Travels through Nicaragua

I am happy to report that in the past week I have made a full recovery! I spent a night in Granada. Granada is a lovely town, more touristy than Leon, and so its a bit more spruced up. Its a much more pleasant city to walk about. Thankfully there is more of a breeze than Leon. Granada is right on lake Nicaragua and surrounded by volcanos so there are nicer views as well. I ran into some people who had been at Surfing Turtle. Its so nice to meet the same people randomly on your travels. I think its inevitable here because all the backpackers are roughly following the same 'gringo trail' but it still gives you the feeling that the world is not such a big scary place after all. Not that I have ever been really scared on my travels, i have had such a easy time of it.

The following night (tuesday) I spent at a hostel in the trees just outside of Granada. I thought it was going to be cooler actually, it was a bit disappointing. But understandably it was not at its operational prime, because when I got there I learned that the owner is in a nicaraguan prison! He was driving his truck and hit some drunk man on a motorcycle. Or so the story goes according to his 70 year old mother and aunt who are now running the hostel in the middle of the Nicaraguan jungle. I am very impressed by them, to come down from Texas and run this hostel in the trees for an unknown length of time while their son is in jail. Ugh I don't want to imagine what a Nicaraguan prison is like.

Early in the morning yesterday I set out for San Juan del Sur, a surf town in the south of Nicaragua. I arrived by 930 am and got organized to get a surfing lesson. I am very excited to say that I can stand up!! I definitely need more practice but it was such a rush to be standing on moving water! I was watching the surfers and I couldn't really understand the appeal of it. They spend 10-15 minutes paddling around and waiting for a good wave and then if they get it they only have 5 or 10 seconds riding it and then they crash. Its a lot of work for little reward I think. But when I did actually stand up for a few seconds it felt so great that I kind of understand. The ocean is pretty brutal though, the same big waves that they want to catch coming in they somehow have to paddle through going out.

I am in a race against my visa expiring so I am moving on today again. I like San Juan, it would be nice to stay another day or two. But its also a big party town and I am not feeling like partying too much. I am going to go to another isolated beach hostel where my friend fro Utila is volunteering. It looks like a way nicer place than Surfing Turtle. I will spend 2 or 3 days there, then go to isla Ometepe, a volcanic island in Lake Nicaragua, then leave Nicaragua for Costa Rica!

On the move again

With a heavy heart (or, rather, a heavy gut) i decided to leave Surfing Turtle Lodge. After over a week of feeling shitty I decided I needed to take some action. Something about that place (or some combination of things) was making me ill. I took a night off a couple of days ago and came to Leon to sleep in an air-conditioned room. Wow. I was overwhelmed by the luxury of it. A double bed, a room and bathroom to myself, and AC!!! Wow!!! I arrived around 4 and fell asleep almost immediately. I woke up hungry around 730 and wandered down the street for a light dinner of yogurt and fruit. I forgot how much I love dairy. The next day I felt so much better that I decided not to go to the doctor after all. I went back to the lodge in the afternoon, prepared to leave for good. I talked to the manager and he was disappointed of course, but I told hi about how I had been sick for so long and I just needed to get away to get better. And since I only had another week left I was just going to leave for good. He understood. I worked my last shift, once again in pain, and it felt like an eternity. I was so ready to get out of there. The next day I woke up normally and started packing. Then as I prepared to leave I noticed the manager and a few other people were not around. Apparently they had gone fishing. So i sat around the whole day doing waiting for them to come back so I could say goodbye. Finally they came back and we had a tearful parting (not) and i got in my charriot and disappeared into the jungle. Hasta la vista baby!! If you can't tell, I am quite happy to be out of there. Don't get me wrong, it was a nice place, and the people were great, but something was off. I would have liked it as a visitor for a few days, but working there wasn't great for me. The nothingness, the food, the drinking... well at least it has shown me that I can't live that kind of life, as appealing as it is from the outside. Cheers to the people who thrive like that. They have had some long-term voluteers. I don't know how they do it.

Tomorrow I continue my journey! Onward to Granada! 

Island hangs

I've been here at Surfing Turtle for 10 days now. Hard to believe. On one hand I feel like the time has flown by, but on the other hand the days here feel long. I am working one 8 hour bar shift every day and other than that I am just hanging out. I have neither surfed nor seen any turtles, two things I was realy looking forward to. The waves have not been great for surfing, and turtle season is in the fall and early winter. But besides that disappointment, I am really enjoying it here. Its not a lifestsyle I could maintain forever, but for a month it is really quite pleasant.

I am loving getting to know new people every day, and I am practicing being an extrovert. I think traveling alone and working in hostels has made me a lot better at meeting people. I was a little nervous about that aspect of traveling, and in the first couple hostels I was a bit shy, but now its really easy. Working behind the bar is an advantage too because people are approaching me to order drinks, and I have to learn names because everything is on a tab system. And in this place there is really not much to do besides getting to know people. A couple more familiar faces have been coming through, and thats been a lot of fun.

I have been a little homesick here though. I have just over one month left in my trip and then I will be home! I am homesick because there are so many Canadians coming through the hostel. Probably more than any other country. Canadians, then Aussies and Brits. I have met people from all over Canada, from Victoria to Newfoundland. Not too many from the GTA, but I did meet one guy from London, Ont! Unfortunately he had his wallet and passport stolen on his way here, so he had to leave for the capital right away to sort that out.

One of the daily fixtures is a serious volleyball tournament. The losers get 'iced'. That means that later in the evening they have to get on top of the bar and chug a smirnoff ice. I was on the losing team three days in a row, but luckily my streak of bad luck ended yesterday. I am very bad at volleyball. I don't remember being this bad in high school. But that was the last time I played. I guess with 2 more weeks here I will get better.

In the afternoons there really is not much going on because it is the hotest time of the day. People just sit around the lodge or lounge in the hammocks. I try to go swimming but the sand, which is nearly black, gets so hot that you have to sprint from the path to the ocean. The waves are really strong but the water is quite shallow so its not scary. In the evenings, in addition to the ice-ing of the losers, we always have some activity. We have had a dance contest, a talent show, various drinking games, and a movie night.

I am a lot happier here than i was when I first arrived. This is a special place and I am so fortunate to be here.

Somewhere on a deserted island in Nicaragua...

I have been at Surfing Turtle Lodge for 3 days now. Its a very chill spot. Literally on a deserted island beach that you have to get to by boat and horse carriage. Really, its only half an hour from Leon, but it feels a world away from anything.

I came here with the intention of teaching yoga, but the construction of the yoga platform is a bit behind, so I have just been helping out on the bar along with the other volunteers. Most nights there are about 20 or so guests, and some people have stayed here several weeks, just hanging out, not doing much. Thats pretty much how it goes here. People hang out all day, and then when night falls people start drinking. Right now I am having a hard time adjusting to the lifestyle, but I try to run and do yoga in order to keep a little bit more active. There are things to do.There are surf lessons, you can go horseback riding, and every evening there is a big game of volleyball. I havent had a surf lesson yet but hopefully tomorrow. 

But I haven't written in a while so I am going to backtrack. I left Honduras at 4 am, crossing first into Guatemala, then El Salvador. I arrived in El Tunco, a surf town in El Salvador around 9:30. I met a german guy in Copan who had previously been in El Tunco and he convinced me to stop there in order to break up the trip to Leon. Not much in the town besides surf shops and bars, but this was my first time on the Pacific so a big event in my travels. The beach was black sand, which I have never seen before. Very hot in the middle of the day. I watched the surfers for a few hours and went swimming but the waves were a bit too strong to really swim. 

The best thing about being in El Salvador was that I got to eat pupusas in the country that invented them. I love pupusas, they are my favorite Central American street food. They are made by forming a ball of dough and then stuffing the ball with cheese and beans and fillings, and then squishing it out flat into a slightly thicker than usual tortilla. They are served with a spicy sauerkraut called curtido. So good. 

In Honduras the most common street food was Baleadas. A baleada is a a large tortilla made from wheat folded in half and filled with a small portion of beans, meat, egg, and veggies. I ate baleadas nearly every day in Utila at a spot called Mama Rosa's. Some friends and I began using baleadas as our price comparison for everything else on the island. Baleadas always won. Mama Rosa also made pastelitos which were like empanadas for 50 cents. Almost everywhere in Central America you can get a filling meal for under $3. Not necessarily a healthy one, but it does the trick. The Main Street food in Guatemala was tamales which are banana leaves filled with a mixture of maize dough, cheese, beans, and other things. Seeing a pattern here? Every country has had their variation on the same 3 or 4 ingredients. Not sure what the street food is here in Nicaragua because when I got to the hostel after  hours of driving I didn't feel like exploring and instead had the most amazing pizza I have had in the past few months in the hostel restaurant. 

I have a feeling I won't have too much to write about while I am here at Surfing Turtle Lodge, so I am going to save that for the next post at least.