Posts filed under 'Nicaragua'
Grenada, Poste Rojo, Isla Omatepe and San Juan Del Sur.
Our last day in Leon was actually a day of admin – our CA-4 visa had just about run out of days (the CA-4 is a common visa for Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua and it gives you a total of 90 days stay in those 4 countries) and se we did a day trip up to Managua to the immigration office. It was very straight forward to get a 30 day extension, so we spent the remainder of the morning browsing around the shopping mall where the immigration office was trying to find a new bikini for hails.
Knowing that we didn’t have to shoot straight for the border now, we decided to move on to Grenada and see what that town was like. A couple of busses later and we were in the central square, looking out at all the colonial buildings surrounding it. They have spent quite a bit of time and effort in Grenada smartening up and refurbishing a lot of the old buildings and it really shows, the town is a visual feast for the senses. We checked out guide book and spotted a place called the Bearded Monkey, grabbed ourselves a private room and then set off to explore. That evening getting back to our room we met some people staying at the bearded monkey who gave us warning about how dodgy the place was, and to cut a long story short that was our one and only evening in Grenada (if you want to read the slightly longer version of the story, check out our review we left on TripAdvisor.com here).
After our unsavoury experience at The Bearded Monkey hostel in Grenada, we considered our options (either head straight for Isla Omatepe or hit one of the places we had seen a couple of posters for) and decided to treat ourselves and do the latter and head to a tree house hostel called Poste Rojo, just a 15 minute drive outside of the city. We met Fred (one of the owners) and Geoff (the manager) at the pickup point in Grenada and jumped into an old land cruiser and headed for the hills.
After a rather hot walk up a steep hill, we passed a large wooden building up on stilts in the trees with a dorm, a few private double rooms and several hammocks. The main house, bar and restaurant area was situated a bit further up the hill – and what a cool tree house it was! A small dining and kitchen area upstairs complete with fireman pole access to the deck below which was the bar and chill out area, and this was connected to a yoga deck by a suspension bridge between two huge trees (which was fun to walk across after a few rums, if anybody has seen Takeshi’s Castle, it was like the level with the suspension bridge and the golden balls…) Below was an authentic mud and brick pizza oven and a few hammocks under the deck. The property had 2 open air cold showers (during the dry season until they get some pumps sorted out all the water is carried up by a couple of locals in 25 litre barrels each day). 3 long drops rounded up the ablution facilities.
The management quarters and main kitchen were situated upstairs and on the second evening, we enjoyed watching the sunset from the main deck whilst helping out making the communal dinner. The regular volunteers had gone off to the beach for a few days so Dyl and I jumped in to help chop veggies and provide some support. During our 3 evenings there we enjoyed delicious homemade wood fired pizza, pasta and salad with wood fired garlic bread, a “Tex Mex†feast of chilli nachos and salad and many, many rums.
After several days of chilling out and vegging in the trees, we decided it was time to move on and we headed off to Isla Omatepe, which is a big double volcano island in Lake Nicaragua. We had been trying for one hostel, but when we stopped for lunch after getting off the ferry we found out it was full and so it was back to the book trying to work out where to head to next. We settled on a spot called Hacienda Meridas, which was an old coffee farm back in the day and has now been converted to a hostel/hotel. Sounded cool in the book, but when we got there we found it pretty expensive and not quite what we expected – part of it was now a school for the local kids and they had put the school literally right in the middle of the hostel rooms (which formed a U shape with the school in the middle). No chance of sleeping in there! The weather wasn’t too good while we were there either, lots of wind and period rain so after just one full day there we decided to duck and head back to the coast where at least we’d have the beach to swim at and have shops where we could buy our own food and do our own cooking and all that.
So, back to the ferry, back to the mainland and then off down to San Juan Del Sur. We ended up sharing a taxi there from the dock where the ferry dropped us off with 2 other backpackers. They were heading to a spot in San Juan which wasn’t in our book so we thought we’d give it a try. The hostel was called Pacha Mamma and it looked like it was in a great location, just meters off the beach and it had a nice communal area downstairs and a kitchen with all the main appliances. So we checked in, unpacked and went for a stroll. Only to discover swimming isn’t recommended in San Juan Del Sur as the water is too polluted. Bit of a let-down when you were after a beach hostel. Then we found out that Pacha Mama was like the party capital of San Juan Del Sur – the communal area was open to anyone off the street, and every evening hordes of backpackers from all the surrounding hostels would descend on the place and party it up before heading out. It made it very social and we did get to cross paths with a bunch of people we’d met along the way, but it wasn’t our scene. Unfortunately being so close to Semana Santa and Easter, all the hostels were pretty full and were inflating their prices big time (San Juan Del Sur gets a temporary influx of an estimated 50,000 people during the week of Semana Santa, most of the hostels simple double their prices during that week pretty much because they can), so we ended up staying there for a couple of nights. One of the benefits of it being such a party place, our dorm only had 5 beds in it and most nights the others did not come home till the sun came up in the morning so it was actually quite nice and quiet to sleep once they had all gone out :-)
San Juan Del Sur did have a use to us though, the hostel had a really good internet connection and so we took a day off and did a whole heap of planning. We had been putting it off for quite a while, but now that we had gotten to the border with Costa Rica, we needed to know what our next couple of moves would be. Everything we’d looked at in Costa Rica looked really expensive, and it was only days away from the start of Semana Santa. So in the end we decided we’d shoot straight through Costa Rica on the overnight TicaBus, then head straight for Bocas Del Toro in Panama and spend at least two weeks there until we’d gotten the Semana Santa-Easter combo behind us. And then the bulk of what we spent our planning day on – what to do from Panama. The main options available to us were basically head into the major Caribbean islands and work our way up towards the States, carry on South into South America or fly straight up to the States and start that leg of the trip early. In the end we decided to carry on South and do our loop around the “fat†part of South America, as with our current travelling speed it will still hopefully let us do our American road trip in the latter half of summer and into early autumn. Watch this space..!
Anyway, more on that as we get there. Enjoy the photos from those couple of days after Leon:
View from the main square in Granada, the yellow building is the recently refurbished Cathedral.
Super awesome breakfast spot we found in Grenada (Kathy's Waffles or something like that). Best fried egg's we've had on the entire trip.
Great omlettes too - filled with crispy bacon and cheese.
Ok, who in their right mind wouldn't try this? Peanut and chocolate chip cookie pie. Basically take a huge batch of cookie mix and instead of making lots of cookies, make one enormous one in a pie tin. Chewy gooey middle, crisp cookie outer. Delicious.
Hails skyping her mom. Panorama shot hence it all looking a bit distorted, but it shows the typical style of the buildings here with courtyards and verandahs surrounding them.
Chilling out with a book waiting for a shuttle to the tree house hostel.
Hails looking out from the main building - downstairs is the bar and upstairs is a kitchen and dining area. Underneath the bar deck are a bunch of hammocks and swing chairs.
Sunset on the yoga deck at Poste Rojo, the tree house hostel.
Drinks out under the stars on one of the decks.
Ten minutes to 6 in the morning, sleeping with the door and window open looking out into the trees and bush. What a view to wake up to.
Multi shot panorama from on the suspension bridge which you can just make out on the far left of the pic. At the very bottom is the edge of the green tree frog habitat pond. Then you can see the hammocks and swings underneath the bar. To the top right is the owners & managers house, and then eagle eyed viewers may be able to spot the showers in the bushes to the right of the bar deck.
Another panorama view of the setup, but this time sweeping all the way over to include the yoga deck on the far right. Taken from the middle of the suspension bridge.
Hanging about, chilling out in a hammock swing.
The yoga deck is linked to the "main complex" via a suspension bridge between two huge trees. Very cool spot.
The wood fired, clay pizza oven they use for pizza and home made bread.
Self shot on the ferry on the way over to Isla Omotepe.
The main volcano on Isla Omotepe looming into view over the lake.
On arrival we stopped for lunch at a spot called the Corner Coffee Shop - check out this steak salad! Super delicious accompanied by a freshly squeezed grapefruit smoothie.
Dyl opted for the steak sandwich and roasted potatoes with a pineapple smoothie.
Loved the simplicity of this - the knives, forks and napkins are in a cleaned out, de-labelled tin can and the salt and pepper are in old tobasco bottles with small holes cut into their lids.
Hails chilling out watching the sun go down over Lake Nicaragua.
Multi shot panorama just to help you feel like you were there with us. This is the view from those deck chairs.
The light just kept getting more and more amazing as the sun dipped lower. Thats the volcano on the right with the cloud-hat on it.
And finally the sun dropped below the distant hills. What a view to drink a couple of ice cold beers to.
Suppose you need to think about these sort of things if you're living on an island volcano in the middle of a huge lake.
Hails watching some little baby piggies eating mangoes fallen off the trees.
Self shot leaving the island.
Travelling back on a much simpler ferry, sitting up on the "gringo deck" getting sunburned with all the other foreigners while the locals all chill out in the shade down below. Great views though.
"Cousin It" enjoying a cold beer at our hostel in San Juan Del Sur.
Impromptu pirate party - eye patches essential.
Hails hanging out in a hammock.
The hostel dog, making the most of the cool tile floors. This is how he lies down normally. It is not staged for the photo.
Not the best of joined up panorama photos (waves wreak havoc with multi photo shots), but this is the bay of San Juan Del Sur.
Hails at the "ABC" party (Anything But Clothes party) at the hostel. Making good use of her towel and her sequined scarf.
Dyl and his costume for the ABC party.
Some crazy austrian dude. Duct tape heart cutouts over the nips and a chastity belt made out of beer cans. Scary once he got drunk enough to drop the towel..
Matt - A.K.A. Mr Sensibility. Dragon float tube.
Julia and Vii and their creations.
Two of the girls - on the left is a fine green plastic bag and plants stolen from the garden creation, on the right a deck of cards being put to good use. Behind we had Brendon and his apron.
Stefan, wearing an adult diaper and carrier bag.
We all got together to pose for a group shot and then crazy austrian dude photo bombed it to the max with a well timed walk past.
Attempt #2 at the group shot.
Just general mayhem going on.
Looking down on the party.
The aussies in their adult diapers and the two "pink" girls we first came across on Utila island and their plastic bag bikinis.
And thats all folks - bed time as the cops shut down the party.
For the gallery of the photos, click here.
- Loved the simplicity of this – the knives, forks and napkins are in a cleaned out, de-labelled tin can and the salt and pepper are in old tobasco bottles with small holes cut into their lids.
1 comment April 16, 2011
Leon Board Sports
From Utila we caught a couple busses over to Tegucigulpa, the capital of Honduras. We overnighted there, then the following day bussed on over to the border with Nicaragua and after a relatively uneventful border crossing jumped off at Leon. 5 countries under the belt so far!
Anyway, we ended up signing up for a couple of “tours†in Leon, the first being the famous volcano boarding. We went through a company called Bigfoot, they’re the original dudes who started up the whole volcano boarding concept. Would you believe it was a bunch of Aussies who first dragged up a variety of objects to test out on the volcanic ash? Apparently the queen size mattress was too slow to be practical, the surfboard was sanded away to nothing by the super abrasive ash only part of the way down but the fridge door was a bit of a hit. Several years of experimentation later and they’d finally settled on a working design, and by working we mean something which can get you up to speeds which would earn you hefty speeding tickets and a large number of points on your driving license if you tried them in an urban area… The guys at Bigfoot actually have a radar gun they use for checking your speed, and at the office/hostel they run they have a top 5 leader board. Top men’s speed is 84km/h and the top woman’s speed, set by an allegedly bat-shit crazy Israeli girl is a highly respectable 87km/h! (Although the story goes she was absolutely gunning it to get that speed and lost control right at the bottom and ended up in hospital with 14 stitches to the head…)
It’s quite an interesting day out too. The volcano is really new; it popped up back in the 1850’s and has been rather active since then. The last big eruption was in 1999 although our guide was saying that the big quake which hit Japan a couple weeks back was detected by the seismologists and there was enough rumbling coming from the volcano that the boarding was nearly shut down for a while! The hike up takes about 45 minutes and takes you past some active gas vents – you can see the sulphur deposits from the gasses and on parts of the volcano digging just a couple of centimetres into the ash you hit temperatures too hot for the bare hand. Once we’d caught our breath back it was time to move over to the launching spot, don our protective gear (orange boiler suits and safety goggles), go through a quick briefing and then finally launch ourselves down the mountain side.
The going is slow at first, but as you get more used to how the board handles you start releasing the breaks (lifting your feet off the ground more). The noise is ferocious and there’s so much stuff flying up you have to keep your mouth shout otherwise it fills up with volcanic ash and pebbles pretty quick. But by far the most intense aspect of the descent is how quickly you pick up speed. When your bum is literally a centimetre off the ground and the only thing between you and a mostly skinless version of you is maintaining some semblance of control while falling down a volcano, even slow speeds feel fast. In the end I managed a decent first attempt speed of 55km/h and hails, who was having doubts about even giving it a try at all (the side of the volcano we board down hits an angle of 41 degrees at one point – that’s super steep, for every meter you go forward horizontally you’re nearly dropping a meter) managed to pick up some speed at the bottom. And before you know it you’re back at the truck, ice cold beer in hand, swapping scare-stories about how close you came to wiping out and how you could have gone so much faster if you’d actually tried and all that normal post-adrenalin chatter. Then it was back to Leon for the post-trip complimentary mojitos and a well-earned shower.
The following day we’d signed up for a surf lesson day but with a slight difference – instead of being $30 for the day (including the 2 hour lesson, lunch and the afternoon to use the boards and gear), it was free and we’d start with a 2 hour beach clean-up, then do all the rest of the normal day but instead of getting back by dark we’d stay for sunset and a bonfire on the beach. Sounded like a damn good deal to us! And it turned out to be a really awesome day. Between the 9 of us we managed to get 9 full sacks of rubbish washed up by the sea, almost all of it some form of plastic. We then sorted it all (bottles one sack, bags another, etc.) so that it can be properly recycled. After that we sat down to lunch and then after a short siesta started off the surf lesson. There was quite decent surf, but with us all on soft-top beginner long-boards we were just after foamies and there were plenty of those to have fun in. Everybody was up and standing by the end of the afternoon and I suspect we’ve awakened another “bug†in hails – this time to learn how to surf well!
Here are a couple pics from the two days. We have since left Leon, hit up Granada for a night then a tree-house hostel called Poste Rojo for a couple of nights. By the time you read this (not much internet up a tree out in the sticks) we’ll probably be over in Lake Nicaragua on Isla Omotepe. More on all that in the next post!
The place we did our volcano boarding trip with.
Hails in the truck on the way to the volcano.
Our trusty transport to the volcano.
Little Iguana at the base station at the bottom of the volcano.
We finally got there. Thats our truck and thats Cerro Negro in the background.
Looking into the main crater from roughly where the wall of it collapsed. The white stuff covering the rocks in the distance is sulphur deposited from the gas vents.
That little orange speck in the lower left hand corner down on the grass plain is our truck! Gives an idea of how high up we were.
Hails reaching for the stars, I've managed to perfect hovering so am just battling against the head wind blowing over the volcano.
Looking down into the main crater from the rim of the volcano. Those are a couple of our "volcano" boards in the bottom left corner.
Looking down into the top crater of Cerro Negro. The white deposits in the right hand half of the picture are mainly sulphur deposits from the gas vents. The old lava flows in the background out into the vegetation are from when the one wall of the main crater (which is to the right) collapsed.
Walking around the crater of Cerro Negro.
Hails and Mike, our guide, making their way down the slope.
Hails finally makes it to the bottom, safe and sound!
Smiles all round, those pearly whites looking even whiter with a nice contrasting sheen of black volcanic dust on pretty much everything.
She may look like a freshly surfaced coal miner glad to see the daylight but thats a healthy post-andrenalin rush glow!
Dyl and Hails on the truck on the way back to town.
Some of the peeps from the boarding expedition, along with our free mojitos.
Hails showing off the leader board with its newest woman's entrant. But hey at least she made it down!
The boards all laid out ready for the start of lessons.
Hails showing off her ride.
Such a poser... :-)
Dyl and his ride.
Sundowners on the beach.
Nice self shot, nearly got the sun in the background..
There it is - got love sunsets over the ocean.
Bonfire waiting for the sun to go down so it can be lit.
And there she goes!
Bonfires on the beach are great things.
And for that picasa gallery head on over here for the volcano boarding and here for the surfer pics.
Add comment April 10, 2011