Places we went after transito:
The following list is all in Nicaragua
Grenada - Antigua is to guatemala as Grenada is to Nicaragua. Every corner somebody is trying to sell you something. The main street fills up with plastic chairs and tourists at night outside of fancy little restaurants. I'd say it was quite the latin American romantic scene. Good mood lighting.... Mariachi bands.... Bottles of wine..... Street performers trying to make a buck..... Kids trying to sell you flutes.... Always the freaking flutes! ... Not set up for Four grimy twenty two year olds looking for cheap food....
Laguna apollo - met up with coop, Garrett, and the kids. it's the crater lake of Nicaragua.
Ometepe -
We got off the ferry in the dimming sunset and ripped off in pursuit of Coop and the quest to find an organic farm! We pulled up to the location and there was an old painted school bus offering yoga, massages, organic bread...etc. But it was dark, no people, and no real spot to camp right there. The group split up and I found myself watching the car with the banjo hippie girls who hitched a ride with us from the ferry.
Everybody reconvened at the car. The news was the farm did exist up in the darkness. We grabbed our sleeping gear and wandered up the hill.
Somehow, along the path, I lost everybody, but off In the distance I heard a faint drumming. I pursued the sound and walked up right smack dab into dreddie hippie land! After a quick glance around, my friends were nowhere to be found. I asked, and the reply i got, in a slow I've smoked a lot of weed tonight tone, was "just come play music with us man, you're friends will find you." So I went and found my friends who had ordered a dozen pizzas and beer. Awesome. I love pizza.
And that's ometepe. Hippie dippie island on lago Nicaragua.
Playa Colorado - be warned! The water is so cold. The currents from the deep ocean are brought along the shoreline by offshore winds caused by lago nicaragua. We wore full wetsuits while surfing.
It's a kind of gated club community with a ton of surfers. big resort houses... Even a golf course.
Maderas, near San Juan del sur - had the night of my life in the worst way. I got destroyed by the infamous gut bug of central America. You know the description.... But! I was lucky and it only lasted that night. Skyler got hit differently and he was cooped up in a hammock for three days with no energy. Maderas is cool though. Lots of gringos. Good surf. Cool restaurants to hang out and in the evening everybody goes back to San Juan del sur so maderas is tranquilo man. Nice toilet too.
When we were feeling better, we rallied south into costa rica!
Saturday, March 9, 2013
Friday, February 22, 2013
Transito - dynamite fishing anybody?
Have you ever found yourself sitting on the beach and wondering how in the world you're going to get that piece of beach front property you've always wanted? So expensive! So far out of reach....
Well just pull up that 4runner in the alley and post up! Watch your things in yer redneck yard and pooping can be exciting while rocks are being thrown at you (only Henry) but the beach sand is in between your wiggling toes and you're living between the president of Nicaragua and the restaurant business tycoon of Managua!
At least that was the case in transito for us. We planned to stay for a couple nights but dragged it out to seven days of free camping in the alley on the beach. Awesome.
Henry shot a 40 pound rooster fish that trumped my 15 pound jack.... By 25 pounds. We surfed everyday. We Had barbecues with the surf camps. It's so remote they still dynamite fish there! Sad. Scary. But wild. Talk about seeing some culture. While surfing I saw a rocket of water shoot 40 feet in the air followed by a guy collecting the shocked, dead fish. The hombre I would buy ice from was one of many fishermen missing a hand from the repercussions of dynamite fishing. The town still survives off of its fishing (mostly with nets and also for stingrays! Actually we tried stingray for the first time.) and the tourism is barely getting off the ground there. Soon to explode.
Upon exit we were able to use our experience with the Latin American salto on our own car minus a drunk el salvadorian! If the term is new to you, refer to previous blog post. All is well. Somewhere else down the road in Nicaragua. Minus one Henry. Plus one Ian.
Well just pull up that 4runner in the alley and post up! Watch your things in yer redneck yard and pooping can be exciting while rocks are being thrown at you (only Henry) but the beach sand is in between your wiggling toes and you're living between the president of Nicaragua and the restaurant business tycoon of Managua!
At least that was the case in transito for us. We planned to stay for a couple nights but dragged it out to seven days of free camping in the alley on the beach. Awesome.
Henry shot a 40 pound rooster fish that trumped my 15 pound jack.... By 25 pounds. We surfed everyday. We Had barbecues with the surf camps. It's so remote they still dynamite fish there! Sad. Scary. But wild. Talk about seeing some culture. While surfing I saw a rocket of water shoot 40 feet in the air followed by a guy collecting the shocked, dead fish. The hombre I would buy ice from was one of many fishermen missing a hand from the repercussions of dynamite fishing. The town still survives off of its fishing (mostly with nets and also for stingrays! Actually we tried stingray for the first time.) and the tourism is barely getting off the ground there. Soon to explode.
Upon exit we were able to use our experience with the Latin American salto on our own car minus a drunk el salvadorian! If the term is new to you, refer to previous blog post. All is well. Somewhere else down the road in Nicaragua. Minus one Henry. Plus one Ian.
Intro to the Latin Ameican salto
It's been a blur since we've entered Nicaragua to say the least. Surf. Beach. Surf. Beach. Surf.....
However, in the midst of our routine lives there is always some excitement and there are a few turns of adventure as well.
This one goes a ways back to our grand exit of Guatemala. Once upon a night in el salvador, We met a dude.... A group of dudes actually... A group of Drunk el salvadorian dudes in the middle of the night while we were sleeping in our tents on the beach. Flashlights started dancing around the tents and Slurry, loud Spanish was talking at us. In that moment I decided we were meeting the legendary ladrones (thieves) of central America. First thought was they fancied our red 4runner, our swimshorts, our spear gun, our surfboards, my faded black hat, or other gizmos and trinkets we gringos carry... Or worst they just felt like picking on gringos. They talked and I did t care to understand, but Grady, skyler, and Henry figured out they supposedly needed a jump for their car. We got the 4runner out while mr. Drunkest himself harassed us and tried to pick a fight while his compadres cussed him out in Spanish to take it easy cause they were asking a favor.
We pulled up and no jumper cables were to be found (even though they said they had them) so we did what I now call the Latin American salto (jump).
Step 1: remove healthy car battery from healthy car
Step 2: carry battery passed drunk guy slurring out "hey papi! Where you from papi!" to the dead car
Step 3: invert healthy battery on top of dead one and bridge the gap with your handy dandy crescent wrench.
Step 4: start that puppy up and get the hell outta there cause the drunk guy is trying to kiss you and shows you he has your name tattooed on his man boob. What da?!
Anyways. Success. That's the Latin American salto.
However, in the midst of our routine lives there is always some excitement and there are a few turns of adventure as well.
This one goes a ways back to our grand exit of Guatemala. Once upon a night in el salvador, We met a dude.... A group of dudes actually... A group of Drunk el salvadorian dudes in the middle of the night while we were sleeping in our tents on the beach. Flashlights started dancing around the tents and Slurry, loud Spanish was talking at us. In that moment I decided we were meeting the legendary ladrones (thieves) of central America. First thought was they fancied our red 4runner, our swimshorts, our spear gun, our surfboards, my faded black hat, or other gizmos and trinkets we gringos carry... Or worst they just felt like picking on gringos. They talked and I did t care to understand, but Grady, skyler, and Henry figured out they supposedly needed a jump for their car. We got the 4runner out while mr. Drunkest himself harassed us and tried to pick a fight while his compadres cussed him out in Spanish to take it easy cause they were asking a favor.
We pulled up and no jumper cables were to be found (even though they said they had them) so we did what I now call the Latin American salto (jump).
Step 1: remove healthy car battery from healthy car
Step 2: carry battery passed drunk guy slurring out "hey papi! Where you from papi!" to the dead car
Step 3: invert healthy battery on top of dead one and bridge the gap with your handy dandy crescent wrench.
Step 4: start that puppy up and get the hell outta there cause the drunk guy is trying to kiss you and shows you he has your name tattooed on his man boob. What da?!
Anyways. Success. That's the Latin American salto.
Saturday, February 9, 2013
Xela, The race through el Salvador, Honduras, and Nicaragua 1!
Time flies. Four weeks of language school in quetzaltenango is now over and we are back on the road.
Language school was quite the positive experience. We spent four weeks in home stays (3 meals a day!) and had class with one on one teachers for a price 145 USD a week. The classes were 4.5 hours a day and I must say my Spanish definitely improved at an exponential rate. It still isn't good, but much better. En serio.
Quetzaltenango ,aka xela for short, is a pretty maze of central American, one way, winding streets that all resemble each other. The pubs, coffee shops, and clubs are all college style around the language schools because it's right next to a Guatemalan college. When you wander around town you see a decent amount of language school students mixed in with college age Guatemalans. It's a city full of good, young energy.... At least around the college. Of course, that's a fraction of the whole city.
Gotta mention the markets too! Tons of classic central American bargaining, getting overcharged for being a gringo, and more street vendors than anybody needs! Very awesome. El terminal is the biggest and baddest!
Chicken busses you might ask? Awesome. Just be up for the adventure of cramming on the steps of a school bus with at least five people hanging out the door while going 20mph on cobblestone streets.... With rhianna blasting in your ear. ...And on a good chicken bus. Neon lights! Legendary. The daily means of transport in Guatemala.
Now. It's been a kick start getting back on the road. We ended up motoring through Guatemala to el Salvador only to find we couldn't stay. Apparently there's a complicated regulation that.... Blah blah blah.... The point is we had 24 hours to cross el Salvador or they would stick us with a 1350 USD fine. 3.....2......1... go! Yikes! We made it with flying colors. But! the next place we wanted to go was Nicaragua so we crossed el Salvador, through the little tip of Honduras, and down into Nicaragua in one day. Three countries = Too much time in the car.
First stop was some unimportant town with no waves. Just an angry security guard who woke us up and an evangelical Christian night guard who said we could camp there. Hmmm. Next! We stopped at the legendary break in Nicaragua called The Boom. We got pounded in shallow, heavy beach break and watched Grady surf for his first time in it (whoops), shouted politics with a giant American (he says and points at Skyler, "YOU KNOW WHAT, F**** YOU!" in a friendly way of course. just a passionate dude.) who doesn't want his name on the internet for evading taxes and who knows what else (good guy though) Despues, we raced south to las Peñitas, and here we are. The surf is small. That's the reason I have time to write all this down. I'm a little ashamed that I just summed up five weeks into five paragraphs but short is sweet and means I can get back to the beach! Etc. Chow.
P.s. We also went to lago atitlan and a different weekend rock climbing at la Muela in xela. That's the lake photos and the rock climbing photos. No lake in xela! And yes. Those are dyed baby chickens. Wow.
Language school was quite the positive experience. We spent four weeks in home stays (3 meals a day!) and had class with one on one teachers for a price 145 USD a week. The classes were 4.5 hours a day and I must say my Spanish definitely improved at an exponential rate. It still isn't good, but much better. En serio.
Quetzaltenango ,aka xela for short, is a pretty maze of central American, one way, winding streets that all resemble each other. The pubs, coffee shops, and clubs are all college style around the language schools because it's right next to a Guatemalan college. When you wander around town you see a decent amount of language school students mixed in with college age Guatemalans. It's a city full of good, young energy.... At least around the college. Of course, that's a fraction of the whole city.
Gotta mention the markets too! Tons of classic central American bargaining, getting overcharged for being a gringo, and more street vendors than anybody needs! Very awesome. El terminal is the biggest and baddest!
Chicken busses you might ask? Awesome. Just be up for the adventure of cramming on the steps of a school bus with at least five people hanging out the door while going 20mph on cobblestone streets.... With rhianna blasting in your ear. ...And on a good chicken bus. Neon lights! Legendary. The daily means of transport in Guatemala.
Now. It's been a kick start getting back on the road. We ended up motoring through Guatemala to el Salvador only to find we couldn't stay. Apparently there's a complicated regulation that.... Blah blah blah.... The point is we had 24 hours to cross el Salvador or they would stick us with a 1350 USD fine. 3.....2......1... go! Yikes! We made it with flying colors. But! the next place we wanted to go was Nicaragua so we crossed el Salvador, through the little tip of Honduras, and down into Nicaragua in one day. Three countries = Too much time in the car.
First stop was some unimportant town with no waves. Just an angry security guard who woke us up and an evangelical Christian night guard who said we could camp there. Hmmm. Next! We stopped at the legendary break in Nicaragua called The Boom. We got pounded in shallow, heavy beach break and watched Grady surf for his first time in it (whoops), shouted politics with a giant American (he says and points at Skyler, "YOU KNOW WHAT, F**** YOU!" in a friendly way of course. just a passionate dude.) who doesn't want his name on the internet for evading taxes and who knows what else (good guy though) Despues, we raced south to las Peñitas, and here we are. The surf is small. That's the reason I have time to write all this down. I'm a little ashamed that I just summed up five weeks into five paragraphs but short is sweet and means I can get back to the beach! Etc. Chow.
P.s. We also went to lago atitlan and a different weekend rock climbing at la Muela in xela. That's the lake photos and the rock climbing photos. No lake in xela! And yes. Those are dyed baby chickens. Wow.
Sunday, January 6, 2013
El salvador and volcan acatenango
Coop and henry flew into Guatemala and met us in Antigua. After discussing plans, we headed straight for El Salvador and stayed there for five days of surfing and ringing in the new year! We stayed at a small beach called playa mizata for three of those nights where two families let us park between their tin roof shacks.
We surfed, spearfished and hung out with the local kids, spent new years in tunco, and drove back to Guatemala for a day of climbing a volcano.
We ended up choosing acatenango, summited in a cloud and wind that could bow your face off. We sat down on top, joked around and ran back down through the cloud and jungle. It's steep! My quads still hurt two days later.
And now! Today we start language classes in xela. Time to mellow out for a few weeks and learn some Spanish.
We surfed, spearfished and hung out with the local kids, spent new years in tunco, and drove back to Guatemala for a day of climbing a volcano.
We ended up choosing acatenango, summited in a cloud and wind that could bow your face off. We sat down on top, joked around and ran back down through the cloud and jungle. It's steep! My quads still hurt two days later.
And now! Today we start language classes in xela. Time to mellow out for a few weeks and learn some Spanish.
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