the gorgeous bus ride from tela, honduras to trujillo, honduras. rolling hills and rivers everywhere. and what’s better about honduras is that not all the rivers are full of trash. there are actually signs on buses NOT to throw your trash out the window! although, unfortunately, some people still do not follow this rule.
hey driver - stop the bus! I want to buy a shitload of bananas! you, banana-man – run across the busy highway with as many bananas as you can carry! (more evidence that things are just a little bit different down here…)
the beach at casa kiwi, where we stayed for a few days in trujillo, honduras. it was a cool place, run by a couple of folks from new zealand (hence the name…)
the sunsets at casa kiwi were ridiculous, as seen here…
...and here
after a long bus ride from trujillo to tegucigalpa, we then went to the small, mountainy town of danli, honduras. we made a stop here to check out cigar factories (and thus buy some cigars). we checked them out by walking outside of them…no tours and no sales. only exports :( so…kind of a bust but still a nice, non-touristy city. good for a stop before crossing the border into nicaragua. we realize now that we took absolutely no pictures here. whoops!
so…onto nicaragua. first stop…esteli, a great little city in the northwestern highlands of nicaragua. nice and cool weather and lots of great political stuff. pictured here is “the milkman” – he rides up and down the street, whipping his horse, yelling ‘leche!’ and people come up to him with whatever container they can find so he can fill it with milk
the lions club – they’re everywhere, including nicaragua. the difference here is that they meet in a small house, enclosed by a ‘spikey fence’ and razor wire… (not exactly the woburn country club, huh dad?)
in esteli, there was a cool museum called the ‘gallery of heroes and martyrs’. it was a museum commemorating fallen soldiers of the revolution and contra war. it is run and kept up by several mothers of those who died fighting.
a famous picture of a sandanista soldier, defending a barrier during the fighting in esteli. rifle in hand, he is hurling a Molotov cocktail toward the opposition.
if you want to read a little more about the sandanistas/FSLN, check this out… http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sandinista_National_Liberation_Front
it’s an incredibly interesting history, especially learning about the US’s involvement in everything afterwards (reagan…argh!!!)
because of esteli’s heavy involvement in the sandanista revolution and overall progessiveness, there were dozens of murals around the city. unavoidably, surrounded by barbed wire.
this one’s for lauren’s dad…after a disappointing ‘no cigar’ stay in danli, honduras…joe satisfied his cigar craving with some cubans, along with some hefty nicaraguan cigars bought from a jar for 5 cordoba each (around 25 cents). hopefully we can figure out a way to smuggle a few back to the states. take that trade embargo!
we missed taking a photo of some of the great chicken buses in guatemala (which are MUCH more elaborately decorated than this…it’s basically a contest in guatemala to see who can decorate their bus the best). but anyhoo…just an example of one of the many recycled U.S. school buses around central america.
before we arrived in leon, we figured out that in some places in nicaragua (although you’re never sure where until it actually happens), buses don’t run on any schedule but rather go when they fill up. so…after being told by our bus driver “10 minutes”, we left about 2 hours later :)
eventually though…we made it to leon, nicaragua. a great city. and having the best hostel kitchen ever made it even better.
leon and granada are nicaragua’s two, incredibly charming, colonial cities. as far back as the 1800’s, leon and granada have been “rival” cities, leon the more progressive, granada the more conservative (needless to say, we liked leon more). the capital of nicaragua had been leon for awhile until in 1857 when it actually moved to Managua just to prevent more conflict from the cities.
photo here…parque central in leon. complete with 4 of the many lions found throughout the city.
one of several beautiful churches in leon...
"the lonely shoes" a photo by lauren anderson
why have these decent-looking shoes been abandoned on the middle of the sidewalk? they don't look very old, and there is evidence of a fairly new-looking shoe shine job... upon further inspection, we see the issue - no laces - a sad story indeed...
like esteli, leon has several murals painted on walls around the city. this is a part of a large one, covering two walls, wrapped around a corner... it had a very abstract feel to it, and seemed to be depicting war and destruction 'through the ages'
another cool wall painting...sandino crushing uncle sam.
a new addition to our travelling family --> spatula! he will be traveling with us from now on and will also be making some appearances on the blog. here is lauren cradling our new little one... look how happy spatula makes lauren!
spatula, just hanging out...
volcano boarding! on cerro negro, an active volcano just outside of leon. we piled into the pack of a big truck and drove an hour out to the volcano. before we can sled down the volcano, we need to climb up, lugging our sweet boards...
lauren says 'hey, take a picture of me looking cool with my board' (and she delivered)
after a 45 minute hike up the backside of the volcano, we got to enjoy some amazing views. behind us, you can see the former lava flows invading the beautiful green landscape. the contrast of colors was spectacular!
our group, looking over the slope where we will soon be boarding down - some wondering 'what the hell am i doing here?'
the crater on top of the volcano, constantly smoking and emitting a sulfur-ish smell. if you brush aside the top layer of gravel here, the next layer is almost too hot to touch!
have you ever seen anyone more prepared to volcano board than this guy? we suited up in these orange canvas jumpsuits and goggles, to protect us from the bits of volcano flying at us on our way down...
another volcano-ready trooper... look at the determination in her face...
a look down the slope that we would be practically sledding down. for perspective, the little orange speck at the bottom is our pickup truck.
after the minute-long sled down, joe's beard looked as good as ever due to the black volcanic ash in our face. lauren clocked in at a high of about 20 km/h and joe clocked in at a high at about 25 km/h. although we both think we were about 5 to 10 km/h faster due to a slow girl in lauren's way and a fall off the board pre-radar for joe. fyi: the record speed is approximately 85 km/h. wowweeee!
after a few days in leon, we made our way to colonial city #2 - granada, deemed by lonely planet as the "goose that laid nicaraguan tourism's golden egg." so true. a beautiful city full of colonial architecture and complete with an overwhelming number of tours to do around the area, you can understand why it's chock-full of tourists of all sorts. this is one of the many cathedrals in the city.
touristy, yet cool, street/pedestrian walk - calle la calzada.
we were lucky enough to be in nicaragua during '19 de julio' - the 31st anniversary of the sandanista defeat of the somoza regime. all the celebrating took place in managua, about 45 minutes from granada, where the original celebration in 1979 was held (complete with the knocking down of the somoza statue in managua). here you can see all the buses covered in FSLN flags. we didn't make it to managua due to the rainy weather, but still got to experience the excitement of people loading up on buses all decked out in red and black.
la merced iglesia in granada.
finally, the rain stopped and we were able to see a little bit of blue sky poking through while hanging out in the park.
cordobas...the nicaraguan currency. again, like honduras, it was always a challenge to get change. although not quite as difficult because fortunately the ATM actually dispensed currency people used...the 200 cordoba (about $10).
what's crazy though is that prices are often listed in dollars and vendors generally give you a worse exchange rate for using cordobas, even though it's their national currency! it seems that the cordoba is constantly fluctuating so people prefer to use the more consistent dollar.
should we even try to explain this? a display at the museum in granada depicting some sort of game played in pre-columbian times.
we took a sweet helicopter ride over beautiful granada - it was a little bit above our budget but well worth it. we even got to pilot the copter for a few minutes each!
this is the view from the chopper, over central park of granada - simply fantastic!
for anyone who believed the last post, sorry to disappoint (although it doesn't take a detective to realize that it was a fake) - it's just a picture of a scale model of the city, in one of the museums we visited.
pretty sweet model though, huh?
maybe someday...
view from on top of la merced's bell tower. most of the historical homes in granada have the set up where there are several rooms surrounding a big courtyard, like this one on the corner.
joe's proper pose on top of the bell tower looking over the city.
the owner of this 'fine' automobile is either hilarious, or delusional...
translation "a gift from god"
goodbye city livin...off to the islands. isla de ometepe, formed by two volcanos (the taller one here), is in the middle of lago de nicaragua, the largest lake in central america. to put in perspective for those midwesterners, about 1/3 the length and width of lago de michigan :) we were pumped to arrive for a few days of loungin. joe especially.
joe wanted to include this photo to highlight his ever-growing beard. quite impressive
what's even cheaper than buying cheap rum (for only 3 dollars a bottle)? moonshine! aka...aguardiente. only TWO dollars a bottle! so...moonshine it is.
our beach at monkey's island hotel near the town of merida on the island. covered with locals during the day playing soccer, in the late afternoon it was great for some relaxing and good swimming time.
the super-nice family who owned the hostel had a great garden throughout the whole place. pretty flower pictured here.
joe and his monkey friend on monkey island. the closest we could get to them since we were heeding the locals advice...."stay away from the monkeys!"
the story of monkey island 1 and 2 in a few short sentences: some people had some pet monkeys. they didn't take care of them. some other people rescued them and decided to give them their own island. pretty sweet! these monkeys (2 on this island) are eating some fruit from the locals...
the other monkeys on the other island were more interested in us. this one posed.
other than the monkeys, we saw a ton of other birds. mr. egret pictured here.
and unknown, awesome bird pictured here.
lauren in view of volcan maderas.
the beautiful, awe-inspiring volcan concepcion :)
the next day we took a hike to see some petroglyphs on the island, which are located in several places. on the way, we crossed paths with about 30 pigs, 100 chickens, 30 cows, and 10 horses.
the petroglyphs were located in the backyard of a family's house. so one of the son's guides you along their yard showing you all the different petroglyphs. pretty interesting. we asked the guy if he knew when these were found and basically all he said was "i know nothing."
our current location: san juan del sur, nicaragua. we arrived yesterday and will be leaving tomorrow morning for country number 4 - costa rica! san juan is a cool little surfy place. got some beachin time in today and soon going to enjoy one of those fine 5 cordoba cigars :) 
our current location: san juan del sur, nicaragua. we arrived yesterday and will be leaving tomorrow morning for country number 4 - costa rica! san juan is a cool little surfy place. got some beachin time in today and soon going to enjoy one of those fine 5 cordoba cigars :) 
