Nica time...

... is much like Africa time, Asia time, or in fact anywhere where time is just a mere concept of when something might happen, or indeed might not happen, depending on the weather, phase of the moon, inclination of the bus driver, etc. But that's why we do it right?

So I arrived in Esteli - an alleged coffee cowboy town in the north of Nicaraguaaa - staarving hungry (owing to a missing, now found, 500 lempira, sort of thing that could happen to anyone, don't really want to talk about it) only to find that apparently 9pm is not the sort of time that food is available. Strange. Anyways took a day wondering around the town generally seeing things (as those with open eyes do) and learning about the civil war at the Sandinista/FSLN gallery of heroes and martyrs - "Que se rinda tu madre! Patria libre o morir!" as Esteli saw a lot of the fighting. Interesting stuff.

And then it was I accidentally managed to hitch a ride along the side of the road (apparently less bumpy than the actual road), the bus dropped me off at a crossroads in the middle of nowhere and who was I to say no to an air conditioned vehicle (with non-murderous looking people inside), my spanish managed to learn that they were married and heading to the beach for V-day (vomit fest). Alas got halfway then jumped onto a bus on the understanding that I would have to change to get to my final destination of Leon. So it wasn't entirely my fault that when the bus pulled into the station I wondered around asking for a bus to Leon, finding it surprising that several buses had Leon written as the destination but that none of them seemed to be heading that way... a few stupid conversations later (my Spanish failed) I was able to determine that I was in fact in Leon. Idiota. TAXI!!

Leon itself was interesting enough, with an enormous cathedral, lots of literary clout (some dude called Ruben Dario who is the best poet in Latin America, apparently, I wouldn't know, it's all Spanish to me) and artistic bonhomie. Some good food too. Alas next stop on the rollercoaster was Granada, another one of those colonial towns which is very gentrified in the centre yet distinctly ungentrified everywhere else, which was infinitely more interesting. From here I spent a day chilling at Laguna de Apoyo which is a lake in the crater of a volcano good for kayaking, floating and sadly sunburning ones nose. The next day was spent swinging through the trees like superman with the monkeys and trotting around the astonishingly cloudy cloud forest of Volcan Mombacho, which was bueno (plus the clouds parted long enough to take a piccie or two).

With a bit more time than I had initially budgeted for I squeezed in a trip down to San Juan del Sur for some surf action amongst the raging, err, surf. A really cool lesson with Alfredo later and I was actually able to surf! Standing up and all!!! AMAAAAZING! This does not mean to say that I didn't wipeout lots and lots and get covered in bruises and more sunburnt noses, but I don't care, I finally AM a surf dude-ish.

Lots of Canadian ice cream later (I don't know why so much) and I was making my way across to Isla de Ometepe, which is I quote: "the sort of place you find in fairytales or fantasy novels; an island formed by twin volcanoes rising out of a lake", sheez it's a hard life... Well, beautiful sunsets aside, it isn't all easy as we took a walk up Volcan Maderas to la cascada, I can confirm that it is hot here, and volcanoes tend to be largely steeply upward in one direction and steeply downward in the other. Lots of improbably sized butterflies and monkeys sighted en route through 'ecological' fruit plantations. Delicious lunch in a nearby comodore and bus ride with the cutest kid who was just dropped off on her own halfway, barely able to walk as the bus driver shouted to the house "chicatina! chicatina!". Apparently a vida pollo costs only 160 cordoba at market... I may be bringing one home (and some flor de cana of course).

Alas it is the mention of home which brings this trip to an end. Cue food poisoning and a long journey (great combination) towards a tired face in work on Wednesday, y'know we're not going to adapt to climate change without me... although I do think a satellite office in C.America could help things along nicely.

water water everywhere

Got a bit of time to kill at the moment (understatement) so thought I'd fill you blogfans in on my most recent adventures, all naturally, are fascinating.

A lovely bus journey took me to Tadlo, and this time the 'real asia experience' because joy of joys there was not only a CD player, but also a DVD player so endured 6 hours of Lao kareoke (sp?) videos played at top volume. Lao pop music? It's not good. In fact one hour long video consisted purely of one bloke and four dancers doing exactly the same thing in every song, though knew it was a different song because man was wearing a different shirt. Aaaiiioooww jaaaa hmmmaaa dddaaaahhhj is how I think the words went. That was a particularly slow hour. Got off the bus in pitch darkness to discover that had to walk between 1 and 2km (depending on how old your Lonely Planet is) to get to the place we were staying. Shock horror there was a waterfall here, tell a lie, there were 3 waterfalls here. I finally got to ride an elephant here (yay), and don't knock my photographic skills, it isn't all that easy to incorporate self and elephant in a picture when balancing precariously atop said elephant. Needless to say I decided to leave my high fashion silver poncho behind and oh yes, it rained.

Decided to leave this debarcle behind and headed off on another 'asia experience' bus - this time had loads of chickens flapping maniacally all the way to go to Si Pha Don or Four Thousand Islands where the Mekong spreads out a bit down at the bottom corner of Laos. Here I became as one with a hammock and did absolutely nothing for a day or so, with the company of my new best friend Billy (who followed me everywhere I went, though in fairness he was a dog and I did keep feeding him). Very rural, lots of mud (not that I fell over in it at all, damnit), piglets and rice paddies here, and surprise surprise there was also a WATERFALL (!) on the mighty Mekong. Again, I left aforementioned poncho behind, it rained, again. Think there could be a lesson to learn here...

Enough of all that laziness malarky. Back on the road again (just about - see piccie, if only we had this woman with us in Africa it would have saved us a fair bit of time tearing apart the truck and standing about with hands on hips in traditional 'hmmm, there's something mechanically wrong here and by standing here like this I'm helping out' pose) and now just waiting waiting waiting for my 'VIP' (I'll believe it when I see it) bus back to Vientiane (made a bit of a bodge up of my route planning into Vietnam so now have about 2 days and nights of bus travel largely over same bit of road in different directions ahead of me).

Apparently scientists discovered a new species of rat previously unknown to man when doing a test of a 'meat stick' kebab sold in Laos. So it's back on the viggies (with Argentinian accent) for me. Oh and a guide to the pictures should you really need one: (1) me on elephant, (2) girl washing up bamboo hut style, (3) sunset as seen from my hammock, (4) whooshing waterfall and (5) mechanics on the go.