:15, with our 2 mini-guides (they were both 19), and the 3 other girls (from the US and Canada), who were also on the hike. Then off we went to get the bus, and we started walking at half 6. The beginning is fairly normal, through some fields and stuff, and then suddenly you get to the “black desert” which is amazing, just black sand and the volcano in the background. As we came round the volcano we ran into a couple of rangers who let us hold their baby boa, and then showed us the ranger station where they breed iguanas to sell on the market (yeeess…).  After that little detour through randomness, we started the climb. It wasn’t hugely strenuous, which was nice, and as you come round the other side the crater comes into view, with smoke everywhere, very exciting. We went down to check out the fumaroles and generally inhale as much sulfur as possibly, then you walk along the edge up to the active crater. No bubbling lava, but it’s still a nice big hole. Colourful, too, so that was jolly, and the ground almost melts your trainers. And then the best bit: you just run right down the side of the volcano through the sand, it really is very very funny. By the time you get to the bottom you’re completely covered in black dust and your shoes are as full or stones as they have ever been.

So that was great! When we got back we did the obligatory church run round León (including the “Nuestra Señora del Pilar de Zaragoza”), which made us feel at home. And then today we went to León Viejo (the original town of León that was abandoned in 1610 following an earthquake, which happened after the eruption of Volcán Momotombo (the biggest volcano in the huge chain of volcanoes that runs by León). It was pretty cool, but the ruins have only been partially excavated so far. After that we attempted to walk to a nearby laguna but didn’t make it cause we got confused, and then the thing that has been waiting to happen for months finally happened: we got on the wrong bus. We did manage to get back to León after a crazy bus-swap in the middle of the road, just an hour-long detour in the end.

An now we must decide where on earth we’re going tomorrow. We are definitely leaving Nicaragua, but we don’t know if we’re going straight to El Salvador or spending a couple of days in Honduras (seeing as it IS on the way). So I’ll let know what we ended up doing when we next find a cool pancake-internet hostel, but until then have a good week and hasta lueguito! xxxxx

Pastel/tarta/queque

The last week… and it was mainly cakeful. There were 2 cakes at Tuesday’s meeting (one made by Paul, one made by Molly and Catherine)… they were actually competing cakes, and annoyingly most people seemed to prefer Molly and Catherine’s… theirs was banana and ours was pineapple… ours was definitely better by the way, stupid people. This was followed by a cake that Paul took in to school for his kids on Thursday. On that same day there was cake at Juan Diego, brought in by the teachers to say thank you to Nick, another volunteer who’s been there for 6 months. And then there’s our going away chocolate cake that we won’t actually be eating until this evening. Oh and there’s been the odd trip to Cake Lady of course. So yes, good week! The only thing that’s a bit of a shame it that half my lessons were cancelled, but that probably makes it more exciting for the kids, they’ll just think I mysteriously vanished. The ones I did get to say goodbye to looked suitably crestfallen though, which I appreciated. I will miss them too, even the evil ones.

On Thursday we finally managed to work out where we were going tomorrow (Saturday), after a lot of attempted plan-making. So we think we’re going to León, and then straight up to El Salvador. And then back down here to pick our bags up, before going down to Costa Rica for the last week or so. We’ll see how that evolves…

And today there was a party at José de la Cruz Mena for Mother’s day so me and Eric went along and got fed loads of tortillas and watch the mums playing dancing musical chairs to win a toaster (nice toaster as well). And then it was time to say goodbye, which is what we’ve mostly been doing today (apart from eating cake)… adios to the kids, to the teachers, adios to Aurelia (Big Scoop Lady), adios to Adolfo the fruit and veg man, to Guillermo and Carla in the La Esperanza office, to the other volunteers… aaah dear.

Can’t believe how quickly these two months have gone… it’s all just been a blur of papas, big scoops, cake, lagunas, lakes (yes there’s a difference), volcanoes, reggaeton, oh and crazy kids, flashcard-making, fruit-blending, a bit of English teaching… It has been ridiculously fun, and I could easily stay longer, especially at José de la Cruz Mena (my favourite school), where everyone is so lovely. Nicaragua is great, everyone! I hope I managed to convey that through this blog over the last nine weeks. Paul has also enjoyed himself but is eager to get back on the road, and I am also looking forward to El Salvador, the land of pupusas.

So off I go, here are a few (ok, quite a lot, and there are even more in “More Photos”) photos of my students, taken this week. I hope everyone is ok, here the rainy season has set in, there are storms almost every night but it’s still ridiculously hot. Anyway, we’ll write again when we can! Might not be for a couple of weeks, but we’ll see what happens. Tomorrow is actual Mother’s Day, a huge thing here, so feliz día mummy!! Hope the campers are good. Lots of love xxxxx

Teachers Have Class

Hello! Well Volcán Masaya was Really Cool. We got there quite late cause we forgot how slow the Granada-Masaya bus was (it’s only about 20km but takes an hour), so when we arrived we had to get a ride to the top. One of the rangers took us, and pointed out thrilling stuff on the way, like a big rock that had been spat out during the volcano’s last eruption, and that they call “The Big Stone Rock”. The drive up was jolly, the road goes right through the middle of the lava flow. At the top, there are 2 main craters, an extinct one and an active one. The car park is right on the edge of the active one (they ask you to back in to the space). You can walk all the way round the extinct one, so we did that – from up there you can see Mombacho, Masaya and the Laguna de Masaya. We were the only people there, and on the way round we kept seeing this Sandino-style silhouette right at the top of the crater edge, following us round. Turns out it was one of the rangers, making sure we didn’t fall in or something. He must have picked out his hat for effect, and he’s definitely been practicing the Sandino pose though. Geezer. Before the park closed we climbed up to the cross that overlooks the active crater. It really is quite ridiculous, it’s just this massive smoking hole (a LOT of smoke), and apparently you can see lava in the bottom of it at night. Its really really impressive, one of the coolest things I’ve seen. There are about a million more photos of it in the More Photos bit. When we came back we all went to Papas Lady for dinner (takeaway in a banana leaf), and I finally thought to take a picture, so you could view our gallo-pinto-eating pleasure (ok, they may not look like they’re in the throes of ecstasy, but believe me, they are).

We are down to just two of us on the English team now, me and Eric, but apparently we’re getting a new member next week. It all went pretty well though, Monday’s lessons (at Juan Diego) were cancelled, Tuesday I had to take the Lovely Class (of Angela Morales) on my own cause Eric had to go to Managua, Wednesday was a bit laborious at José de la Cruz Mena, Thursday at Juan Diego was ok, and Friday at José de la Cruz Mena was amusing… we are still teaching food, and in the middle of the first lesson the principal came in with a plate of tortillas for me and Eric! This was very exciting but I thought I’d better save them til after the lesson, so I put them on a chair, and when I went to pick it up again at the end they had been eaten!! It was pretty funny but the teacher was very angry! Oh and no the kids aren’t starving by the way, they’re just EVIL! The rest of the day was good, I have really come to like that school, no other volunteers go there yet, only the English team, and although it’s often a bit mental, all the teachers are lovely. I even got invited to church today by one of them but couldn’t make it unfortunately.

On Monday night I decided to try my hand at cajetas. I grated a whole coconut, got special cane sugar, and checked recipes on the internet. Despite all this they went terribly terribly wrong, I completely destroyed a saucepan, as well as everyone’s teeth when they tried to bite into them. However, when Verónica the cleaning lady came on Tuesday, she tried one and declared them good enough for her children, so she took them all away, which was a great relief. Hopefully her kids have good teeth… they won’t for long mind you. When she came that day I was making tortillas for lunch, and she watched me for a bit, tutted and took over. Hers were definitely better than mine, I’m still convinced it’s a hand shape thing. The house remained pretty dirty, but what’s more important, eh?

Yesterday me and Paul went to Masaya to finish looking round and eat a lot of street food. They have such a lot of yummy stuff there. We had quesillo again (see photo), cheese bread, pineapple bread, cajetas… yum. And then we walked up a big hill to a fort that served as a prison until 1984, where a very cool boy scout gave us an amazing tour and history lesson. And then we went to the market and got the world’s coolest hammock (it had to be done). I am hugely excited about this, especially seeing as Paul’s the one who gets to carry it around cause his bag is less full than mine. All we need now is somewhere to hang it… although it could probably go on the wall really, THAT’S how pretty it is. It really was the best hammock in the market, and I know that cause we walked around the entire place about 50 times.

And then today a huge group of us went to the mugger-free side of Laguna de Apoyo and had a lovely lovely time, I will never get over how lovely that lake is. We also got very sunburnt, even though the sun wasn’t out, which is annoying, but it was worth it. And my pink face goes well with my nice blue t-shirt that I got in the jumble sale last week.

And now there’s only a week to go… Molly and Catherine have decided to stay another week because of “Children’s Week”, a succession of sports days organised by the volunteers, but we must press on to… somewhere, haven’t quite decided where yet. All I know is we need to have a lot of ice cream this week, because Big Scoop Lady has more flavours in. Also, Big Scoop Lady’s father (who is now our special friend cause his cousin lives in Toulouse), showed us his stash of Armagnac the other day, and was overjoyed when we told him he could open it and it wouldn’t spoil (he was saving it cause he just thought it was wine). Um, someone might want to confirm that though, we’ll be going back every day this week so we can let him know if that’s not right. Thanks.

Right, well we’re going to Tortilla Lady for tea (another of Granada’s legendary ladies), so I leave you with a photo taken from the top of Volcán Masaya and I wish you a good week, thanks for all the news again! If anyone has any suggestions as to where we should go one we leave here (apart from El Salvador, we’re going there anyway)  I’ll be happy to hear them! Adiooos… xxxxxx