Nicaragua Continued

Isla Omatepe: The double volcano island.

The Crazy dog Gandalf

San Juan Del Sur

Cool hostal we stayed at in San Juan Del Sur called Pancha mama

Crazy Storms in San Juan

This crazy monket ran up and just sat on Aarons lap.

One of our final days in San Juan Del Sur we spent out fishing which was significantly cheaper than most places in the world. It was $16 per person and they gave you a free drink. At least everyone on our boat caught one fish, which was nothing to exciting just big bonitos. The usual fish you try not to catch at home because that’s how many of them they are. But it was still fun. I later cleaned it and ate it with rice and coconut milk. The following day we had huge thunderstorms with what appeared to be gallons plummeting from the sky.

Two days later we went out to Isla Omatepe and walked around the dirty little town of Mayagalpa. There was not too much happening in this town, just tiny casinos on each corner and kids roaming the streets riding bikes and doing what kids do. It definitely seemed like the place with the most of beggars so far, and not your standard “dame una Cordoba” , but old drunk men asking for money or to buy them a café after fallowing you around for quite some time. Being a Saturday, we attempted to figure out how to get to the other side of the island on a Sunday which seemed virtually impossible. So the following day we decided to just get on the morning boat and take it back to San Jorge and go to Granada instead. The only real enjoyable part of Omatepe was the random guy on the street who was selling tamales for only 20 Cordoba’s each(the equivalent to $1 and they were huge.

We arrived in Granada on May 2^nd and stayed at a place called The Oasis. It had tall bunk beds and a small pool but was great because Granada was HOT, like most Central American places we have encountered. We even saw a few people who appeared to be on the Northern Backpacker rout as we were. We ran into a group of 4 Israeli guys that we happened see 4 different times throught out trip. The first being our first hostel in Panama City, then the San Blas Islands, San Juan Del Sur, and finally In Granada. Also staying at the Oasis were 2 Swedish girls which we saw in San Juan as well, however we didn’t share a very strong bond because she stole my tostada chips. WHAT A BIOTCH! I really didn’t care but they were pretty anti social as it is.

The following day I played in a poker tournament at an Irish bar which was $100 cords buyin ($5 US) and re-buys for the first hour. Prior to the tournament they asked me my age and said, “were going to need to see and ID and just laughed”. Not necessarily because I looked young but because almost all of the other people were at least 45. They did not really care about my age but just wanted to make me think and make fun. I was not getting the cards I had hoped for but managed to make my way to the final 5/12 people and with re-buys which was a disappointment because the top 4 were paid.

The next day we walked through the Granada market which consisted of tons of vendors selling tons of different foods, and of course the makings for Gia pinto (the traditional Nicaraguan main dish just beans and rice) and tons of fruits and veg. We later made out way over to the Central Park and slurped down tons of fresh juice, my new favorite was tamarindo.

After a few days of hanging out we went to the market and gathered some portable foods such as pastas veg, mini pineapples and tortillas and made our way to The Monkey Hut, a place on Laguna de apoya which is a lake in the crated of a volcano 30 minutes outside of Granada. We stayed in the triple bunked dorms for 5 nights and did almost nothing except hang out at the lake, kayaking, swimming, laying and jumping off the float, reading, and other lazy things.

The second day we took the buss to Masaya which had lots of bigger markets. I purchased 2 really big paintings from a few artists. They took them off the canvases and rolled them up nicely so they will fit in my already over weight pack. We hung out for the next 2 days and then on Monday we took a overnight trip into Granada. Again we stayed at the Oasis where I where I was able to get caught up on my college info and future plans. That night I also went to Kellies bar and I got in on the game of cards. I ended up taking 2^nd and $900 Cordoba’s ($45 US). The next day we headed back out to the monkey hut and enjoyed the lazy days and cooler weather.

Today Thursday, May 13 we went back into Granada Aaron wanted to watch the hockey game and I also didn’t mind playing a game of cards. I got knocked out with a full house Q’s and 9’s with a higher full house. That sucked, but it was still fun. Guess what we are doing tomorrow? ………… Ya, were heading back out to the monkey hut for a few days! And then who knows where we will be heading after that.

18 days to go!

The only reason why I am really excited is because I have been out of the country for 7 of the 12 months. It will be nice to go home for a bit.

Boca, Nicaragua, and Costa Rica week 5ish

The Sand Castel I made that slowey was eaten by the Tide

Isla Bastimentos

Im the other half of the palm tree.

The ray in about 1 foot of water.

Bocas del drago aka the star fish beach

After we left the cool little hut over the water on Isla Bastimentos we headed back over to Isla Colon. We stayed there for about 2 more nights and didn’t do all that much except play poker which did not work out to well for either of us. I don’t think I saw more than 20 face cards for the night and once I actually got a hand I got screwed over. Oh well it was not my night. Prior to playing poker we stopped off at a casino where we played roulette and also didn’t win. After losing about $45 I total for the night I figured that would be the last time going to one of those casinos on our trip and that we needed to get right to Nicaragua and basically skip Costa Rica. We really had planned to do that from the beginning. Im sure we will spend a week or 2 in Costa Rica on the way down but its really expensive.

Our travel day consisted of a boat to the mainland a walk to the a bus stop. That bus lasted approximately 1 hour which drove through millions of banana plantations for many miles. We eventually reached the border which was very simple nothing more than a scan of the pass port and a big ‘slap of the new stamp’ After waiting for 3 hours for our bus on the other side of the bridge 6.5 hours later we arrived in San Jose

We stayed in San Jose at a pretty nice place called Hostel Toruma which overlooked lots of the city. We stayed there for 2-3 nights and walked around the city. There was not to much to see but we managed to make it somewhat interesting. I also bought a machete at one of the artist markets its fairly mini but cool! After becoming over the city we took one of the nicer busses for $21 called the Tika buss. The buss took approximately 5.5 hours and made a 1.5 hour border stop. Then we had to take a taxi from rivas all the way to our final destination San Juan Del Sur Nicaragua.

San Juan Del Sur: After the many long travel days we have just been hanging out, lots of beach visits and movies and making final college decisions, which have been tough. I even have had the chance to run here but it has been damn!!!!!!!!!!!!HOT. But it has rained a few nights which has kept the evening cool. We have been watching lots of the hokey games just because I really have nothing going on. The little town has definitely been the best so far this trip. Its surrounded by mountains and has a 1 mile stretch of sand out front. We currently are staying at Mama Panch the coolest hostel for only $7 US a night. Food in the town is not the cheapest but just eat a jar of nutela and you will star right on that budget. Just kidding but that’s what I did.

We will be here for a night or 2 more, then we will probably head off to Isla Omatepe.

I soon will post more information about yesterdays fishing trip and more pictures of San Juan del sur.

Adventures in the jungle & Bocas Del Toro

This really has been one lazy week. After leaving bouquet we took a bus to a hostel in the middle of the jungle; it was called The Lost and Found Lodge or something like that. The hostel was run by 8 volunteers from all over the world (mainly Canadians and Europeans) who just needed a place to stop off and work for free for a bit. They do receive significant discounts on tours and stuff, and a free cool place to stay. It did seem like a very chill and like a fun place for them to stay.

One of my favorite parts of the hostel was the huge beds in the dorm rooms. Generally in hostels there are rows of bunks and I always choose the top for some reason but these beds were extra cool, queen size bunks with not 2 beds but 3! So yes I had to climb about 16 feet just to get some sleep! It was cool. The hostel also had a foosball table and each night they held foosball tournaments and there were about 5 different rounds until there was a winning team. Each losing team had to buy a beer for the winners and yes I was in debt after a while. Probably because beer is not my forte and I didn’t have much of a modivation. Although my foosballing put me in debt, we did happen to play poker!! I took 2^nd/6 the first night which was fun and I should have won but Aaron kept going all in every hand and it was annoying me so I just settled for 2^nd and quit because it was 6am oops! The 3^rd night we played again and I was catching no cards what so ever but won enough tiny pots to get me in 2^nd again but the British guy was actually flying to Vegas in a few and told me to just keep his winning and being a stingy backpacker I was not going to turn down that offer. Plus the dude is traveling on the GBP, I wish I was. And once he said im going to win the $15 in a hand I was like alright what evvvsssss. So I won about $21 off my expenses. The hostal was great had a kitchen we could use and we could also buy food and stuff.

Activities: The 2^nd day we did the hostel’s treasure hunt which sounds much more exciting than the crappy explanation I just typed. Me and Aaron went on this jungle trek with a Swedish girl and Canadian guy who was pretty cool. So the entire trek took about 5hrs and consisted of a steep incline for the first hour walking through the middle of a jungle solving clues. Then we walked flat for a bit having to hop over huge tree roots and to jump fallen trees and all kinds of crazy stuff. Finally after the 2^nd hour we began to descend down the steep mountain. Eventually we hit a river and we had to cross several times to locate the clues on the other side of the bank. Then we had to cross back climb a steep hill and then re cross the river and later we arrived in a cave. I can’t even remember how many times the 3 of us had fallen down the trail. Aaron however managed to stay on his feet for the entire treck. The cave that we had to go to was kind of creepy and up until a few months ago a lady had lived there. She even observed a jaguar eating a sloth. Anyways hours later we arrived back at the hostel and the last clue was in the kitchen and we had to find the one eyed monkey and if we did they would give us a bottle of rum. We did find it but I figured the other 3 would enjoy it more than me so I left them to it.

We also went to the hot springs which was alright, Aaron I think would say it was a disappointment but I don’t know it was interesting. There were 3 pits which consisted of mud and really hot water which was fun for 20 minutes then I felt as if I was cooking. We then walked down to the river which was much nicer than the hot springs although it was quite cold! The tour was only $10 and we could stop off at the grocery story which was nice, and we stopped off at the internet café so I could deal with my school since the Royal Mail had lost my 1^st test.

Another favorite activity back at the hostel was no not walking up the steep trail to get back there which sucked with the huge ass pack, Was playing with rocky the crazy Kinkajou. He was Similar to a monkey/cat thing <>

After deciding to leave the Lost and found hostel we made the long journey down the mountain with our stuff. Busses were supposed to come each hour and after seeing the first go by we had decided to wait a few minutes before heading down the trail. After the 20 minute hike of trying not to fall on my face we arrived on the road and waited. We stood there and saw the bus pass and tried to flag it down but it didn’t seem to want to wait for us. We hung out for about 30 minutes and decided we were sick of waiting in the hot sun. We soon began to stick out our thumps in hopes for a ride and sure enough within a few minutes we were off to Alimante where we would take a boat to Isla colon and the city of Bocas. I expected it to be a very chill night but that quickly changed as we decided to hit up the aqua lounge.

Bocas was a great little town with lots of things going on and definitely had the crazy-party Caribbean vibe. I preferred the chill side of Bocas such as beaches and that kind of stuff. We stayed on Isla Colon for 3 days and did almost nothing. We did go to Bocas del Drago which was a beach with hundreds of starfish. We also saw a few rays that came into almost the shore line to eat the little bait. The water was really murky and kind of dirty so we didn’t spend too much time there. I almost forgot to mention that I found an Indian food place which was damn good. It was a bit pricy but I think I deserved a little present.

After leaving Isla colon we headed to Isla Bastimentos. Although there is not much of a town here the beaches are spectacular compared to Colons. The closest beach is approximately a 45 minute trek through the jungle but had a huge strip of sand and consisted of a fairly rough current. I stayed for the day and Aaron left in the middle. I decided to make a big Castle that soon got eaten away by the tides. I wasn’t very keen on hiking through the jungle by myself to get back but it really was not all that bad. Today( Monday March 19^th) I decided to hike over to Red Frog beach and I had to hike the same path as I did yesterday in addition to about another 40 minute extension. I did see several Red and Yellow frogs that were approximately ( ) <>

Im loving the place we are staying! It right over the water and we have a little pier and several hammocks, a communal kitchen, a kayak we can rent which me an Sebastian a German guy decided to try out. We also attempted to fish off our pier using a drop line and pasta as our bait and we were quite successful. I caught 4 within a few minutes and asked if we could eat them, at first I was told yes but about 10 minutes later was told I couldn’t weird and I was hungry but soon I settled for tuna and some pasta.

Tomorrow I think we are making the long trek into Costa Rica which will be interesting. Aaron is really not looking forward to this because of the cost and I don’t really care. But I am excited to re-visit Arenal the volcano.

Recent Movies I have

The informant BOOOOOOOOOOOORING

I love you man Alright

Changling Great

Zeigest Please Watch

Zeigest Addendum definitely a must see please watch

2012 apocalypse < style="mso-spacerun: yes"> movie. Now I want to see the actual movie.

Las Lajas, David, Boquete

Nasty Battle wound!

The im glad to still be alive but soon to be in alot of pain smile.

The Margay lion thing!

The crazy brown monkeys








The little brown monkeys loved their stomaches to be pet and when one was being pet and the other was they would get jelous. And leap over!

Crazy cute money that tried to bite everything including the fence me and the bench.

White monkey also wanted the straw which he ended up getting.

The coolest little bird came to say hello!

Las Lajas

El Mundo Bar

The cool open air place we stayed at on the beach.

After leaving the Surf City of Santa Catalina we hoped a buss to Las Lajas which is also known for its surf. The waves were much smaller but I still had tons of fun body surfing. The town seemed great and I was glad to be able to just relax and do nothing. We stayed in Las Lajas for 3 days and 1 night which was definitely a little too short for such a great place.

The first place we stayed at had a resto/bar but we ate elsewhere. It definitely had the best beds ever though, not necessarily the structure though. After spending many of our meals at the El Mundo Bar we realized on the second floor they had beds, big ones in fact! We decided for $2 cheaper and for a small price of $8 total we could be sleeping in the huge open air pilapa that was right on the beach. At our first hostel I hear loud screeching noises and was like what the heck is that. I later looked outside and saw a mama puppy with 8 new puppies born that same day.

So we headed back to our other hostel to grab our bags and saw Rudey an ex islander who lives in Las Lajas. What perfect timing it was! We loaded our huge bags into his giant white truck which still had his California Licence plates. This was a lot better than caring our portable casas across the town. We had been in contact with him so we expected to see him at some point, but timing could not have been more perfect. Aaron and Rudy sat and enjoyed a few beers at $0.65 a piece while I enjoyed my huge 2 liter bottle of water at $2.50. Why is water more expensive than beer? Generally I go through about a gallon of water a day that’s how hot it is. Later we went to the Las Lajas resort to eat some lunch. I had a fish sandwich which was good. That evening I went for a 3 mile run along the HUGE shore which stretches about 5 miles. I honestly felt like I was a shower that’s how hot and sweaty my adventure was. Later that night I was on my laptop doing some home work and the power went out. The only light in the area was my lap top light. Within seconds tons of jungle bugs shot for my light. I thought I accidently ate one so I went to spit off the deck about 10 minutes later I realized there was people underneath, “oops” I think they came just before I spat in that area or It went over them and they didn’t notice.

The following morning we woke up around 7:30am to check If we got an email from Rudy. Rudy also had been heading to the city of David which had been our next stop. It had worked out perfectly. We drove about an hour and a half and got a personally narrated tour about the plantations and trees and different Panamanian stuff. It was so great to have met Rudy the ex islander from Catalina. Thanks Rudy!

Yes so we were in David In Hostel Bambu and it sure is was in David, about 102ish. The hostel is overall great. It also has a pool which has been nice. And we are sleeping in the dorms at $8 a night. Last night Tuesday April 6 I worked extra hard to finish my classes and inf act I did. So I am an official High School Graduate, and got a 4.0 for my Sr. Year. Freedom! David seemed like there was not to much going on and not all that exciting. We did go to the food marked which was so cool. I got a Pineapple 2 bananas and a thing of lattice at only $0.90 I even had to say Cuanto questa like 3 times because I thought it was just my poor Spanish but I guess I was correct.

The morning prior to leaving David we made Banana pancakes topped with fresh pineapple with a side of eggs and it was DAMN GOOD. At almost all of the hostels they give you the batter for pancakes which is nice. But its everywhere and you really con only have so many pancakes. The Panamanians love there pancakes like the Argentineans like their dulce de leche or cresants.

We then took a 1 hour cab ride to Boquete for $15 total which was not all that bad. We currently are staying at the Mamalina hostel for $11 which is a good deal for the amazing kitchen we get to use and big complexes. Today we have went to the animal refuge and got to play with the monkeys and view all sorts of rescued birds. It was really awesome. We met the lady who was in charge of the place who was Canadian and we made arrangements to maybe come and colenteer on our way back down into panama.

The monkeys were hilarious they will take anything they possibly can pull through their enclosure. If your hand was near the cage they would run up and grab your hands just so they can try and bite you. But they sure were cute! At one point I was taking a picture of them and they grabbed the camera string, but lackey I had a good grip on the camera.

Today April 9, 2010 we moved up the street to the Hostal Boquete and oh what a day! So we checked in droped off our stuff and we decided it would be a good idea to rent moped scooters. I thought it would be fun and would be an experience and boy was I right. I packed my back pack took only what I needed, water, camera ,cash, license. After trying to get used to the stupid thing for like 30 minutes driving it around the hostel parking lot I was doing just fine. We finally pulled out onto the street and I was surprisingly making progress. We started to drive up many hills which were fun, the turns were kind of scary but I managed to hang tight. The only thing I was doing wrong was trying to break and accidently hitting the gas, because the stupid thing are so close which can obviously create problems. After reaching about 900ft there were several turns. I tried to slow down for the sharp turn by pressing the right break and accidently made the speed thing go forward because they are so damn close. I then tried to lean into the turn and the bike fell to the floor and I slid for like 10 ft and got some gnarly road rash. The scariest part was I was only about 5 feet from falling off the cliff. What an adventure! Im still alive just sliced and bruised all over the place.

Tomorrow we are heading back to David and I may get an X-ray for the left wrist depending on how I feel. We then are going to head out to the lost and found lodge. The lost and found lodge is a hostel in the middle of the woods with tons of hikes, hot springs and other cool stuff to do not to mention its in the middle of the jungle.