Exodus

After months of planning, prepping, selling, buying, insuring, and packing, we have finally arrived at our first destination, Isla de Ometepe in Nicaragua!  We thank you all for taking an interest in our travels, and we are very excited to share our experiences with all of you.

Tuesday December 18.

We began our trek by driving to Buffalo, NY.  As many of you know, it is much cheaper to fly out of Buffalo than it is Toronto.  We were having a nice time, and trying not to be too anxious, as we approached the border.  The customs lady was nice enough to scare the crap out of all of us (Allan, Debbie, and Dalice) by informing us that the Nicaraguan Customs agent would not let us into the country, if we didn't have a departing flight booked. Thanks to her, the next couple of hours were pretty anxious.  After stopping at Walmart for some last minute items and a present for the Parents, we had our last North American lunch at Denny's, and headed for the Buffalo Airport!

While checking in to United Airlines, the agent's face suddenly turned sour.  "Is something wrong?" we asked.  "Well, unfortunately, if you don't have a departing flight out of Nicaragua, I can't let you board the plane!".  We were starting to see an alarming trend.  The nerves kicked up into high gear again.  After a few phone calls, disconnections, and what seemed like hours on hold, the agent finally told us that they would let us through to our connection in Houston, where we could sort the situation out there.  We gave the agent a team hug, and said a tearful goodbye to Dallan (there were two criers, but we wont mention any names) and were on our way!

We made our first connection in Washington, which was pretty painless, and flew to Houston.  We arrived there at 1:00 am, and were not flying out again until 9:00 am, so we attempted to sleep on the cold, tiled, dirty arrivals area in the airport.  Only one of us was successful. When the United check in desk opened at 5:00 am, we were told that we may or may not have a problem at the Nicaraguan border, but was much more positive and reassuring. So we headed to our gate for another 5 hours of waiting. 

Wednesday December 19.

After being told on the runway that we were experiencing "technical difficulties", we were treated to a two hour delay, and a plane swap, but eventually we made it to Managua, Nicaragua at 2:00 pm.  We approached the customs agent, and were understandably nervous about what he would say.  Fortunately, he didn't say much other than "Have a good time", after he stamped our passports. Apparently the Americanos care more about these things than the Nica.

We were greeted by 30 degrees and high humidity as we exited the airport, as well as a large group of locals offering cab rides, gum, bracelets, and candy.  We did accept a cab ride, but nothing else.  It ended up costing $50, but we were exhausted and couldn't wait to get to our first Hostel in Granada.

The ride was, interesting, to say the least.  No one ever told us that Nicaragua was a third world country!  Jokes.  But it really is! Houses are shacks, cars share the road with donkeys, horse drawn carriages, and cattle drivers, as well as what can only be described as an incredible number of stray dogs, all sadly pretty thin.  We also witnessed a group of vultures having a meal of a dead cow, just off the side of the road, as we drove through Tipitapa. 

We arrived in Granada around 4:00 pm, and stepped into our first accommodations, Hostel Mochilas.  It was pretty much how we expected; a simple queen sized bed with a sheet that belonged on a double, a fan, and a very third world washroom.  We were pleasantly surprised by the colour tv in our room though, and all in all, we were happy with the Hostel.  We set out for a walk to explore the town, which was a little intimidating at first.  We received many looks and whistles, and were apparently the only gringos in the town.  We began to feel more comfortable, though, as we approached the "park centrale", and started to see more travellers like ourselves.  We dined on pizza from a truck, which cost 36 "cordobas", or approximately $1.50, for two slices.  We were excited about that!  We took our anti-malaria pills, and decided to turn in at the early hour of 8:00 pm after the 24 hours of travel and sleep deprivation.

Thursday December 20.

We woke up at balls a.m. (a term we stole from our soon to be friends Nathan and Liz), and were feeling good.  We ate at a local café, and had a "grilled" cheese sandwich (not grilled), and burritos el pollo (chicken burritos).  The service wasn't great, but we didn't know how to ask to speak to the manager in Spanish, nor did we care all that much anyway. She was kind enough, though, to pre add a 10% tip, which apparently is the custom here in Nicaragua. 

We walked over to the tour office to decide what to do with our day, and came to the decision of renting a double kayak to paddle around las islas de Lago Nicaragua.  We then met the aforementioned Nathan and Liz, who had also just rented a double kayak, and shared a cab with them to the Lake.  We paddled for 3 hours or so, and had a great time exploring, chatting with our new pals from Indiana, and even took a swimming break, where Nathan informed us that Lake Nicaragua is the only one in the world with freshwater sharks that kill.  We got back in the kayaks after that discussion. 

We got back to Granada close to 4:00 pm, and agreed to meet our pals for dinner in about an hour.  We took lukewarm showers that were surprisingly refreshing, and killed a large cockroach that Dave managed to keep secret from Alice until we checked out of the hostel the next day.  We met Nathan and Liz at the park centrale, and they introduced us to the main calle (street) we hadn't explored before. It was a cute cobble stone road filled with restaurants, bars, and tons of lively people. We sat down at a Mexican restaurant where we ate tacos and cheesy fries, and this time we gave a little extra tip on top of the pre-added 10%.  We then went to an authentic Nicaraguan Irish Pub, and found out that dos litros (2 litres) of beer costs approximately $4.  We were there for awhile.  We got to know our new friends, talked about life, sports, and how to improve Canadian/American relations one beer at a time.  We were also treated to a spontaneous show from some local kids doing their rendition of "gangnam style" on the street.  We gave them a tip too.  We also met our first of probably very many "favorite strays" who we affectionately name Scar, as he had a rather large one on his head. 

 

The night ended with fireworks (literally), and a nice walk home with our new friends, who we had to unfortunately bid farewell to at that point.  We went to sleep happy that we had such a good first official day of our adventure.

Friday December 21, Doomsday.

So what should two adventurers do on the day the world is supposed to end? We felt the most appropriate thing to do was to head over to an Island that has two volcanoes on it, one of which being active. 

We walked through the "less touristy" part of town to get to the bus station.  It was like something you'd imagine seeing in Bangladesh, or India.  A little bit of culture shock there, but we are sure we will get used to it eventually.  The streets were narrow, very crowded, and full of merchants selling anything from shoes to baby chicks. 

We arrived on what had heard was called the "chicken bus", and were pleasantly surprised at how vacant it was.  It was an old school bus from the U.S. which still had the English signs like "respect the driver" and "rules of the bus" posted.  As we were driving, the bus made several stops, where more people got on board, and eventually all the seats were taken, and there was no standing room left in the aisle.  We knew then why they call it the chicken bus. 

We were dropped of at the bus terminal in Rivas, where we found more shoes, baby chicks, and random merchants, but decided not to buy anything.  We took a cab with some new friends we had met on the bus (Taylor from Vancouver, and Johanns from Germany) and headed to the ferry port, where we took a very crowded and.. nauseating.. ferry to Ometepe Island.  We parked ourselves on the top deck, where we met more travellers and found out that we had conveniently arrived on a day that also housed the "end of the world" house music party at the volcano.

We got lost on our way to our new hostel, which is something we've already become accustomed to, but eventually found it.  It is very quaint; in the central part of town, with lots of hammocks, a fully equipped bar, a nice private room for Dalice, and oh ya, monkeys!  There are also deer in what they have set up to be a mini zoo.  The one bad thing is the lack of running water, which means no shower. Oh well.

We started drinking local rum at around 5:00 p.m., forgetting that all we had to eat that day was a granola bar each, and yet another taco.  Needless to say, that little amount of food did not support the large quantity of rum that we drank, and unfortunately, as soon as we arrived that the end'o'the'world party.. well.. We'll spare you the details.  It ended up being an early night. We want to send a special shout out to Rad Chad from PEI, for all the help.  Thankfully, the world didn't end, and there is "round 2" of the party tonight, so we will be a little more cautious of how much we drink (and eat).

Saturday December 22.

So here we are, at 10 in the morning, at a café on a double volcano island, telling you all about our travels to this point.  We thank you all again for your interest, and welcome any questions, comments, suggestions on writing style, suggestions on maybe putting less detail into the blog, and also any cash donations you may have ;).  We look forward to sharing more experiences with you next time we get the chance.

With love from the volcano(es),
Dalice