Three of the ten hours were in Honduras. These were the only three hours I spent in Honduras so while I got a Honduran stamp in my passport, my memories of Honduras consist mostly of sleeping on an air conditioned bus. I later learned that a police officer had come aboard the bus shortly after the border to check our bags. Since I was fast asleep and he didn't want to disturb my sleep to ask me to unlock my bag for him, he just assumed I wasn't carrying anything illegal and let me sleep. At the second border of the trip, I had to actually wake up and get off of the bus for the security check. At this border, the bus, now emptied of passengers was put through a giant scanner. We were told this "scanner" was scanning the bus for drugs. How did the scanner work? It appeared to be using some sort of electromagnetic radiation, but I have a very hard time believing that it could have any chance of being able to pick out any drugs from a bus. The border guards claimed that it could detect any drugs, but different drugs have different chemical structures which interact with electromagnetic radiation differently, so it would be very difficult (I'm tempted to say impossible) to distinguish the organic compounds found in drugs from similar non-psychoactive organic compounds found in various items on the bus, such as food and fabrics, especially since it wasn't just looking for one specific drug. But then again, I'm just a chemist and a chemical engineer, so I should probably leave the drug detection technology to the experts, the border guards.
Thursday, 26 June 2014
I went to Honduras... I think
At the beginning of the trip, we had 40 days to travel and 7 countries to visit, so as a rule of thumb, we should have been spending slightly under a week in each country. We awoke in Granda on Sunday, May 11, 2014 having already spent the first 15 days in just Costa Rica and Nicaragua. We needed to keep moving, so we decided to head directly to Honduras, even though we would have liked to have seen Leon before leaving Nicaragua. But where should we go in Honduras? We wanted to stay on the Pacific side of Honduras so that we could easily make our way to El Salvador afterwards. Upon consulting a map, there didn't seem to be much in the southern part of Honduras aside from its capital, Tegucigalpa. I had been warned that Tegucigalpa has one of the highest, if not the highest, crime rate of any city in the world, so we wanted to stay away from that city. Instead, we decided to just skip Honduras for now with the intent of visiting Utila, a dive town in the Bay Islands on Honduras' Caribbean coast later in the trip. We bought Tica bus tickets from Managua, Nicaragua to San Salvador, El Salvador for $50 USD each, and prepared ourselves for a long 10 hour bus ride spanning 3 countries.
Granada!
When we finally left San Juan del Sur (Friday, May 9, 2014), we took a bus into the nearby town of Rivas hoping to get a transfer into Granada, a Spanish colonial town which many other travellers had recommended to us. Upon arriving in the small market/bus station in Rivas, several taxi drivers began accosting us while we tried to figure out where the next bus we needed to take would stop. A young, teenage boy informed us the next bus wouldn't arrive for another two hours, so we decided to take a taxi instead. The taxi driver was happy to drive us the 70 km from Rivas to Granada. I even managed to convince him to drive us for C$150 (about $6 CAD) instead of the C$250 he had originally asked for. It wasn't much money, but I was proud of myself for having successfully gotten a better deal. It is interesting how Nicaraguan taxi drivers are happy to drive to another city more than an hour drive away, while Canadian taxi drivers will only drive in one city.
We arrived in the central square in Granada just before dusk and immediately made our way to the Hostel Oasis, which my sister had recommended to us. I paid for my room key and was searching for my dorm when we ran into our friend Bryan! I had to do a double take. We had said goodbye to our Manitoban friends twice already, once in La Fortuna and then a second time in San Juan del Sur after unexpectedly meeting up with them, so we definitely did not expect to be staying with them yet another city. This was a pleasant surprise, as Bryan, Vanessa, and Rob are always fun people to spend time with, and they had already spent a day in Granada, so they knew their way around and were able to recommend us a place to get quesadillas for dinner.
That evening we went for drinks with Bryan, Vanessa, Rob, and Sam, another traveller at our hostel who was from Vancouver. I ordered a rum and coke, which cost C$120 (about $5) similar to what it costs in Canada. However, the price was where the similarities end. I was brought a regular glass bottle of coke and a full mickey of 4 year old Flor de Cana rum, as was advertised. Then, to my surprise the server gave me a second half-mickey of rum. I told him I hadn't ordered it, but he said that it was a special promotion. So for the same price, my rum and coke came with about 10 times as much rum as I would receive back home. Needless to say, I did not finish the rum. Fortunately Nicaraguan liquor laws are very lax, so I simply brought the remaining rum with me when I left the pub. While we were socializing that evening, several Mariachi bands were walking around trying to get us to hire them to play some songs for us. I wasn't that interested in paying C$100 just to hear music, but Bryan decided to hire a group of three men to play three songs for us. They played nylon-string guitar and sang traditional music.
We spent one full day (Saturday, May 10, 2014) in Granda exploring the city, seeing the various historic buildings there. As a Spanish colonial town, the architecture is beautiful, however much of it is unfortunately not well maintained. We also visited several museums mostly displaying art and pottery.
Our first stop was the Iglesia de la Merced. This church has a tall clock tower, and we were told by both our guide book and by other travellers that it was possible to climb the clock tower for $1 and we could get an excellent aerial view of the city from the top of the tower. Unfortunately, no one was working there as it was the weekend, so we could only admire the church from the outside.
After seeing a museum, we headed west and came across an art gallery. It was free entrance so we went inside and looked around. The place was packed full of art and was much more crowded than any Canadian art gallery I had ever visited. What's more, all the items had prices as if this was not a gallery but a store. The prices were way out of my price range, but Hugh had his eye on a ceramic plate with a traditional lizard design on it. Out of curiosity he enquired about whether or not it was possible to ship an item he purchased back to Canada. A few minutes later he was on the phone with the gallery's owner who offered to sell him the plate he was interested in for much cheaper. Hugh couldn't turn the deal he had been offered, so we went to the bank and when we returned the gallery's owner had arrived to sell Hugh the plate. He ended up purchasing it and was able to mail it, wrapped in foam, back to Ottawa
Arguably the most famous building in Granada is its cathedral which is situated just off of the main square. This building is so iconic that it can even be found on the front cover of the Lonely Planet's Central America on a Shoestring, our travel guide which we picked up in San Juan del Sur and prevented us from getting too lost on our trip. This cathedral was one of the few buildings which was open to the public. Many people inside were praying, making it very difficult to get a good photo without random strangers in it.
At the far west end of our map, there was one last stop I wanted to visit: Fortaleza de la Polvera. This appeared to be an old Spanish fort. When I was 18 and 19, I spent two summers working in Canadian historic sites at Fort George and Fort Henry, which are British forts from 1812 and 1867, respectively. I was excited to see a Spanish fort built in 1748 to see how it differed from the ones which I have worked at since it was built by a different country in a different time period. The fort was quite far, way outside of the touristy part of town and pretty soon, we were the only people there who did not look local. We decided to stop for lunch and ended up in a little cafe. This cafe was very out of place. It served fancy, expensive, vegan food and craft beer. It was run by a Nicaraguan hipster, a demographic I was previously unaware of the existence of, yet it was located in a poor neighbourhood which I can only assume was filled with people who were neither vegan nor had the means to buy vegan food with the prices this cafe was charging.
After a very expensive salad, we continued on to the fort. To my great disappointment, the doors were securely locked, and it didn't appear that the fort was ever open to guests. I was still able to look at the fort from the outside. The fort's limestone walls formed a star pattern with bastions at each corner in the perfect location to fire weapons along the walls at anyone attacking the fort. This design was common to both forts I've worked at and all other British forts I've seen, so I was not surprised to see the Spanish had used the same technique. Another common feature was the numerous musket ports around the fort. These are small holes in the wall, just big enough for someone in the fort to fire a musket through. Luckily for me, these holes were also the perfect size for viewing inside the fort!
We arrived in the central square in Granada just before dusk and immediately made our way to the Hostel Oasis, which my sister had recommended to us. I paid for my room key and was searching for my dorm when we ran into our friend Bryan! I had to do a double take. We had said goodbye to our Manitoban friends twice already, once in La Fortuna and then a second time in San Juan del Sur after unexpectedly meeting up with them, so we definitely did not expect to be staying with them yet another city. This was a pleasant surprise, as Bryan, Vanessa, and Rob are always fun people to spend time with, and they had already spent a day in Granada, so they knew their way around and were able to recommend us a place to get quesadillas for dinner.
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| A local Mariachi band performs three songs for only C$100 |
We spent one full day (Saturday, May 10, 2014) in Granda exploring the city, seeing the various historic buildings there. As a Spanish colonial town, the architecture is beautiful, however much of it is unfortunately not well maintained. We also visited several museums mostly displaying art and pottery.
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| Iglesia de la Merced |
After seeing a museum, we headed west and came across an art gallery. It was free entrance so we went inside and looked around. The place was packed full of art and was much more crowded than any Canadian art gallery I had ever visited. What's more, all the items had prices as if this was not a gallery but a store. The prices were way out of my price range, but Hugh had his eye on a ceramic plate with a traditional lizard design on it. Out of curiosity he enquired about whether or not it was possible to ship an item he purchased back to Canada. A few minutes later he was on the phone with the gallery's owner who offered to sell him the plate he was interested in for much cheaper. Hugh couldn't turn the deal he had been offered, so we went to the bank and when we returned the gallery's owner had arrived to sell Hugh the plate. He ended up purchasing it and was able to mail it, wrapped in foam, back to Ottawa
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| A painting of Granada at the local art gallery |
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| We found exactly where the picture on the cover of the guidebook was taken! |
At the far west end of our map, there was one last stop I wanted to visit: Fortaleza de la Polvera. This appeared to be an old Spanish fort. When I was 18 and 19, I spent two summers working in Canadian historic sites at Fort George and Fort Henry, which are British forts from 1812 and 1867, respectively. I was excited to see a Spanish fort built in 1748 to see how it differed from the ones which I have worked at since it was built by a different country in a different time period. The fort was quite far, way outside of the touristy part of town and pretty soon, we were the only people there who did not look local. We decided to stop for lunch and ended up in a little cafe. This cafe was very out of place. It served fancy, expensive, vegan food and craft beer. It was run by a Nicaraguan hipster, a demographic I was previously unaware of the existence of, yet it was located in a poor neighbourhood which I can only assume was filled with people who were neither vegan nor had the means to buy vegan food with the prices this cafe was charging.
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| Viewing el Fortaleza de la Polvera from outside through a musket port |
Monday, 19 May 2014
What Happens When an American Gets Stuck in Nicaragua
When we arrived in San Juan del Sur, we were immediately greeted by a man speaking English with a North American accent asking if we needed a hostel. His name was Oscar and he had grown up in Chicago but had lived in Central America for several years. We ended up staying at the hostel he recommended and lived at, the Hospadeja Elizabeth, for our entire stay in San Juan. I initially liked Oscar. He was friendly, spoke good English, and had recommended us a good hostel. However, as I got to know him, my opinion quickly changed.
The first night, we asked if he had any dinner recommendations. He recommended a place called Cha Cha Cha's which had beers and appetizers for C$25 (equivalent to $1). He had told us to tell the server at the restaurant that Oscar had recommended it. Since she only spoke Spanish, we ended up not mentioning him as we didn't have the necessary Spanish skills to say that he had recommended it. While we were eating, Oscar arrived at the restaurant and told them that he had sent us. It seemed strange that he cared so much that they knew he had recommended it to us.
Later that evening, we mentioned to Oscar that we were interested in getting our open water certifications. He was all too eager to help and wasted no time going to the dive shop on our behalf. He arranged a meeting between the dive instructor and us and walked us to the dive shop the next morning. This behavior was unexpected, as we were fully capable of finding the dive shop ourselves and had planned to go to that shop anyways.
We later learned that Oscar's "job" is telling people where to go for various activities they are interested in doing. Oddly, he didn't ask us for money and his involvement didn't affect the price we paid at the hostel, restaurant, or dive shop. We eventually learned that he expects these organizations to pay him some sort of commission for his recommendation. He also complained to us that he often gets "ripped off" by people who refuse to pay him his commission. Throughout our time in San Juan, I discovered more about Oscar's story. I don't know for sure why he lives how he does, but it seems like he ran out of money while traveling in Central America and got stuck there. Then, as a broke American stuck in a foreign country, rather than get a legitimate job to afford a ticket back to America, he does minimal work and leeches off the hard work of local Nicaraguans. By the time we left, I had lost all respect for Oscar. He wanted to go to the dive shop with us when we went for our last dive to collect his commission. But what was his commission for? When we arrived in Nicaragua, we had already found the shop online and had planned to get certified. We would have gone there even if we had never met Oscar. All he did was walk us there once, but the dive shop was just around the corner. We would have found it without his involvement! On our last day of diving, we purposely went to the shop without Oscar. I would much rather our hard-working dive instructor, Fidel, get our money than some American leech who got stuck in Nicaragua, probably after making some poor life choices.
The first night, we asked if he had any dinner recommendations. He recommended a place called Cha Cha Cha's which had beers and appetizers for C$25 (equivalent to $1). He had told us to tell the server at the restaurant that Oscar had recommended it. Since she only spoke Spanish, we ended up not mentioning him as we didn't have the necessary Spanish skills to say that he had recommended it. While we were eating, Oscar arrived at the restaurant and told them that he had sent us. It seemed strange that he cared so much that they knew he had recommended it to us.
Later that evening, we mentioned to Oscar that we were interested in getting our open water certifications. He was all too eager to help and wasted no time going to the dive shop on our behalf. He arranged a meeting between the dive instructor and us and walked us to the dive shop the next morning. This behavior was unexpected, as we were fully capable of finding the dive shop ourselves and had planned to go to that shop anyways.
We later learned that Oscar's "job" is telling people where to go for various activities they are interested in doing. Oddly, he didn't ask us for money and his involvement didn't affect the price we paid at the hostel, restaurant, or dive shop. We eventually learned that he expects these organizations to pay him some sort of commission for his recommendation. He also complained to us that he often gets "ripped off" by people who refuse to pay him his commission. Throughout our time in San Juan, I discovered more about Oscar's story. I don't know for sure why he lives how he does, but it seems like he ran out of money while traveling in Central America and got stuck there. Then, as a broke American stuck in a foreign country, rather than get a legitimate job to afford a ticket back to America, he does minimal work and leeches off the hard work of local Nicaraguans. By the time we left, I had lost all respect for Oscar. He wanted to go to the dive shop with us when we went for our last dive to collect his commission. But what was his commission for? When we arrived in Nicaragua, we had already found the shop online and had planned to get certified. We would have gone there even if we had never met Oscar. All he did was walk us there once, but the dive shop was just around the corner. We would have found it without his involvement! On our last day of diving, we purposely went to the shop without Oscar. I would much rather our hard-working dive instructor, Fidel, get our money than some American leech who got stuck in Nicaragua, probably after making some poor life choices.
The Moose Is Loose!
I have found that I am much more proud to be Canadian when I am not in Canada. For example, normally if I were in Canada and I were to see a bar with hockey paraphernalia on the wall I would think nothing of it and keep walking, but if I were to see the same thing in Nicaragua, I would have to stop. And that is exactly what happened on our first night in San Juan del Sur.
We were walking along the street adjacent to the beach looking for a place to get a beer, and we noticed some hockey jerseys inside one of the restaurants, Dorado's Sports Bar. We stopped to look at the menu, and one of the other customers in the restaurant overheard us talking about the hockey jerseys. He called us in and insisted we have a drink with him. The man, Todd, and his wife, Karen, were from BC and we spent the night drinking with them and chatting.
Todd and Karen told us there was a Canadian pub in town! This pub was called the Loose Moose and served Canadian food - poutine, caesars, and sushi. The next day we visited and had poutine and sushi. It was nice to have some food I did not expect to have in Central America, but it wasn't quite as good as in Canada. They had difficulty getting all the ingredients they needed as certain things, such as real maple syrup, simply aren't available anywhere in Nicaragua so they have to make do with similar ingredients which are available there.
The Loose Moose also had a drinking challenge that we returned to do the next day. It required you to do 5 spicy caesar shots in 15 seconds, and successful participants would receive a Loose Moose "The Moose is Loose" tank top. I don't normally like caesars, but I did the challenge anyways because I wanted the shirt. Both Hugh and I were successful, although he spilled one shot and had to do a shot of pure hot sauce as a result. We were happy to receive the most Canadian souvenir we could find in Nicaragua!
We were walking along the street adjacent to the beach looking for a place to get a beer, and we noticed some hockey jerseys inside one of the restaurants, Dorado's Sports Bar. We stopped to look at the menu, and one of the other customers in the restaurant overheard us talking about the hockey jerseys. He called us in and insisted we have a drink with him. The man, Todd, and his wife, Karen, were from BC and we spent the night drinking with them and chatting.
Todd and Karen told us there was a Canadian pub in town! This pub was called the Loose Moose and served Canadian food - poutine, caesars, and sushi. The next day we visited and had poutine and sushi. It was nice to have some food I did not expect to have in Central America, but it wasn't quite as good as in Canada. They had difficulty getting all the ingredients they needed as certain things, such as real maple syrup, simply aren't available anywhere in Nicaragua so they have to make do with similar ingredients which are available there.
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| Nicaraguan poutine topped with bacon, sour cream, and green onions at the Loose Moose Canadian Pub |
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| Nicaraguan sushi containing fish, avocado, and pineapple and topped with bacon bits |
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| My reward for 5 spicy Caesar shots in 15 seconds |
A Week of Surfing and Diving
Our first stop in Nicaragua was San Juan del Sur. It is a small beach town which is very popular for surfing and was full of other travelers. We were hoping to get our PADI open water diving certifications in San Juan. This course is internationally recognized and is the minimum requirement to go scuba diving with any reputable diving company in the world. The course involves studying some theory, writing several tests, and four dives where we practice some of the skills with an instructor. Since the course takes several days to complete, we were expecting to stay in San Juan del Sur for at least 4 days.
We dove through Neptune Watersports which is run by Fidel Lopez. We met Fidel on Saturday, May 4, 2014 and signed up for the PADI open water course. He explained the course to us and gave us each a textbook. We spent the afternoon studying the first two chapters of this textbook, which we were expecting to be tested on the next morning. Studying while having a drink on the beach was a nice change to studying inside at a university!
Fidel had told us to meet him at the shop early the next morning (Sunday, May 5, 2014). He said he normally opens at 8:30 or 9:00, so we arrived at 8:30. An hour later, Fidel still hadn't arrived so we went down the street and got some smoothies. He wasn't there once we got our smoothies. Or after we wandered on the beach for a while. Or after we went back to our hostel for an hour. By now it was 11:00 so we decided to give up and try to find surfing lessons.
At our hostel, there was a sign advertising surfing lessons including board rental, transportation, and a day of instruction for $50. We asked the owner of our hostel to borrow a phone to call the number on the advertisement, and she told us the instructor was actually staying at our hostel! Five minutes later, we met our instructor, Mickiel, a young guy from n the Philippines who had been surfing his whole life and teaching it for several years. Shortly thereafter we were on our way to the beach! Our ride was a pickup truck. We rode in the back and the surfboards were strapped to the roof.
Mickiel was an excellent instructor. He taught us the basics of what to do and made us practice the technique of getting up from a lying to a standing position on land before we got in the water. Once in the water, he would put our board in the right position to catch a wave and push us to minimize the amount of paddling required. I was able to catch a wave and stand up within the first 5 waves! Eventually, he stopped pushing us as we got more comfortable with knowing when to paddle to get in the right position. By the end of the afternoon, we were mostly able to surf on our own, although it was considerably harder to catch a wave without Mickiel's help.
While surfing, we also made some new friends with some of the other people who were surfing with us. They were Emile, from Finland, and Claudia and Mélissa, from Québec, who we had briefly met on the bus from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. While it was disappointing to be able to dive, the surfing was a lot of fun, and it was nice to meet some other backpackers and share experiences!
On Monday morning (May 5, 2014), we went back to the dive shop, hoping to do our first dives. This time the shop was actually open! Unfortunately, only Fidel's wife was at the shop. She told us that he had gone to Managua for the day and told us to come back at 5 to meet with him. Disappointed, we went back to the hostel. Mickiel, Emile, and Mélissa were about to leave for surfing, and we were able to tag along with them, this time only needing to pay for the board rental and transportation. I unfortunately stubbed my toe right when I got to the beach, making it quite painful to surf, so I spent most of the day wandering on the beach and nearby rocks. I saw many fish and several different species of crab!
That evening, we finally got to meet with Fidel. We went to Barrio's Cafe across the street, had some drinks and went over the first two chapters of the PADI textbook with him. After reviewing each chapter, there was a short quiz. The material was much simpler than most things we learn in engineering school. Hugh and I both passed the quizzes with flying colors. Fidel promised us that he would be available to take us diving the next morning and we went home happy to know we would finally be diving!
True to his word, Fidel was at his shop when we arrived the next morning (Tuesday, May 6, 2014). He fitted us for wetsuits, buoyancy control devices, masks, and fins, and had tanks and regulators for our air supplies. We carried the equipment out to a little boat which brought us out of the bay to our diving spot next to a rock face. On the boat, Fidel briefed us on how to put on the equipment and what would happen during the dive. Underwater, you can't communicate verbally, so he also refreshed us on what the various gestures he would use mean. We put on our equipment, hooked up our air supplies and got ready to enter the water. We were told to roll into the water backwards. I was slightly nervous about this type of entry. You can't see the water behind you as you roll in, and you end up upside down in the water, which normally means water up the nose if not wearing a mask. I trusted my instructor tough, and rolled in. It was a very cool experience! I landed completely disoriented, but I was calm and could breathe through my regulator and my mask kept all the water out of my eyes and nose, making virtually any position in the water very comfortable.
Once Hugh, Fidel, and I were all in the water, we gathered around the line for the boat's anchor which we would use as a guide for descending. Hugh was too excited and needed to calm down a bit first, so initially just Fidel and I descended. Initially, I felt fine and was very confident in the scuba equipment. We stopped after descending a few meters and Fidel started signaling some information to me. He clearly wanted me to do something, but I didn't know what. Then I realized that I also couldn't ask him what he wanted to do our tell him I was confused, because we were underwater, and I started to panic a little bit. I didn't know what to do so I swam to the surface. Fidel followed and asked what was wrong when we surfaced. I said I didn't know what he wanted me to do, so he explained with words instead of hand gestures. All he was telling me was how to blow water out of my mask.
By now, Hugh was ready to go and the three of us descended to the bottom. The rest of the dive went smoothly. We spent most of the dive looking at various fish. The ocean has amazing biodiversity, and it is so much easier to see exciting animals underwater than on land! One species of fish, which Fidel called the dogfish, was very curious and would swim right up to us and sometimes even bump into us. Most of the other fish would generally swim away from us, but it was still fairly easy to get close to them. Some interesting animals we saw were pufferfish, eels, clownfish, rays, starfish, and the antennae of a lobster. When we saw a pufferfish, Fidel was able to scare it causing it to inflate to a sphere twice its normal size! On the first dive, I also learned what to do if my regulator comes out of my mouth and how to clear water out of my mask - two very useful skills. We did our second dive that day and it was in the same location as the first, so the experience was very similar.
Wednesday, May 7 was another study day. I had been reading the textbook in my spare time so I was done by 10:00 and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and planning the next couple of days of our trip. On Thursday (May 8, 2014), Fidel was out of town again, so we had another beach day.
We had our last two dives on Friday (May 9, 2014) and got certified. These dives were at a different location further from the town so we had a slightly longer boat ride. During the first dive, I ran out of air after only 25 minutes. When I ran out, Fidel still had half a tank left (1500 psi) and he didn't even bother changing his tank for the second dive. The visibility was around 12 m, this day, which is typical of the Caribbean and very rare for the Pacific, so we were able to see even more fish. We saw a whole school of yellow butterflyfish who were crowded around a crevice in a rock be chased away by one lone blue fish. The blue fish was protecting its babies which the yellow fish were trying to eat. It was incredible to see just one fish able to fend off close to 50 other fish! I also saw a flutefish which is a long slender fish that is several feet long. During these two dives, we learned a controlled emergency swimming ascent, which can be used to safely surface if you run out of air. After completing these dives we were officially certified and got our log books!
We dove through Neptune Watersports which is run by Fidel Lopez. We met Fidel on Saturday, May 4, 2014 and signed up for the PADI open water course. He explained the course to us and gave us each a textbook. We spent the afternoon studying the first two chapters of this textbook, which we were expecting to be tested on the next morning. Studying while having a drink on the beach was a nice change to studying inside at a university!
Fidel had told us to meet him at the shop early the next morning (Sunday, May 5, 2014). He said he normally opens at 8:30 or 9:00, so we arrived at 8:30. An hour later, Fidel still hadn't arrived so we went down the street and got some smoothies. He wasn't there once we got our smoothies. Or after we wandered on the beach for a while. Or after we went back to our hostel for an hour. By now it was 11:00 so we decided to give up and try to find surfing lessons.
At our hostel, there was a sign advertising surfing lessons including board rental, transportation, and a day of instruction for $50. We asked the owner of our hostel to borrow a phone to call the number on the advertisement, and she told us the instructor was actually staying at our hostel! Five minutes later, we met our instructor, Mickiel, a young guy from n the Philippines who had been surfing his whole life and teaching it for several years. Shortly thereafter we were on our way to the beach! Our ride was a pickup truck. We rode in the back and the surfboards were strapped to the roof.
Mickiel was an excellent instructor. He taught us the basics of what to do and made us practice the technique of getting up from a lying to a standing position on land before we got in the water. Once in the water, he would put our board in the right position to catch a wave and push us to minimize the amount of paddling required. I was able to catch a wave and stand up within the first 5 waves! Eventually, he stopped pushing us as we got more comfortable with knowing when to paddle to get in the right position. By the end of the afternoon, we were mostly able to surf on our own, although it was considerably harder to catch a wave without Mickiel's help.
While surfing, we also made some new friends with some of the other people who were surfing with us. They were Emile, from Finland, and Claudia and Mélissa, from Québec, who we had briefly met on the bus from Costa Rica to Nicaragua. While it was disappointing to be able to dive, the surfing was a lot of fun, and it was nice to meet some other backpackers and share experiences!
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| There were many hermit crabs on the beach in San Juan del Sur |
That evening, we finally got to meet with Fidel. We went to Barrio's Cafe across the street, had some drinks and went over the first two chapters of the PADI textbook with him. After reviewing each chapter, there was a short quiz. The material was much simpler than most things we learn in engineering school. Hugh and I both passed the quizzes with flying colors. Fidel promised us that he would be available to take us diving the next morning and we went home happy to know we would finally be diving!
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| Rolling backwards into the Pacific! |
Once Hugh, Fidel, and I were all in the water, we gathered around the line for the boat's anchor which we would use as a guide for descending. Hugh was too excited and needed to calm down a bit first, so initially just Fidel and I descended. Initially, I felt fine and was very confident in the scuba equipment. We stopped after descending a few meters and Fidel started signaling some information to me. He clearly wanted me to do something, but I didn't know what. Then I realized that I also couldn't ask him what he wanted to do our tell him I was confused, because we were underwater, and I started to panic a little bit. I didn't know what to do so I swam to the surface. Fidel followed and asked what was wrong when we surfaced. I said I didn't know what he wanted me to do, so he explained with words instead of hand gestures. All he was telling me was how to blow water out of my mask.
By now, Hugh was ready to go and the three of us descended to the bottom. The rest of the dive went smoothly. We spent most of the dive looking at various fish. The ocean has amazing biodiversity, and it is so much easier to see exciting animals underwater than on land! One species of fish, which Fidel called the dogfish, was very curious and would swim right up to us and sometimes even bump into us. Most of the other fish would generally swim away from us, but it was still fairly easy to get close to them. Some interesting animals we saw were pufferfish, eels, clownfish, rays, starfish, and the antennae of a lobster. When we saw a pufferfish, Fidel was able to scare it causing it to inflate to a sphere twice its normal size! On the first dive, I also learned what to do if my regulator comes out of my mouth and how to clear water out of my mask - two very useful skills. We did our second dive that day and it was in the same location as the first, so the experience was very similar.
Wednesday, May 7 was another study day. I had been reading the textbook in my spare time so I was done by 10:00 and spent the rest of the day relaxing on the beach and planning the next couple of days of our trip. On Thursday (May 8, 2014), Fidel was out of town again, so we had another beach day.
We had our last two dives on Friday (May 9, 2014) and got certified. These dives were at a different location further from the town so we had a slightly longer boat ride. During the first dive, I ran out of air after only 25 minutes. When I ran out, Fidel still had half a tank left (1500 psi) and he didn't even bother changing his tank for the second dive. The visibility was around 12 m, this day, which is typical of the Caribbean and very rare for the Pacific, so we were able to see even more fish. We saw a whole school of yellow butterflyfish who were crowded around a crevice in a rock be chased away by one lone blue fish. The blue fish was protecting its babies which the yellow fish were trying to eat. It was incredible to see just one fish able to fend off close to 50 other fish! I also saw a flutefish which is a long slender fish that is several feet long. During these two dives, we learned a controlled emergency swimming ascent, which can be used to safely surface if you run out of air. After completing these dives we were officially certified and got our log books!
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| Officially certified as a PADI Open Water scuba diver! |
Saturday, 10 May 2014
Arrival in Nicaragua!
I was pretty excited to leave Costa Rica and finally get to Nicaragua! I was looking forward to cheaper prices and surfing and diving in San Juan del Sur. We awoke at 5:40 on Friday, May 2, 2014 in La Fortuna and caught a 6:00 bus to El Tanque, the next town over. We had been told that there would be a bus from El Tanque to the border at Peñas Blancas, but nobody seemed to know when the bus would arrive. Some people said 6:30; others said 7:00. We were there at 6:10 which gave us plenty of time to find the bus stop and wait for the bus to arrive at no-one-is-really-quite-sure o'clock. While we were searching for the bus stop, which was of course an unlabeled street corner, we met two Québécoises, Claudia and Mélissa, who were also traveling to San Juan del Sur, so we were able to wait for the bus with them and practice a little bit of French. We eventually caught the bus and had a smooth ride in to Peñas Blancas, where the border is.
The border was very confusing and time consuming. We first had to get a ticket to leave Costa Rica. We went in a little hut and gave a man our passports and the $10 fee for the ticket. He spent five minutes saying things to us in Spanish about $7 and Liberia, another Costa Rican city which we hadn't visited and had no plans of visiting. We were both very confused and worried he was trying to sell us tickets to Liberia which was in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We eventually realized that all he was trying to tell us was that we could also get this ticket in Liberia for $7, which was a pretty useless piece of trivia considering it would have cost more than $3 to travel to Liberia for this insignificant discount. After finally understanding what the man was trying to tell us, he told us to leave and said "not yet" when we asked for our passports back. We waited just outside the ticket booth, not sure what was happening and feeling very uneasy about the thought that a man we didn't know had our passports and we didn't know what he was doing with them. A few minutes later, they returned or passports with the border tickets in them, alleviating our worries.
Outside of the ticket booth, there were no signs or instructions telling is where to go next. We waited for some other backpackers as we'd rather get lost in a group than get lost with just the two of us. Now a group of six, we walked in what we believed to be the direction of Nicaragua and eventually came across a customs building with a long line of people outside. Here, we filled out a form stating where we were going and why and then waited an hour before finally getting approved. Once again, we had a long walk and didn't quite know what we were looking for. This stretch was the region of no-man's-land between the two countries. Once in Nicaragua, we were greeted by a friendly danger sign. I would have much preferred to have seen a "Bienvenidos a Nicaragua" sign! We walked around the dangerous region and eventually found the customs office. Here they made us pay $1 for a form, another $1 for another small piece of paper that mostly just confused me, and then $12 to enter the country. This whole process took another hour and was very poorly organized. Overall we payed $24 and spent close to 3 hours to get across the Costa Rica-Nicaragua border. It would have been nice to have had to pay all the money at once and have had a shorter break.
There was a very drastic change between the wealth and infrastructure of the two neighboring countries. Nicaragua was significantly poorer. Buildings and roads were not well maintained. Several border guards had tents to work in instead of real buildings. The buses were converted school buses, called chicken buses, instead of old coach buses.
We originally planned to split a cab to San Juan del Sur with four other backpackers we had met on the bus, but all of the cabs only had space for four so Hugh and I said the others could go and we would look for two other people to split a second cab with. Before we could find anyone else headed in the same direction as us, we were approached by a local man. He advised us to take the bus which would only cost $2 instead of at least $10 each for the cab. He even shower us a map to show us where we could transfer and didn't ask for money.
We found the bus and got inside. I paid $1 to board. Hugh only had a $20 bill and they didn't have changed so they just shoved him on before he even had a chance to pay! We got on the bus - an old school bus which has been repainted red and green - and it was packed with people. There didn't appear to be seats available so we stood. Once the ride started, the man who had let us on to the bus came around and got people to move over on their seats to make room. I was sitting next to a local Nicaraguan woman. When I sat down, she tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at me, pointed at herself, and then made a kissing gesture. I was shocked at how forward she was! I hadn't even said "¡Hola!" to her! I was not interested on kissing some creepy Nicaraguan woman I knew nothing about so I shook my head. She persisted. She made the same sequence of gestures probably 10 more times seemingly unaware that I was very uncomfortable with the whole situation. She eventually gave up and decided to "sleep". As she pretended to sleep, she nudged towards me and tried to snuggle up against me. I shuffled over away from her. She followed. I kept moving and she kept following until I had only an inch of seat left. I finally decided that I would rather stand than deal with this woman, so I grabbed my bag and stood up. The local guys in the seats in front of and behind me were laughing hysterically at me but one of them moved over too make from me. Thankfully he didn't ask to kiss me!
The creepy woman was not the only strange event I witnessed on that bus. For the majority of the ride, a well-dressed, extremely loud Nicaraguan man was shooting at the front of the bus. It was as if he were an announcer in some TV commercially. Except this TV commercial was performed live on a bus and lasted 20 minutes. 20 minutes later he pulled out a box of pills and started selling them. To my surprise, almost everybody on the bus bought some of these pills! After the ride, Hugh, who is much better at understanding spoken Spanish than I am, explained to me what the man had been saying. He claimed to have been sent from god with these pills. He claimed these pills could cure anything from high blood pressure to pancreatitis. He even claimed that he had been shot in the knee and was completely healed after the taking the pills! The pills definitely weren't from god though - the box just said "garlic pills".
The border was very confusing and time consuming. We first had to get a ticket to leave Costa Rica. We went in a little hut and gave a man our passports and the $10 fee for the ticket. He spent five minutes saying things to us in Spanish about $7 and Liberia, another Costa Rican city which we hadn't visited and had no plans of visiting. We were both very confused and worried he was trying to sell us tickets to Liberia which was in the opposite direction of where we wanted to go. We eventually realized that all he was trying to tell us was that we could also get this ticket in Liberia for $7, which was a pretty useless piece of trivia considering it would have cost more than $3 to travel to Liberia for this insignificant discount. After finally understanding what the man was trying to tell us, he told us to leave and said "not yet" when we asked for our passports back. We waited just outside the ticket booth, not sure what was happening and feeling very uneasy about the thought that a man we didn't know had our passports and we didn't know what he was doing with them. A few minutes later, they returned or passports with the border tickets in them, alleviating our worries.
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| Welcome to Nicaragua! |
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| The best way to get around Nicaragua |
We originally planned to split a cab to San Juan del Sur with four other backpackers we had met on the bus, but all of the cabs only had space for four so Hugh and I said the others could go and we would look for two other people to split a second cab with. Before we could find anyone else headed in the same direction as us, we were approached by a local man. He advised us to take the bus which would only cost $2 instead of at least $10 each for the cab. He even shower us a map to show us where we could transfer and didn't ask for money.
We found the bus and got inside. I paid $1 to board. Hugh only had a $20 bill and they didn't have changed so they just shoved him on before he even had a chance to pay! We got on the bus - an old school bus which has been repainted red and green - and it was packed with people. There didn't appear to be seats available so we stood. Once the ride started, the man who had let us on to the bus came around and got people to move over on their seats to make room. I was sitting next to a local Nicaraguan woman. When I sat down, she tapped me on the shoulder, pointed at me, pointed at herself, and then made a kissing gesture. I was shocked at how forward she was! I hadn't even said "¡Hola!" to her! I was not interested on kissing some creepy Nicaraguan woman I knew nothing about so I shook my head. She persisted. She made the same sequence of gestures probably 10 more times seemingly unaware that I was very uncomfortable with the whole situation. She eventually gave up and decided to "sleep". As she pretended to sleep, she nudged towards me and tried to snuggle up against me. I shuffled over away from her. She followed. I kept moving and she kept following until I had only an inch of seat left. I finally decided that I would rather stand than deal with this woman, so I grabbed my bag and stood up. The local guys in the seats in front of and behind me were laughing hysterically at me but one of them moved over too make from me. Thankfully he didn't ask to kiss me!
The creepy woman was not the only strange event I witnessed on that bus. For the majority of the ride, a well-dressed, extremely loud Nicaraguan man was shooting at the front of the bus. It was as if he were an announcer in some TV commercially. Except this TV commercial was performed live on a bus and lasted 20 minutes. 20 minutes later he pulled out a box of pills and started selling them. To my surprise, almost everybody on the bus bought some of these pills! After the ride, Hugh, who is much better at understanding spoken Spanish than I am, explained to me what the man had been saying. He claimed to have been sent from god with these pills. He claimed these pills could cure anything from high blood pressure to pancreatitis. He even claimed that he had been shot in the knee and was completely healed after the taking the pills! The pills definitely weren't from god though - the box just said "garlic pills".
Thursday, 8 May 2014
Taking the Jeep Boat Jeep to La Fortuna
After three nights in Monteverde, we were ready to leave Costa Rica for Nicaragua, which we were told is similar but much cheaper. Our friends, Brian, Vanessa, and Rob from Manitoba were leaving the same day as us (Thursday, May 1, 2014) to go to the Volcan Arenal - a volcano near La Fortuna, Costa Rica. Since this town was on the way to the Nicaraguan border, we decided to go to La Fortuna with them.
We signed up to take the Jeep Boat Jeep which went directly from Monteverde to La Fortuna. It was advertised as a ride in a Jeep to the south shore of Lake Arenal, then a boat ride across the lake, and finally another Jeep ride directly into La Fortuna. When the "Jeep" picked us up at the hostel, we were disappointed to find that it was not a Jeep, but rather a boring tourism van. It brought us to the lake where there was actually a boat!
We waited about half an hour before they finally let us on the boat. In that time, we saw some young Costa Rican boys who were probably only 8 years old fishing from the side of the lake. They had no rods, bit only spools of fishing line. They were also using pieces of apples as bait, which surprisingly was quite effective as they were able to pull in several large fish in the short time we were watching. Eventually, we were allowed on the boat which brought us across the lake. The scenery was quite beautiful travelling on this narrow lake with mountains on either side.
At the other side, we were again met with a tourism van and not a Jeep. I was glad there had actually been a boat so the company's name was at least one third accurate!
Once we had settled in our hostel in La Fortuna, we signed up for a hike around the Arenal Volcano. Our guide was a very lively Costa Rican man who had a very vast knowledge of the volcano and was all too eager to act out various things he was talking about.
He started the hike by explaining some basic geology about what a volcano is and why they exist and then spent the majority of the hike talking about the various animals and plants which live near the volcano. The volcano was huge, and unfortunately it was overcast, so we were unable to see its peak.
The volcano has been active recently; however, its last eruption being in 2011, so we didn't get to see any hot lava. We were able to climb up a path of solidified lava at the base of the volcano. The path was littered with guavas (although I couldn't find any trees with guavas on them) and pieces of pumice which had been expelled from the volcano. We also saw some bombs and craters. Bombs are large chunks of volcanic rock which can fly quite a distance before landing and destroying things as large as houses of the bomb lands on it. These booms often create large craters in the ground when they land.
The volcanic ecosystem was quite interesting. The volcano expels rocks containing high concentrations of certain minerals, so the land around a volcano is surprisingly nourishing for many flora and fauna. There was a type of plant similar to a Venus fly trap which would close if you touched it. In terms of animals, all I saw were birds, most notably blue jays. Since the ecosystem is still very young, the main vegetation is short trees, bushes and moss. It was quite different from anything I have ever seen in Canada.
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| A real boat! |
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| Laguna de Arenal |
At the other side, we were again met with a tourism van and not a Jeep. I was glad there had actually been a boat so the company's name was at least one third accurate!
 |
| I think he was saying something about needing to poop. Or maybe he was laying an egg. I'm not sure |
He started the hike by explaining some basic geology about what a volcano is and why they exist and then spent the majority of the hike talking about the various animals and plants which live near the volcano. The volcano was huge, and unfortunately it was overcast, so we were unable to see its peak.
The volcano has been active recently; however, its last eruption being in 2011, so we didn't get to see any hot lava. We were able to climb up a path of solidified lava at the base of the volcano. The path was littered with guavas (although I couldn't find any trees with guavas on them) and pieces of pumice which had been expelled from the volcano. We also saw some bombs and craters. Bombs are large chunks of volcanic rock which can fly quite a distance before landing and destroying things as large as houses of the bomb lands on it. These booms often create large craters in the ground when they land.
The volcanic ecosystem was quite interesting. The volcano expels rocks containing high concentrations of certain minerals, so the land around a volcano is surprisingly nourishing for many flora and fauna. There was a type of plant similar to a Venus fly trap which would close if you touched it. In terms of animals, all I saw were birds, most notably blue jays. Since the ecosystem is still very young, the main vegetation is short trees, bushes and moss. It was quite different from anything I have ever seen in Canada.
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| The beginning of a new ecosystem! |
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| Arenal Volcano |
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