Feliz Navidad

Merry Christmas everyone! Ohh I just found the exclamation point on this keyboard!!! Yay for me. Still on Ometepe http://www.nicatour.net/en/nicaragua/ometepe_galleria.cfm

After hearing that most of the coastal towns get booked up, due to both travelers and locals heading there, I decided to stay put. I had a great day yesterday, after calling home, which was awesome to talk to mi familia, I hung out with a cool couple from Canada. She is Polish, he Czech, we went to a lake side beach with a view of both volcanoes. We enjoyed some ron, Spanish for rum, and cokes while laying in the warm water. The sand was black, volcanic grit so I gave myself a nice body scrub.

We hitched back to our village in the back of three different pick ups. In between rides we were waiting in a village where we got to see the local children in a parade. It was really cool, the kids went door to door with poles decorated with streamers and balloons, almost like a may pole. They would sing and chant at each house and bang their poles. It was like the Spanish version of Christmas caroling.

Tonight there is a celebration at one of the churches, there are a few of us touristas going together. Should be cool to see.

The village I am in is way loud. There are stray street dogs outside the hotel gate that everynight bark and bark, then of course you have the roosters, not to mention the falling coconuts on the roof. Locals here love, love, LOVE firecrackers. Not fireworks mind you. That would at least be cool to look at. No, these just make noise....ALL night long they set them off. Plus sunrise is greated with booming music...gotta love that base. I can feel my fillings in my teeth rattle. After here, Im looking forward to some RnR.

The stray animals here are really an epidemic. These pitiful creatures are bare bones. Locals ignore them for the most part, or when necesary, give them a swift kick if they try to steal food. Bob Barker...come on down.

I think my i-Pod is crapping out on me, damn it! That sucks ass.

Thats it for now kids. Hope Santa was good to everyone. Love to you!

I'll be without internet access for a week..if not longer. I´ll drop a note when I return from the Corn Islands.

Isla de Ometepe, Lago Nicaragua

Im here on the island of Ometepe on Lake Nicargua. The keyboard is not cooperating, so youll need to bare with me for this post.

The island is magnificient, it is lush and tropical and is formed from two dormant volcanos that jut out of the water. Lake Nicaragua is the largest lake in Central America and the 10th largest lake in the world. It contains the only fresh water sharks in the world. I think they are bull sharks. Getting here involved a 4 hour ferry ride, the ferry was contining for another 8 hours -overnight. I saw a shooting star along the way. The ferry looked like a refugee boat, people put up hammocks or claimed some floor space in which to sleep on. I was glad to get off when I did. Ive been palling around with another French guy, sadly he is married, but funny as hell, so Im having a great time. He says he is my body guard. When we got off the boat all of the mini vans were full, so we climbed onto the roof for the 3 kilometer drive on a bumpy dirty road into town. He is biking Nicargua so his bike went on the roof too.

Yesterday I rented a bike on my own...mi French amigo offered to ride with me, but I told him I would only slow him down. I did 15 kilometers and found some cool natural pools and enjoyed the afternoon there. He biked 60 kilometer. Today, it hurts to sit down. This morning I hitched to the beach with a Swiss girl...it is very safe to hitch, you just get in the back of a pickup with everyone else. It is a fun way to meet the locals, they have fun with us and we them. Horses, pigs and countless chickens roam the dirt roads. I love seeing the pigs just out cruising around. Bannanas are grown here, the bannana leaves are giagantic, it is very pretty.

Before Ometepe I spent a couple of days at a cool lodge on another lake, Lago Apoyo. It is a lake in the crater of a dormant volcano. I did some kayaking and there was a dock on the water that was nice to lay out on. I spent my days lounging in a hammock and my evenings star gazing. It is amazing to see the sky without light polution. Their water pump was broken, so you could only flush and shower after 6, when they hooked into a neighbors pump for the dinner hour. It was not really a problem, this is life in a 3rd world country.

I stayed a night in Granada, a few nights ago.... it is a cool colonial city and walked the busy, noisy, smelly market. I love people watching.

Still not sure what I am doing for the holiday, I may join the Swiss girl and a couple of German guys and head to the Corn Islands in the Caribbean.

Thats all for now, folks. If I do head there, I may be incognito for a week or so, not sure what is out there for connectivity.

Happy holidays, love to you all....

Leon, Nicaragua

Hola amigos! I´m in the city of Leon, Nicaragua...staying here at this hostel http://www.bigfootadventure.com/index.html I´ve signed up for the volcano boarding tour this afternoon. We hike up to the top of a dormant (here´s hoping) volcano and board down!

Yesterday with some new friends we took a chicken bus to a really cool beach. Played in the BIG surf. Was awesome. A helicoper buzzed the beach and landed. Not sure what they were doing, but it was a site to see. Man, now that I´m in a lower elevation, it´s H.O.T. hot. I´m keeping the sunscreen on, that´s for sure.

Oh boy, let me tell you about the journey and boarder crossing from Honduras. I left Honduras with a couple of people, the Canadian guy I wrote about the other day and a new girl from Spain. She´s traveling alone for a year. Her boyfriend is joing her for Christmas and she´s invited me to hang with them. I´m not sure what I´ll do. I don´t want to intrude and anyway they´ll be in Costa Rica. I´m pretty sure I´m skipping Costa Rica. She´s been our translator and it´s awesome. There was a Honduran cross-dresser who sat across from me on the bus. He had a dainty purse and shoes (well as dainty as a guy wearing womens´ shoes gets) delicate jewlery and his hair was in a purdy clip. Hey man...whatever floats yer boat. I´ll salute your freak flag! The poor bastard was puking the whole ride. As a fellow puker, my heart went out to him. I gave him my water and a baby wipe to clean his tear stained face. Poor thing....

So, the bus is approaching the boarder now.. It´s a dusty, shitty area. We stop and before we know it we are swarmed and I mean SWARMED by locals at least 15 -20 guys. They are trying to get us to ride in their pettycabs the 100 feet to the immigration window. Before we even got off the bus they were on the roof getting our backpacks...not to steal them, but to put them on their own pettycabs to ensure we go with them. It was awful!! I got into a tug of war for my bag. They started to try to grab us to stear us to their pettycabs. Don´t touch me, amigos! Hands off! Then they start fighting amoungst themselves. The three of us were HORRIFIED, the poor Spanish girl wouldn´t let me go. All I can say, is THANK GOD I was with other people. I can´t imagine navigating that clusterfuck alone. Money changers got into the mix too and stalked us as well. The saddest part is that all they´re trying to do is feed their families. I´m told that the other boarder crossing aren´t like that, thank God. After we caught our breath we then had to take a pettycab the mile or so after over a bridge into Nicaragua. That pettycab driver, when mi Spanish amiga asked what his rate was, told us, just a tip. So when we get to our distination we tipped him, $2.00 US. Well that wasn´t enough for him, so he refused it. He hung outside the bus trying to shame us into more money. Chump. Dude, you shoulda set your price up front, we we asked you, not once, but twice. When the bus started up, he changed his tune and accepted our money.

With Christmas coming the city is gearing up. Lots of holiday decorations going up. I´m not sure if it´s part of Christmas, or if it´s everyday, but the locals parade around a life sized giant amazon sized doll. It´s creepy. We were walking around and looking at the cathedrial the other night, a Mass was going on and some guys were just outside the door lighting off bottlerockets. No one batted an eye.

I´m starting to price flights to South America, I´ll probably head down early to mid January. So if anyone is coming down.... speak now, or forever hold your peace.

I´m heading to Grenada tomorrow and will be in touch soon. Miss you all!

Tegulcigalpa, Honduras

Still in the capital city. Hanging with a couple of new friends. A guy from Canada and a guy from France. This morning we took a chicken bus out to see another pueblo, Valley of the Angels. It was mostly cheesy tourist shops, but the ride out was very pretty. Besides nothing gets the blood pumping like an older beater school bus passing another beater school bus on a curve. We had a snack at what at first appeared to be a small restaurant, but upon closer inspection it was the living room of a private house, with a few extra tables put out.
I´m told that Honduras means land of the waves. It refers to the mountains and there are lots of them. Not giant mountains, mind you...but many, many small ones.
Walking to the bus the this morning we passed the American embassey. The line outside the door was very, very long. People were waiting to just schedule an interview to possibly apply for a work visa. On the way back, I saw two men get off a chicken bus. The older of the two men was crippled and getting a piggy back ride from the younger man. Jesus! There for the grace of God.... Folks, say thanks today for being blessed to have born where we were.
My new amigos and I found a supermarcado. My eyes misted at the immense selection. I bought real, hard, cheese...and crackers...Carrs Water Crackers!!! And soap, I found my Dove soap and baby wipes....clean is a relative term here in Latin America. I´m a very happy girl today. We feasted on cheese and crackers for lunch. I bought a bottle of nice Chilean merlot and I made the French guy talk to us with his accent so I could swoon.
Tomorrow we´ll make the border crossing together into Nicaragua. The hostel I´m staying at is run by an America ex-pat and his Honduran wife. Nice folks. Water is a very limited resouce here in Tegus (Tegulcigulpa) I took a very brief freezing cold shower this morning. I supose not heating the water is one way to cut down on long showers. We were laughing today saying that a hot bath will be one of the first things we have when we get back.
That's it for now...love to you all.

La Ceiba, Honduras

Yay! Pictures. A nice English bloke showed me how to upload some photos. I´ve got tons more, but I thought I´d start small. I´m back on the main land, although gorgeous, the Bay Islands were outrageously expensive. While still on Roatan, with another new friend, a girl from NYC, I went to a cool full moon party a couple of nights ago. A good time was had by all.
Stayed at a lodge last night right on a river with cool mountains surounding it. The drive up was amazing. Honduras is a very mountainous country. Jungles and mountains. It´s like eye candy. It rained, heavily, last night and getting up this morning and seeing the very swollen river running over it´s banks was a site to see. Today I´m back in civilization and will be bussing it tomorrow morning to the capital city. I had hoped to leave today for the capital, but some of the roads have washed out due to the rain. I may stay the night there tomorrow, not sure. But from there I´ll be making my way to Pacific coast of Nicaragua.
I´m think I´m going to fly from Nicaragua direclty to Ecuador, I´m hearing pretty amazing things about Peru and Boliva. I´ve been to Costa Rica twice, so it won´t be a hardship to miss it. I´m already feeling like my time off is flying by. Anyway, I´ll need to know pronto if anyone is coming for a visit.
The people in Honduras aren´t as friendly as the Guatemalans. They´re not unfriendly, just not as outgoing. I loved Guatemala. The population there is very indiginous, and welcoming whereas here in Honduras, it´s much less varied.
To my dismay I´ve seen a Kentucky Fried Chicken, Pizza Hut, Payless Shoes and Duncan Donuts! What´s up with that? Although I shouldn´t complain, ´cause this gringa just had her pizza delivered. It came on a motorcycle.
Ciao for now! Thanks for all your notes.

Roatan

Ahh, beautiful. I'm on the island of Roatan off the Honduran coast. I took a 1.5 hour ferry to get here. Pulling into the dock there are two ship wrecks.
Staying the the the West End area, I splurged in my hotel and went ocean front. It's nice going to sleep listening to the waves crash on the shore. The village is very quaint. One dirt/sand road that is riddled with potholes. It was being graded last night by a big ole tracker.
I hung out with some friends for a couple of days, I had met them back in Guatemala. They were moving on, but I'm not ready to leave yet.
The beach I'm on is a small cove. There is a nice long beach a short water taxi ride away.
I did that yesterday and will probably do so again, this morning. The sand is white and soft. Yay! I was snorkling the other day with Kath from Beverly. A school (pod?) of dolphins swam right by. It was awesome, if not a little startling, out of no where they appear and they're pretty big.
Gotta run.