Nicaragua - a fitting finale to Latin America

After bidding farewell to our island home, we had to brave mainland Honduras (which isn't very appealing to say the least) to make the journey across country to get to Nicaragua. After our brief stopover in Lake Yojoa and a change of buses in the shithole that is the capital of Tegucigalpa, we finally crossed the border into Nicaragua and the city of León. We didn't really know much about the city except it's apparently got some great colonial architecture and churches (like most other cities in Latin America), and it's where we were planning on a bit of an adrenalin rush in the form of volcano boarding. If you didn't think that was possible or even remotely a good idea - think again! After asking around at a few different companies, we decided to sign up with Tierra Tours who seemed to tick all the boxes. 

The following day we met our group of fellow thrill-seekers which just happened to include a familiar face. Turns out we'd stayed in the same dorm for one night in Lake Yojoa (Honduras) with Dan, a cool South African guy. This kind of thing happens quite often on the gringo trail throughout South and Central America. We hadn't actually talked to each other in Lake Yojoa though as Kurt wasn't feeling the best and we left early the next day, so we finally got chatting. After an hour or so drive we reached the base of Cerro Negro and were faced with the rather daunting 500m or so high volcanic ash/rock covered slope we'd be racing down. On a narrow wooden board with rope handles. Oh, and did I mention it's an active volcano? Because dormant volcano boarding is for pussies. But first we had to hike up to the top carrying our boards, which was a bit awkward at times. It took about 30-40mins, stopping for photos of the amazing panoramic view and a quick walk to some steam-spewing sulphur vents. Walking up the exposed ridge was a bit gusty, but once up top we were rewarded with more spectacular views. Then it was time to suit up and get our safety instructions. We had full overalls, gloves, elbow and shin pads, goggles and helmet to protect us in the inevitable event of assing off. We'd chosen to sit rather than stand up as we didn't have any snow-boarding experience. And thank fuck for that because from the top it looks almost bloody vertical. One girl freaked out and decided to walk down rather than go balls-out like the rest of us, but she only decided this after watching us all go down. I wonder what put her off? Kurt volunteered to go first so we all stood anxiously waiting our turn, watching his descent which was interrupted by frequent tumbles off the board. You might think it would be relatively easy to control but you would be very wrong. As soon as you sit down on the board, gravity and the unstable surface makes you immediately start to take off at great speed. And usually not in a straight line. So of course your natural reaction is to plant a foot (or both) into the loose black rocks to try and control your wildly uncontrolled descent. Which only results in what can often be spectacular crashes ending in a face and mouthful of dust. When you finally stop tumbling you have to locate and retrieve your board (sometimes a few metres up/down the slope), try and get the bloody thing under you without it racing off again before you're properly seated, then promptly hurtle downhill again. Rinse and repeat all the way down to the bottom. When you manage to stay on for a decent stretch and get up some quality speed, it's a pretty good rush. However, it's over way too soon and you're left standing at the bottom covered in black ash. It even manages to get in under the overalls to varying degrees, depending on the frequency and severity of your crashes. All in all it was a unique and fun experience. If only it wasn't such a long walk back up we would've done it again. And as luck would have it we timed it just right, because for the next few days all boarding trips were cancelled due to seismic activity of the volcano. You can't get much more active than that!

After the success of our boarding trip we decided to do a volcano hike with the same company. Dan decided to do this one as well, along with a couple of people from our hostel. The big drawcard for doing this was the chance to see lava (aka liquid hot MAGMA) bubbling away in the crater below. It was a twilight tour which involved a relatively easy walk (about 2 hours) up Telica Volcano, stopping at a massive crater with a sheer drop down into the mist covered depths below. But before we made it to the top we were interrupted by a massive storm with the most spectacular thunder and lightning. We had to stop and get low to the ground, sitting and waiting as thunder and lightning crashed literally all around us. It didn't last too long, but it was an awesome show of nature. Once we got to the top we all lay down right at the very edge of the crater (safety first!), peering over the side with cameras at the ready, waiting for the mist to clear so we could get a glimpse of the fiery lava. Whenever it did clear we were rewarded with the glowing orange and red river of lava far below. It was hard to get a good photo, but at least we got to actually see it. Another successful volcano experience. 

Magma!

After a few days in León we headed to Granada, which is a popular stop-off for tourists because of it's colonial architecture and churches (again). Dan had left earlier the same day, and when we arrived in Granada we of course ran into him so we checked into the same hostel. Not being massively into architecture or churches by this point, the three of us decided to make an overnight trip out to nearby Apoyo Lagoon which is in a nature reserve and a perfect place to chill out. We spent our time swimming, kayaking and reading but then it was soon time to head back to Granada. Not for long though as the three of us - along with Aussie Tess and Dave, the legendary Englishman we'd met in our León hostel - had decided to leave straight away on a ferry across to Isla de Ometepe, an island formed by two volcanoes in the middle of Lake Nicaragua.

Apoyo Lagoon

The ferry arrived in Moyogalpa, which is the main harbour village on the western end of the island, and we had to stay a night before getting a bus a couple of hours to stay at an ecological farm and hostel called El Zopilote. It's a cool permaculture farm with dorms and cabins made of natural materials, and a very tranquil place to stay for a couple of days. 

Just chillin at El Zopilote

The food is also fantastic, including their famous pizza nights which people from other hostels come for. Of course the main thing to do in the island is hike up volcanoes, so we all decided we better make the effort. We chose Volcan Maderas because it was closest, but also because it wasn't as high as Volcan Concepción (only by about 200m). That didn't mean it was easy though. On the morning of the hike we met Gillian, an English-Italian girl staying at El Zopilote as well, and she ended up joining us for the climb. So armed with our packed lunches we set off for the big hike, and it was a long, steep, sweaty climb that took about 4 hours. Once we got to the top we then had to climb down for about 10mins to the crater lake, which was the perfect spot to sit and eat lunch before the hike back down. There were a few other people up there at the same time, including a crazy German guy who obviously didn't find it too strenuous as he rewarded his lungs with a couple of ciggies. If only I was that fit. We spent our final night on the island back down the road from El Zopilote at a party hostel called Little Morgan's where drinking games were played and many beers drunk. We then made the mission across the island back to Moyogalpa to get the ferry to Rivas, where we hopped on a bus to the popular beachside town of San Juan del Sur. 

This once sleepy little fishing village is now a firm favourite on the gringo trail through Nicaragua, and it was where we happily spent the final two weeks of our time in Central America. The five of us had chosen to stay at Casa de Olas, a popular hostel up on a hill just outside town. Gill had gotten the earlier ferry on the same day so she was already there ahead of us. But it's not your everyday, run of the mill hostel - how many can boast a selection of dorms and private rooms made of whitewashed walls, set in a semi-circle around an infinity pool overlooking town below? Oh, and of course there was the resident monkey, Buzz. Next door is the famous party hostel the Naked Tiger, so combine that with the pretty social vibe at Casa de Olas, and after 4 nights we were pretty wrecked. So us oldies (me, Kurt and Dave) had to retire to the much quieter Casa Oro downtown to rest and recover for a few nights. Not before booking back into Casa de Olas for the following weekend though! Gluttons for punishment we are. And after yet another massively successful party weekend it was back for some quiet time again, and a Game of Thrones marathon (just because we're travelling doesn't mean we have to miss out!). Dan eventually joined us there after surviving a few days longer up the hill than us and we made a couple of day trips out to nearby Playa Madera beach. So basically, our final two weeks were spent drinking and relaxing by the beach in this little town. Eventually we had to part ways with Dave and Dan (the biggest downside of travelling - meeting legendary people for a short time then having to say goodbye) and leave Nicaragua, which had turned out to be a surprising little charmer of a country. And just in time too - Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador and Nicaragua make up the C4 region in Central America, and as tourists we're only allowed a total of 90 days across all four countries. We timed it perfectly (without much planning) and left on our 90th day. Gotta make the most of it! 

And with that we said goodbye to another amazing part of the world and crossed back into Costa Rica, where we'd only spend two nights before flying north to the USA. Thanks Latin America for an unforgettable, eye-opening 18 months of incredible adventures and amazing people. A word of advice to you all - get there.

Utila - simply un-fucking-believable

And now we can take you back to Utila, the beautiful little island off the north coast of Honduras where we spent a glorious month diving, drinking, sunning ourselves and making new friends.

It was a day long mission to get there from Copan, starting with a ridiculously early bus to San Pedro Sula in the north, changing to another bus to La Ceiba, then getting the hour long (slightly rocky) ferry to Utila. It's the smallest of the three major islands in the Bay Islands group, about 18km from the mainland out in the Caribbean Sea. At only 11km long and 4km at its widest you can't exactly get lost on it. Because it's a lot cheaper and more chilled out than the nearby big brother island Roatan, it's popular with backpackers wanting to get their PADI dive certification. And rightly so. Who wouldn't want to learn to dive on an idyllic Caribbean island, especially when it's one of, if not the cheapest place in the world to get qualified? So with that in mind, the first order of business was choosing which dive shop to sign up with. 

There are a bunch to choose from spread out along the main road either side of the ferry dock, varying in size and quality. All offered free accommodation (again, of varying quality) with the Open Water course and were all around the US$250 mark, so we had to choose based on our gut feeling. We talked to several places and finally settled on Deep Blue Divers for a number of reasons. It's a much smaller shop compared to others, like the hugely popular Underwater Vision right next to us, so we felt we'd get a much more personal experience and not just be another number. The private room we got (above the dive shop) was also much better than others we'd seen, and we got 5 free fun dives with the Open Water course (more than other shops). We also liked Kelly, the guy we talked to - a short, barrel-chested, gun loving, straight-talking ex-Army Texan who ended up being our instructor. He had the perfect attitude and personality for us and years of diving experience, so I felt totally safe in the water with him around. He and Kurt soon fell into a daily routine of friendly shit-talking and piss-taking, along with our legendary captain Junior, who'd grown up on the island and knew the waters like the back of his hand. Another reason we liked Kelly was because he refused to partake in the ridiculous daily ritual of clapping and cheering every time we left and returned from a dive. All the big shops would do that and it really pissed us off. There were three others doing the Open Water course with us - Canadian Cat (and her boyfriend Mike who is a Dive Master and would assist Kelly in training us); Juan the crazy Mexican, and Gareth the Englishman. An awesome group of people which made our month of diving and chilling out even better.

The Utila Princess ferry

                                       

Deep Blue Divers - our home for a month

                                                     
The water around Utila is pretty damn pristine, meaning visibility for diving was great. We saw a shit tonne of coral, fish, moray eels, octopus, squid, elusive tiny seahorses, turtles, spotted eagle rays and much more. Unfortunately we missed out on the big daddy though - the whale shark. We were there at the tail end of the season so we weren't among the lucky ones to have that once in a lifetime experience. With each dive our confidence and ability grew, so we were able to concentrate on what we were seeing rather than what we were doing. Being able to breathe underwater is such a bizarre experience the first time you do it, but it opens up a whole new world, and one that is new and exciting every time you enter it. Kurt took to it like the proverbial duck to water and fell in love with diving, and I think he'd quite happily dive every day for the rest of his life if he could. So the obvious next step was doing our Advanced Open Water course immediately afterwards. 

Doing the Advanced Open Water was pretty much all about having fun, while learning a few more new skills. The two compulsory ones are underwater navigation and deep diving, which meant we would be qualified to dive to a maximum depth of 30m (Open Water is up to 18m). Then there's a list of other adventure dives from which you choose three more to complete your course. Kurt and I, along with Cat and Juan were doing the Advanced course together, and we all chose to do wreck diving, drift diving and night diving. I wasn't entirely sure if I wanted to do the Advanced course in the beginning but I'm glad I did. It was so much fun, particularly the wreck dive which was a whole new experience, diving in and around a sunken vessel. These dives were all fun, but as an added bonus we got 5 more free fun dives with this course as well. What more could you want? 

In between dives we'd all chill out at the dive shop, either in the hammocks at the end of our jetty or jumping in to cool off in the water. And there were plenty of good local places to eat, either the delicious local staple, baleada (a flour tortilla folded in half filled with whatever you want); fresh mango smoothies; burgers, pizzas, pasta or calzones. So despite being an isolated little island it doesn't mean you have to go without. And of course wherever backpackers are, there are always a few watering holes to the quench the thirst. 

                                      

                                                         

Luckily for me, my birthday fell right at the end of our time on Utila. So, to top off the month we thought an appropriate way to all celebrate together would be to rent our own private tropical island for a couple of days. Talk about living the dream! There's a small group of little islands in the Utila Cays, two of which are available for rent - Sandy Cay and Little Cay. We chose Sandy Cay, which was about a 40min boat ride from our dock. So after loading up the boat with 3 days supplies of food and beer (mainly beer) for the seven of us (Kurt and I, Cat and Mike, Juan, Joey - an Irish girl who did fun dives with us, and Greg - a French underwater photographer who also came diving with us) we headed off for our private Caribbean paradise. And we weren't disappointed. It's a tiny island of sand (as the name suggests) covered in palm trees and surrounded by crystal clear blue waters perfect for snorkelling. There were two bedrooms, bathroom, lounge, kitchen with two fridges and cooktop, and the essential outdoor seating and hammocks. We proceeded to spend the next two days drinking beers in the sun, snorkelling and celebrating in the best birthday location I can imagine. And all for only just over US$20 a night per person. No shit. I even got a freshly baked, personalised birthday cake delivered on my birthday thanks to Kelly (with some help from his wife) and some presents from the others. I can definitely say it will go down as one of the best birthdays of my life - thanks to the awesome people we celebrated with.

Mike and Juan, on our way to Sandy Cay

And on that high note it was sadly time to leave Utila and the friends we'd made there. But it's definitely not the last we'll see of you Utila - not by a long shot.

Hello Honduras

The day we left Lake Atitlan to mission it across the border to the small town of Copán Ruinas in Honduras, also happened to be our 18 month anniversary of travelling. And how did we choose to spend it? Travelling across country for 12 hours whilst constantly changing modes of transport. Rather fitting way to celebrate actually! Copán Ruinas is conveniently located across the border from Guatemala, so we spent just a couple of nights here to visit the Copán ruins - the lucky last on a long list we'd already visited. It was probably one of the smaller ruins we've visited, but some of the structures, particularly some of the intricately carved stone stela's, were very well preserved. There were bugger all people there on the day we visited, so it was nice to be able to leisurely walk around in the relative peace and quiet. Once we'd done that though it was time to move on again. We actually went to the island of Utila next but that's a separate blog all on it's own, so because I have editorial discretion and creative license, you shall now hear about our brief stop in Lake Yojoa. 

Yojoa is the largest natural lake in Honduras and is a popular spot for nature lovers and fishing enthusiasts. However, we only stayed for one night and didn't even see the lake. Bad tourists. We were more interested in checking out the Pulhapanzak Waterfall, the largest in the country, which was about 25km north of the lake from where we were staying. It's kind of off the beaten track, but it's still popular with local and foreign tourists. In fact, there were a lot more locals there the day we visited cooling off in the swimming areas, but we were all about the waterfall. You can view it from above or below, but we wanted to make the most of it so we got a guide to take us behind the waterfall to get the full experience. We're glad we did too, as it was pretty incredible. We don't usually like having to pay for guides as we often think we can do it just as easily ourselves. This was not one of those occasions.  He knew exactly where to step and hold on to avoid being washed away by the ridiculously powerful water crashing down on us and making it impossible to see where we were going. It was pretty slippery and awkward at times, but totally worth it to get right amongst it, and a perfect way to cool off.

Gallivanting across Guatemala

We had three more stops to round out our time in Guatemala, and they were, for the most part, all about relaxing in beautiful spots. The first of which was Rio Dulce, right up in the northeast and another long and bumpy minivan ride away from Semuc Champey. It's a beautiful place though, with the river winding around through some spectacular scenery - lush green foliage and local wildlife, and an amazing gorge with walls almost 100m high on either side. We chose to stay at a little hostel called The Roundhouse which was about a 30min boat ride along the river and is run by an English/Dutch couple. It was a cool little hostel and, as the name suggests, is a round wooden building with a few private rooms and a dorm at the top under the circular sloping roof. Being on a river there was no pressure to do anything but relax in the hammocks and read and eat delicious home-made food including family style dinners with the owners and whoever else was staying there. Unfortunately the pool was empty when we were there, but that would have been the cherry on top. After 3 days of chilling out we got taken up the river to Livingston where we hopped on a bus to Antigua.

Antigua is one of the most popular destinations in Guatemala for it's architecture and very European feel (it's also a UNESCO World Heritage site). It is quite an attractive city, especially since the surrounding view is dominated by three volcanoes on the horizon. Many people rave about and love this place, but we didn't share this view. We thought Antigua had a pretty dodgy feel to it to be honest, but perhaps this was because we knew/met people who had been robbed at knife/machete/gun point. Also because a couple of times when we were out walking at varying times of the day/night, locals told us we shouldn't be there as it wasn't safe. But, touch wood, nothing bad happened to us personally and we spent a few days there catching up with a couple of Aussie girls we'd met at the hostel in Semuc Champey and wandering around. The only real touristy thing we did was to walk up to the Cerro de la Cruz, a big cross on top of a hill with pretty good views over the city and the volcano to the south. But soon we were ready to leave and spend our final days in Guatemala in the tranquil lakeside setting of Lake Atitlán.

Looking out over Antigua from the Cerro de la Cruz

Thankfully this time it was just a short ride from Antigua to Panajachel, which is the main transport hub to get to the various small towns dotted all around the lake. We decided to head across to San Pedo La Laguna, a laidback little town popular with backpackers. We found a hotel with great views out over the lake for only 50 quetzals (AU$7) a night - perfect. The aim of the game here was to basically do nothing for a week but enjoy the peace and beauty of our surroundings, and that is exactly what we did. You'll probably be shocked to hear that we didn't even drink for the entire time. Honestly. We'd initially thought that we'd hike up Volcano San Pedro, but after reading up about it we found out that at that time of year it was usually covered in low cloud at the top, obscuring the amazing view (which is generally the point). Also, you have to pay for a guide to take you up 'for your own personal safety', as it's a hot spot for robberies. So in the end we decided against it. After a week of total relaxation we were then ready to cross the border into Honduras.