Photos from Nicaragua - part 2

The photos from Nicaragua are accessible here (part 1) and here (part 2).

Map of Nicaragua

Colonial gem with mango trees in Parque Central: Granada

The oldest colonial city in the Americas still in existence today, Granada (population 80 000) is colourful, and very pretty.

Somebody had told us about the NGO "La Esperanza", which makes many efforts to improve education in the poorer areas around Granada. With them, we visited one of the schools they support, and went for an interesting walk through the poor neighbourhood of "La Prusia". Only about 30% of Nicaraguans finish the 6 years of primary school - helping out their family in the fields or on the market often has a higher priority than going to school. During rainfall especially, it is often difficult for them to get to the schools, and even the teachers sometimes just don't turn up - understandable considering the wage of a teacher turns around 100 US$ per month.

The following day we did an excursion to (and had a pleasant swim in) nearby Laguna de Apoyo, a lake up to 200m deep inside the crater of an extinct volcano.

A week on Ometepe

We spend a week on this island which goes at its own pace. Few people wear watches here. Although small, travelling by bus between towns can take up to 2 hours as the roads are poor and mostly unpaved. Facilities are very basic - some villages don't yet have electricity, and a torch is essential at night to find your way. The pulperías (little shops) generally sell only a handful of items, like tomatoes, eggs, pasta, flour, rice, and shampoo.

Then there is also the legend of "Charco Verde" (the green pond), in which the devil lives. In the past (up to until the 1980's), people have been transformed into animals here, and locals can assure you that they regularly used to meet speaking cows and horses when they were children, recognising the voices of people who have disappeared recently. Many people don't believe it and think it's only a legend, but it is true, firmly believe others.

We climbed up the active Concepción volcano, from where we had wonderful views over Lago Nicaragua (8000+ sq. km - almost 4 times the size of Luxembourg), all the way to Granada and the Mombacho volcano, and back towards Costa Rica. For the last 3 nights, we stayed at the very basic but extremely welcoming Italian-owned ecological farm El Zopilote, went swimming in the "Ojo de Agua" (Eye of the Water), a natural swimming pool, did a lot of walking, went horse-back riding, and got some great views of both volcanoes (Concepción and Maderas).

Photos from Costa Rica

Photos from Costa Rica have been added.

Have had enough of tours - off to Nicaragua

Costa Rica is very beautiful but very touristy. Many US-Americans spend their vacation there. All over the place you can book tours. While it's sometimes convenient to just book a tour, relax, and follow the guide, it has been annoying us rather a lot the last few days that it is sometimes difficult to do anything independently, by yourself, without booking a tour. Even public Tourist Information offices sometimes refuse to give advise about how to get somewhere on your own.

Because these tours are starting to weigh a little bit on our budget, we decided to leave Costa Rica behind us, and move on to Nicaragua. We are now on the island of Ometepe, which consists of 2 volcanoes joined together, in the middle of enormous Lago Nicaragua. We will probably hang around here for a few days, and take in the laid-back atmosphere of this beautiful island.

Lava and Ziplines

The most active volcano in Costa Rica is Arenal. During the day you don´t see much, but at night we could observe the lava flowing down the mountain. 3 hours further by Jeep-Boat-Jeep, in Monteverde, we finally went on one of these "Canopy Tours" that we had been seeing all over Costa Rica. Every village seems to have one, but here they are supposed to be bigger, better, faster. A series of steel cables that you hang on to with a pulley, and zip down through the jungle, or across a valley. Some of them were rather high up and hundreds of metres long. The whole tour was rounded off with a nice "tarzan swing".

Turtlespotting in Tortuguero

Something like a mini-Amazon, this town and National Park can only be reached by boat. After 3 hours by boat through many canals and rivers we arrived from Limón to the little village of Tortuguero. In the evening we saw a 100+KG heavy sea turtle lay about a hundred eggs (ping-pong-ball-sized) at the beach, and bury them under the sand, and then make its way back to the waves, obviously very exhausted. The next morning we went on a wildlife canoe tour and saw many birds, some iguanas, a sloth, a couple of caimans, and many monkeys.

Hammocking it Carribean Style in Costa Rica

After a beautiful boat ride from Bocas back to the mainland, we crossed the bridge over the river between Panama and Costa Rica, zig-zagging between the many holes in the bridge, easily big enough for a backpacker to fall through them down into the river.

In the Carribean beach town of Puerto Viejo de Talamanca, we slept for 4 nights in a hammock in Rocking J´s Hostel. One day, we rented a bike and cycled to some nearby beaches, another day, we made an excursion to nearby National Park Cahuita, where we saw (and heard) howler monkeys and sloths.

Photos from Panama - Part 2

New photos from Panama are now available here.

First time in the Caribbean

Bocas del Toro is a colourful town of wooden houses on the main island (Isla Colón) of this archipelago. On the opposite side of this island, there is a beach full of starfish, giving the beach its name: 'Starfish beach'. You can literally find, observe, and touch dozens of beautiful prisbee-sized starfish in all colours here.

The second day we made a snorkeling tour: the first stop was in the Dolphin Bay, where we saw these beautiful animals (even if from rather far away), followed by Cayo Crawl and Hospital point (two places for snorkeling) and finally to the Red Frog Beach on Isla Bastimentos. The experience was really good, it’s more or less exactly how we had imagined the Caribbean Islands.

The third day was the best one: we went to Cayo Zapatilla sur, a little isolated islands where the snorkeling was really good (Charlie convinced Tere swim out quite far out to look at all the fish and crawls overcame her fear! A lot of jellyfish over there and the idea to be bitten by a fish…I’m afraid!). (Charlie: This is the first time I've done any proper snorkeling, and I was really really impressed by all the things you can see. I had no idea that you could see so much of the fascinating underwater world by just looking through a mask only 10cm below water surface.

We said goodbye to Panama by visiting 'Wizard Beach' during the day, followed by Thai dinner and a party night in Carenero Island (Aqua Lounge): When the party was coming to an end, people started to jump into the water. Soon everybody did the same, and we swam in the middle of the Caribbean Sea at 2.00 AM!!! With clothes ;-)

In search of a legendary bird

Some days ago, still in Chiriqui we walked "El Sendero de los Quetzales", one of the most popular trails through the jungle, in the natural park Volcan Baru. The trail runs 8km between Cerro Punta and Boquete. It was quite muddy and we had to cross a river and had to stumble over some trees that had fallen because of the rain.

Unfortunately we didn’t see any of the legendary "Resplendent Quetzal"s. However, parts of the trail lead us through impressive jungle. Even if at the time it felt like a pain sometimes because of the mud, looking back now we think it was a really nice trek.

Update from Bocas

A day later than promised (yesterday Sunday the Internet cafes were all shut here), we have now finally updated the blog. Note that the three new posts were written already a few days ago, in Boquete. We are now already further north, and in a couple of days are heading for Costa Rica.

We have now also uploaded some photos to Flickr:

• Boston (15-18th August)
  
• Panama Part 1 (19-28th August: Panama City, Panama Canal, El Valle de Anton, Boquete)

When it’s raining, it’s raining

Some lines about the weather… Although in the Northern Hemisphere, the current season (rain season, running from May/June until November/December) is referred to by Panameños as “winter”. The mornings are normally sunny and hot, and around midday the rain suddenly starts. On lucky days, this is quickly followed by sunshine, but sometimes it doesn’t stop raining until dawn.

This rainfall can get very heavy – the other day we got caught up in one of those sudden showers, and before we even realized it (within a matter of minutes or even seconds) we were already totally soaked up to and including the underwear. The good thing about the rain though is that it cools the atmosphere down – in these humid regions, it can be a relief to see the rain drop the temperatures from 30+ to 20 something Celsius.

Coffee and gardens, flowers and waterfalls

We still haven’t found any network fast enough to upload our photos or answer all the mails that we’ve received, so please be patient - we will write you, promise!

We are now in Boquete (Chiriquí province and in Panama’s coffee-growing region), which is one of the preferred places for Americans to retire, taking advantage of the fact that they can buy large areas of land, construct a villa with swimming pool, and live their pensioner’s life for much less than at home.

Nonetheless (for the moment being at least) the area still has some authenticity and remains very enjoyable. We have found a really nice hostel, soooooo beautiful… we have a waterfall with a natural swimming pool, literally right in our garden…pure relax…ping-pong, domino, disc golf (something like a mix between golf and Frisbee- very fun) and in the evening: happy hour and axe-throwing. And what is still better: the kitchen is clean!!!!!! Everything is clean!!!...we love this place. It is a pleasure to live in a shared community here.

Before, we spent some days in El Valle de Anton (Coclé province) where we have walked a lot …the vegetation and the gardens are incredible here in Panama, you can pass hours and hours watching the different flowers, butterflies, and birds. On the other side, the town itself was a little boring, but in any case it was a good idea to go there, the landscape was quite different because it’s in the mountains (it is a little colder too)…We visited another waterfall: El Chorro del Macho, went to relax in nearby thermal baths (facial mud therapy included), and a little natural park called El Nispero - kind of a zoo…the funniest animal: El Perezoso.

In Boquete, we slept two nights in another hostel where we met a guy who is working in social development for the UN in Panama…He showed us the different projects they are developing for the indigenous communities… the amount of things that they are doing here is incredible. It sounds very beautiful but it’s hard work: sometimes they have to walk for 10 hours to reach the isolated villages of communities like the Kuna or the Ngobe-Boglé.

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Last Friday we visited the wonder of engineering that has made this country famous the world over: the canal linking Atlantic to Pacific. In the Miraflores locks, where the visitors’ center and museum is located too, we saw one of those massive container-ships getting lowered the 30 meters difference between sea level and the artificial lake of Gatún.

Some canal facts:
- It is about 80 km long
- 14 000 ships pass through it every year
- It can take up to 24 hours for a vessel to go from Pacific to Atlantic or vice-versa, including waiting time
- It has only been under Panamanian control only since 1999. Before this, the Canal Zone had been managed by the United States of America.
- Ships pay according to their weight. The highest amount paid so far is over 200 000 USD
- The lowest was paid in 1928 by Richard Halliburton, who swam through the canal, taking 10 days to do so: 0.35 USD