The Wheels on the Bus Go Round and Round...

I'm in San Jose, Costa Rica right now emailing from my hotel which is super nice and a real step up from some of the other places I've stayed recently. It's beautiful. Hardwood floors in the room and beautiful tiled hallways, and even hot water showers! I'm sharing the room (and king size bed!) with Rosey, a girl from Britain who I met in Granada, Nicaragua. I mean 3 1/2 weeks ago we didn't even know each other and now we're sharing a king size bed...traveling can be strange.

After I left San Salvador I went to Managua (the capital of Nicaragua). It wasn't exactly beautiful but I spent one night there and left the next day by noon. I visited a park that has the ruins of buildings and tanks left from their revolution as well as a small Sandisto exhibition and a nice view of the city and Lake Managua.

The ¨biggest¨tourist attraction, where I was the only tourist, was some footprints called Huellas de Acahualinca that were discovered in 1874 by accident by some construction workers. The footprints are 6000 years old and were left behind by a group of about 10 men, women and children. One theory suggests that the people left the area to escape a volcanic erruption, but the footprints don't indicate that they were running, so who knows? The footprints were left in a layer of volcanic mud and were preserved when they were covered by a layer of volcanic ash.

So besides that, Managua is pretty much a big, hot spread out city where for safety sake it is often recommended to take a taxi during the day. Not exactly the place for me.

I headed to Granada that afternoon. Granada is pretty and nothing like Managua really. It's smallish, quaint and colonial...and a big tourist destination, which has it's advantages and disadvantages. I took another week of Spanish lessons there and did a homestay which is a cheap way to handle accommodations if you can handle staying in someone's home. It was $80 for the week which included a ¨private¨room and three meals a day. The woman's name is Chagua and when she was younger she used to run one of the most popular ¨comedors¨in Granada. She's kind of famous. A comedor is kind a local restaurant often run out of a family home where they serve typical regional dishes. So, she was a great cook.

There was another girl staying with Chagua who arrived one day before me...Rosey, from Britain, who I'm still traveling with now. She was also taking Spanish lessons and had planned to stay another week, but ended up coming with me.

I made a nice little group of friends that week through the Spanish school...Rosey, Emily from Australia, Norbert from Germany, and Corey from the U.S. It was an awkward combination of people, but we had drinks together on several occassions, did a little tour of the islands, went to a baseball game, and did a cloudless cloud forest hike. I had a great time.

I left Granada with Emily and Rosey and the three of us went to Jiquilillo which is pretty far north in Nicaragua on the Pacific Coast. It was a bit of challenge to get there by chicken bus...but that's the only way. The chicken buses, by the way, are old U.S. school buses. So you can imagine that the buses are not very comfortable for adults...but Central Americans do tend to be small. At one point the bus was so full with school children that the bus helper was placing them two deep in the aisle between the seats. So they basically had to stand sideways in the aisle facing the windows...almost spooning!

We stayed at Rancho Esperanzo, which was beautiful and a little too intimate in the end. The three of us got a bungalow for $8 each per night. And there was basically a $12 a day meal plan, and an honor system beer fridge. When you took a beer, you put a tick mark by your name. We had a nice time, but because there's not much to do but hang around with every one else who is staying there, I guess we tired of the staff and other guests fairly quickly. And 2 days before we arrived two girls were robbed by two guys with machetes just down the beach a ways at 2 in the afternoon, so staying close to the ranch seemed like a good idea. We only stayed two nights. That was a lot of twos, huh?

In Jiquilillo I did try kayaking for the first time. It was a two man kayak and was frustrating at first with Rosey in the front seat barking at me about how to steer and when to turn, but after I offered to switch with her so she could do it and she declined, I had no problems ignoring her and taking in the beautiful views. And I eventually got the hang of it, so we had a good time. We went with Emily, the two girls who were robbed and the goofy little Nicaraguan guide.

From Jiquilillo (pronounced he-key-leo) Emily and Rosey and I had a hellacious journey to San Juan del Sur...it was supposed to take 6 hours and it took 9 hours. All in all it was a 12 hour day of travel with a break for lunch and emailing. Everything went pretty well until we were duped into getting on the slow bus to Managua from Chinendega. The driver's helper told us it would take 1.5 hours. It took 3. It was the total back road bus through the villages on dirt roads and the driver insisted on driving on the side of the road most of time. And don't forget, we're on a school bus. We were absolutely pissed. Emily especially since we were making this long trek for her to meet up with her boyfriend.

When we made it to Managua three hours later, a kind lady helped us with a taxi...which we desperately needed, the help and the taxi, because the last bus from Managua to Rivas was leaving in about 45 minutes. We managed to catch that bus, and now we hoped that we would catch the last bus from Rivas to San Juan del Sur. Well I sat with one butt check on the end of a seat that was already holding two adults with someone's butt in my face no matter which way I looked for about an hour as the sun sat and that sardine-packed bus to Rivas broke down.

At first it wasn't really clear that there was a problem because the bus hadn't stopped running; they had just pulled over. But I was toward the front of the bus, and I could hear the tools clanking and see the strange objects being past forward. I called back to Emily and Rosey and told them they were making repairs...with probably like 85 people on board. Emily decided to get out to assess the situation. Apparently they some how lost the lug nuts. Dear god. After waiting around 45 minutes or so another bus to Rivas appeared and we hopped on that one, paid the fare again and were on our way...and our original bus eventually passed us. Fine with me though...who knows if they made it there with all of their wheels.

When we arrived in Rivas the last bus to San Juan del Sur had already left. We had to take a taxi...which makes me unconfortable sometimes, especially at night. I mean it's basically like hopping in a car with a strange man and well...who knows what could happen. So I interviewed him, checked his drivers license, his taxi license, checked the plates to his taxi license...we stood around a felt him out for a bit and about 20 minutes later we were off. We got into San Juan at 9:30 p.m. with no problems. We found some over priced food, if you could call it that, and then hooked up with some people Emily's boyfriend had met. And suddenly it was 4 a.m.

Rosey and I headed to Liberia, Costa Rica the next morning. The border crossing from Nicaragua to Costa Rica was uneventful, but confusing. There aren't many signs or officials telling you what to do or where to go. I mean to leave Nicaragua you wait in a line that says Entering Nicaragua. We paid our $2 exit fee to Nicaragua and almost slipped across the border to Costa Rica unnoticed. If it hadn't been for some guy hanging around who got the official's attention we would have walked right past that checkpoint without noticing it or them noticing us.

So you are probably getting the picture here...the last few days have been virtually one long bus ride after another. Yesterday was a 6 hour ride, today was 4, tomorrow Rosey and I are going to David, Panama - 9 hours. Guess what's on the agenda for Saturday? Another 9 hour bus ride to Panama City...BUT...once I'm there I'll get to rest up for a few days before flying to Bogota, Colombia. But once I'm in Bogota, I meeting back up with Chris the Australian for a TWENTY HOUR bus ride to Cartegena. Have a I lost my mind???