Tuesday 16th May 2006, SJDS, Nicaragua – SAILFISHING, SJDS, NICARAGUA

Having been desperate to try BIG fishing since our arrival in San Juan we were delighted when our friend Eric invited out on his friend’s boat to go catch some sailfish. Having only fished in lakes in the UK and Celina not having fished ever we were so excited about the prospect of catching our biggest fish! The five of us (Eric, Roberto - the boat owner & Richard) had been out on the water for about half and hour when Roberto got a bite on his line. Roberto struggled with the strength of the fish but got it under control nicely and whilst he was fighting to bring the fish in we often saw it jump out of the water and sail above it before entering the water again – it was so amazing to this huge fish jump out of the water so close to us knowing that we were reeling it in at the same time but as it all happened to fast we didn’t manage to catch those shots on film. Not long after Roberto and Richard were dragging the fish into the boat. This was when we realised just how big the fish was!

Roberto & Richard with the Sailfish

After our amazing catch we then went in search of some Dorado (Mahi Mahi). After a short amount of time we catch a 40 pound Dorado that actually unhooked itself and flew into our boat! As well as the two poles with bait on we also dropped into the sea a hook and line. There was no bait on the hook and the line was literally a piece of strong string! After catching this Dorado Celina started fiddling with the string hoping to attract some fish on to the line only to be rewarded with jeers from the men with their big rod and lines but it was soon Celina who was laughing when she caught her first ever fish – a huge 1 pound tuna!!!!

Celina and her first fish!

The men did not catch any big fish (although one more small tuna was caught on the hook and line) and Oliver did manage to get two bites but then lost them!

The day after our big fishing trip we went to Eric’s house for dinner to enjoy the fish we had caught with some good friends, food and wine.

Definitely the best fishing trip ever!

Monday 15th May 2006. San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua. A Nicaraguan Wedding.

It was just normal day. Having woken up after a long nights sleep (due to the searing heat we get so tired – it’s the height of summer – we are sleepy average 10 hrs a night!) and had lunch at Pelican Eyes Hotel Resort we pop into town for some supplies and bump into our friend Jorge. Jorge is a local who works at the surf shop so we’ve spent a lot of time with him and come to like him a lot. He tells us that he has just been to our house to invite us to the wedding of Byron & Isabel later that afternoon. Byron is the owner of the surf shop Arena Caliente and Isabel is his girlfriend who is currently visiting from Canada with their two year old son Manu. A few hours later we walk into town to our friend Bridget’s house where the wedding is being held. The wedding is held in the garden with all the boys that we have come to know from the surf shop there, Byron’s family and a few other people like us – tourists who have been in San Juan for an extended period of time. Weddings in Nicaragua are either religious or civil as in the UK but here the venue needn’t be licensed - as long as you have a lawyer you can get married anywhere.

So the wedding began in the lush garden adorned with white balloons. Isabel was given away by Byron’s elder brother Kervin who also runs the surf shop. The wedding was short and sweet and it was the only wedding that we have been to where you could drink beer and smoke a cigarette during the ceremony! Witnessing the wedding brought back a lot of happy memories of our own wedding just a few months ago. After the wedding we continued the party in the garden with some local food and pizzas and of course lots of Nica Libres (Nica rum and lemonade).

We are very happy to have experienced a Nica wedding (something we never expected to do) and wish Byron, Isabel and Manu every happiness in their new life in Canada.

The Wedding Party (Byron & Isabel at centre in blue dress and flower shirt – Manu at front)

The Goodfellows

The 3 Gringos (aka L-R, Kevin, Oliver & Brent)

Wednesday 3rd May – Sunday 7th May 2006, Granada, Nicaragua.Granada is an old colonial city (the oldest in Central America), which was once the capita

Granada is an old colonial city (the oldest in Central America), which was once the capital of Nicaragua, and is set along the shore of Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua). From Granada there is easy access to visit nearby Volcan Mombacho, Masaya Market and Laguna De Apoyo.

We arrived in Granada on Wednesday afternoon and checked into a lovely renovated colonial backpacker hostel with swimming pool so we spent our day lounging by the pool and meeting fellow travellers. This was were we met Jody (a fellow Englishman) who introduced to the idea of creating this blog – he has also created his own to document his travels through Central America.

Thursday we travelled an hour away to Masaya to visit the biggest markets in Nicaragua. There are two different markets, cheap one used by locals and travellers and another very touristy expensive one. We visited both and came back with no souvenirs! Oliver had quite rightly pointed out that buying souvenirs at this point would mean us having to carry them around South America! However we will return to Masaya market when we return to Nicaragua to catch our flight home so we can stock up on our souvenirs!

Friday day and night was spent at the extremely relaxing Laguna de Apoyo, Nicaragua’s cleanest, bluest and deepest swimming hole - 48 square-kilometres body of water inside the crater of Volcan Apoyo. The volcano still has some underwater thermal vents and there are the occasional seismic tremors but we didn’t experience any!

The lagoon is half and hours drive from Granada city and there are a few tourist facilities and private homes built by the water’s edge. We stayed at The Craters Edge a newly opened hotel run by a lovely Canadian woman called Sandy. We spent the day sunning and swimming by the lakeshore and talking English football with the three English lads we had met (we met the most amount of English people of our trip so far whilst visiting Granada).

Jody in a kayak on Laguna De Apoyo

We also treated ourselves to a full body massage by the on-site American massage therapist which was the nicest setting to have a massage in – under huge trees by the waters edge. Food was included in the price of the room so we enjoyed dinner on the terrace overlooking the lake to the accompaniment of howler monkeys. We had the most relaxing time at Laguna De Apoyo and hope to revisit time allowing.

Sunrise at Laguna De Apoyo

Saturday morning we took the bus back to Granada for our afternoon kayak tour of Las Isletas just off the shore of Lake Nicaragua. Las Isletas is a 365-island archipelago formed when nearby Volcan Mombacho erupted 20,000 years ago throwing the top half of the volcano into the lake in giant masses of rock, ash and lava. Today the islands are inhabited by a few hundred campesinos and the ever increasing number of tourists – you can buy an island from as little as $45,000!!!!

A visit round Las Isletas is either in a lanchas (engined boat) or by kayak. We went for the kayak as we were told this was the best way to see the most amount of wildlife and we were told right!

We set out at 2pm to avoid the worst of the heat and catch the start of sunset but it was still very hot and still on the lake. At our first corner we rowed straight into a herd of bulls so had to divert our route!

Traffic at Las Isletas

We slowly worked our way through the gleaming water to the sound of bird calls and the odd boat engine and we took a break when we stopped off at Fortin de San Pablo, a Spanish fort built to prevent pirate attacks on Granada.

Apart from the constant worry of getting the camera wet (!) we had a great few hours kayaking, took some great pictures and felt very happy at having experienced something quite unique to Nicaragua and Central America.

Celina kayaking at Las Isletas

Oliver kayaking at Las Isletas with Volcan Mombacho in the background

Thursday 20th & Friday 21st April 2006 – OMETEPE ISLAND, NICARAGUA

Ometepe Island is a few hours journey from San Juan and we ventured there with the purpose of climbing one of the two volcanoes which make up the island. Ometepe means ‘two hills’ in Nahuatl and it was the Nahuatl people who first inhabited the island. Ometepe Island is completely surrounded by Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) and insulated from the rest of the country. Ometepe Island is dominated by the two massive volcanoes that make up the bulk of the island, Volcan Concepcion (1610 meters) and Volcan Maderas (1394 meters) and it was Volcan Concepcion that we decided to climb.

We took the Ometepe Ferry from the port of nearby San Jorge to get the island and shared the Ferry with a rather large bull which took the locals a long time to force on to the Ferry!
Ometepe Island is a few hours journey from San Juan and we ventured there with the purpose of climbing one of the two volcanoes which make up the island. Ometepe means ‘two hills’ in Nahuatl and it was the Nahuatl people who first inhabited the island. Ometepe Island is completely surrounded by Lago Cocibolca (Lake Nicaragua) and insulated from the rest of the country. Ometepe Island is dominated by the two massive volcanoes that make up the bulk of the island, Volcan Concepcion (1610 meters) and Volcan Maderas (1394 meters) and it was Volcan Concepcion that we decided to climb.

We took the Ometepe Ferry from the port of nearby San Jorge to get the island and shared the Ferry with a rather large bull which took the locals a long time to force on to the Ferry!

Ometepe Ferry at the port of San Jorge

Having arrived at the port of Moyogalpa on Ometepe Island we checked in to the local backpackers’ hostel, booked our hike with the local famous guide Berman Gomez and bought food supplies for the next days climb.

The view from our hostel (Hospedaje Central) – Volcan Concepcion in background.

We knew we were in safe hands with Berman as he had recently led an expedition for the BBC where eleven physically disabled British people crossed Nicaragua from the Caribbean to the Pacific side which also included a hike up Volcan Concepcion. The expedition was called Beyond Boundaries and shown in the UK in November 2005 and had just been recently broadcast to the residents of Ometepe.

Due to the searing heat (it’s currently the height of summer) we were told the hike up Volcan Concepcion would only be up to 1000 meters (called El Floral – this is the part where the jungle ends as the last third of the hike is treeless and rocky) as even the professional guides get dehydrated at this time of year.

The night before the hike we took a small walk around the port of Moyogalpa and noticed how much quieter Ometepe is compared with San Juan. After a quiet dinner we went to bed early in preparation for our 4.30am wake up call.

In the early hours of the morning we woke up excited about climbing up the live Volcan Concepcion. Berman told us that tremors occur everyday but assured us it was nothing to worry about!

Whilst putting on our hiking boots, Oliver managed to get two blisters so sadly had to stay behind and miss the hike – after 6 weeks of wearing nothing but flip flops our feet are not used to wearing boots!

So the hike began at 5am (there were 6 of us including Berman) at a height of 50 meters. The sky was just starting to get light as we began the trail up the volcanoe to the loud call of the resident howler monkeys. Even at this early hour it was incredibly hot and humid in the jungle slops of the volcanoe –the sweat was beginning to run down our faces.

Whilst following the almost non existent trail, Berman would stop to show us the many different types of jungle plants and tell us of their medicinal properties, as well as point out different birds, butterflies and spiders! We managed to see a whole group of the most poisonous spiders in the world (they were all grouped at the bottom of a huge tree) but we were safe as these spiders don’t the fangs to bite and inject their venom!

Windowpane Butterfly

About 8am we stopped and had breakfast at the base of the biggest tree I have ever seen. It was lovely to eat breakfast in the cool shade of the jungle to the sound of howler monkeys. After a short rest we carried on with our hike so as not to get cold – when we were walking we would all be hot and sweaty but after stopping for a few minutes we would start to get cold the higher we climbed.

As we climbed into the cloud it became incredibly difficult for me to climb. The trail became less obvious and the higher we climbed the more ashy and soft the trail became so we would often slip. The trail also got very steep so you had to hold onto a tree to help lift yourself over the ledge blocking your way but at the same time you would have to be very aware of what you were grabbing hold of as snakes have a funny way of looking like tree branches! We had to take lots of little breaks at this point as I was moving so slowly ad getting so breathless due to the change in climate but Berman assured us this was quite common for those with asthma - not a good day for me to leave the inhaler at home!
Still we carried on for a few more hundred meters (which felt like miles) through the dense jungle.

Hiking the jungle trail of Volcan Concepcion

Tired, hot and sweaty (excepting Berman!) we reached El Floral about 11am and sat in the cloud cover and ate our lunch overlooking the island of Ometepe. There was lots of cloud cover so we were unable to see the very top of Volcan Conception. It was cold and damp at El Floral so we didn’t stay long after we’d finished eating and started our descent down the other side of the volcano which was a completely different type of vegetation – very grassy combined with large lava flows. Climbing down the volcano was almost as hard as climbing up the volcano due to the uneven of the grass and we had to be careful to walk behind Berman as what would seem like grass actually disguised a huge crevasse which we could easily fall into had we not had a guide.

The views on the way down were nothing but spectacular and we constantly looked back up the volcano amazed at how high we had climbed.

Looking down from El Floral

The crevasses of Volcan Concepcion

Celina sat on a lava flow on Volcan Concepcion

The walk back down the volcano as eventful as climbing up and we all enjoyed picking guavas off the trees and eating them. As we reached the bottom of the volcano we suddenly stopped as Berman had spotted a vine snake. To our untrained eyes it took us a while before we could see it wrapped around the vines on a fence. Berman played with the snake with his hiking pole to enable the next picture to be taken!

A Vine snake on Volcan Concepcion

Near the end of the hike we rewarded with the best complete view of Volcan Concepcion we had seen so far.

Volcan Concepcion near the end of the hike

All in all we walked 12 km, climbed 1000 meters, and took 7 hours!

The hike up Volcan Concepcion was the hardest walk ever but also the most exciting!

We hope to return to Ometepe Island to climb Volcan Maderas (which has a crater filled lake at the top) and see the waterfall, Cascada San Ramon.

The beach hut at Playa Madera

Having arrived in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, on the 2nd March 2006 exhausted after the madness of leaving London, we have spent two months relaxing into the pace of life here. San Juan Del Sur is 50 miles north of the border with Costa Rica, was once a quiet fishing village but now is the primary Pacific coast destination in Nicaragua (during Semana Santa the town was overrun with tourists from Nicaragua and neighbouring countries which was bearable during the day but at night it always got a bit aggressive due to the excessive amounts of alcohol everyone consumed so we stayed indoors like the locals do!)

Having arrived in San Juan Del Sur, Nicaragua, on the 2nd March 2006 exhausted after the madness of leaving London, we have spent two months relaxing into the pace of life here. San Juan Del Sur is 50 miles north of the border with Costa Rica, was once a quiet fishing village but now is the primary Pacific coast destination in Nicaragua (during Semana Santa the town was overrun with tourists from Nicaragua and neighbouring countries which was bearable during the day but at night it always got a bit aggressive due to the excessive amounts of alcohol everyone consumed so we stayed indoors like the locals do!)

Known for its beaches, surf and the Paslama sea turtle nesting beaches the south west pacific side of Nicaragua has been a great starting point for our travels.

We have managed to rent a house from a local family in the Barrio Chino right near the centre of San Juan. Nicaraguan families are big (4 – 6 children) and most families live close to each other and this is true of our family – the whole neighbourhood is related to them! Because of the strong family dependence in Nicaragua we have been welcomed into the family we rent from. They have often given us traditional home cooked Nica food, fresh fish (caught that day by a family member) and we’ve enjoyed days out together on the family fishing boats. We feel very fortunate to have met such a nice family.

One fishing trip outside the bay of San Juan was useless as we caught no fish but we were rewarded with the sight of two whale tails rising out of the water (like something of National Geographic!) which made up for the lack of fish caught. A better fishing trip was in the bay of San Juan one lazy Sunday afternoon with the family we rent from. We dropped two nets into the sea twice and each time caught an amazing amount of fish. We had never seen so many different types of fish before; we caught red snapper, plaice, small silver fish, eels, puffa fish, sardines, stingrays and so many other fish that we don’t know the names of! The best part was eating our freshly caught fish right there on the boat having been simply fried in oil garlic and salt. This was best fish we have ever eaten!

Most of our days are spent surfing at Playa Madera 10 km north of San Juan. To get there we take the truck with the San Juan’s surf shop, Arena Caliente. The journey to Madera is always fun filled, bumpy and cramped depending on how many are going to surf each day - travelling Nica style means fitting as many people into the back of the truck as possible with surfboards attached to the roof of the truck – luckily ladies get to sit in the front of the truck which definitely is the safest place to be as there have been times when the truck has failed to make it up the steep hills and has rolled back down to the bottom almost colliding with the big tress! At Madera there is only one beach hut which serves food and drink and also has a few rooms for rent above. There is no running water or electricity at this beach stop; water is brought from the well everyday, electricity is provided by generators and our lunch is cooked on a wood burning stove. Die hard surfers love it here as there’s nothing else to do but surf.

Having snapped the surf shops surfboard in half, Oliver has now bought his own surfboard and is improving everyday. The aim is to master the waves here before we move on to the pacific surf beaches in El Salvador.

Our time in San Juan has been very very chilled and the hardest part of our days tend to be deciding what to eat as Nica food has become boring for us now. Apart from the scorpions stings we’ve both endured (we now have a house rule of shaking clothes before putting them on!), the ants nest that hatched out of our bedroom door, being pooed on by our house lizards whilst lying on the sofa, being bitten by bugs and the constant singing of the cockerel (day and night!) we have had nothing to complain about so far!

The remains of the ant nest built in our bedroom door!