I love Canadian customs

Hi everyone,

Sorry we didn't post any entries for the last few days of our trip - most of my internet access was via my iPod, which for some reason doesn't like blogger. We headed over to San Juan del Sur, which is a surf town on the Pacific side of Nicaragua and really slowed down the pace. We spent a lot more time on the beach (= much more sunburn).

We spent a rockin' 25 hours in transit from San Juan del Sur to home. The Nicaraguan airport security investigated EVERYTHING in my carry-on (literally. She held up everything and inspected it. My luggage locks were particular cause for concern because she didn't understand what they were for and why I couldn't open them up for her. She had to call over a supervisor. Nicaragua hates me). We flew from Managua to San Salvador, switched planes, and flew to Los Angeles, where we had to pick up our luggage which had been "tagged through" to Vancouver and were redirected around the airport (rudely) multiple times to find the check-in desk for Air Canada... which didn't open for another 5-6 hours. So we spent the night on the cold tile of the LA airport with our bags, near a door with an uncharacteristically cold draft (it was about 4 degrees out or something). I did not sleep at all.

But after we checked in, we got to wait in the VIP lounge because I had some sweet free passes (thanks, Cody!) and we got free breakfast. Our flight was overbooked and originally it looked like Teryn wasn't even going to get on the plane (which meant I would want to stay behind, too, which meant getting home that much later and I was so tired!) but in the end we both made it onto our flight and safely into Vancouver around 10am. From getting oft the plane at the gate to my dad picking us up at arrivals = 30min. It was the best thing ever. We scanned our passports in some fancy computers, picked up our luggage (which was some of the first off the plane) and walked through customs. Well, after a bit of a line. It was kind of a joke (but the best joke ever because it meant we weren't spending any extra time in the airport and I wasn't freaking out about how many pounds of coffee I was really allowed to bring back into the country).

So we're home now. And I love Canada.

...though I do not love work. Today I got urine on my shoe and drool on my arm... none of it mine. But at least I'm getting paid!

When's the next vacation?

Not many people get this excited about sloth butt

For once, we had a full day of activity that didn't even need to begin at 4am.

We started at a leisurely 10am. Our very patient guide, Julio, allowed us to practice our Spanish even though it was probably very painful for him to listen to and he actually spoke English quite well. We drove to a coffee plantation, where we learned a little about the coffee growth/harvesting process. Then we took a ride up Volcán Mombacho, one of 8-10 (depending who you talk to, I guess) active volcanoes in Nicaragua. Its name means inclined mountain or something similar, so it was a steep and bumpy ride up to the visitors' centre. From here, we had the option of doing the easy hike for free, a medium hike for a fee, or a hard hike for more. We, of course, opted to do both the hard AND the easy hike because we like a challenge. And learning. We're big fans.

So Julio took us around the easier trail and gave us a bunch of interesting information while we took photos. Then the Puma trail began, with a different guide. There were no pumas, but there were a lot of stairs. The Nicaraguan Grouse Grind, if you will. There is no lava at this volcano and it hasn't really erupted in 20,000 years or something, but we saw a little steam and some really great views of the area. We heard some birds and some howler monkeys, but, disappointingly, saw no white-faced monkeys (although they kept taunting us with their discarded bits of food so we KNEW they'd been by recently... and by knew, I mean that we put our faith in the tour guide when she said that's what was going on).

But we did get to see a two-toed sloth. Or at least part of it. It was doing about what you'd expect: sleeping in a tree. Still, it made me happy... even though we really only got pictures of its sloth butt.

We may or may not have ridden back down the mountain in the back of a pickup truck (two different trucks, actually). Then we did our canopy tour (ziplining) over a different coffee plantation. SO AWESOME. To Teryn's surprise, I even tried it upside down. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it was entirely safe and neither of us died.

And to top it all off, we ended the canopy tour with MORE MONKEYS (the white-faced ones we missed out on during the volcano hike) - one of them even had a baby. The guys running the joint probably thought we were ridiculous because we were so excited. We stood and looked at them and said ¨Yay monkeys!¨ for what was probably an obscenely long time before we headed back to our hostel, tired but satisfied.

And then our hostel didn't have running water. Good times.

We're doing another day trip from here tomorrow. We had planned to head to a beach town but we need a little extra time to let our sunburns recover before we try that.

I have learned this lesson before

Even if it's overcast, WEAR MORE SUNSCREEN.

I am in so much pain. My shins are dying. Seriously. I don't think I've ever burned my shins before, and I do not recommend it to anyone.

The day started off fine - immediately after stepping out of the hostel door, a passing taxi driver yelled ¨I love you¨ at us. Yes, in English. In the 15 minutes we were outside, we had no less than 3 catcalls or professions of love. This country is pretty good for my self-esteem.

We took a shuttle out to La Laguna de Apoyo, which is a volcanic crater lake nearby. We borrowed kayaks and Teryn decided she was going to paddle across the whole giant laguna. I got about halfway but I do not have a lot of upper body strength and I was slowing her down, so Teryn sped off and I turned around. Last I saw her, she was paddling off with her lifejacket undone, heading for the other side. I probably got back around noon, and we were supposed to have these kayaks back by 12:30.

12:30 rolls around. No sign of Teryn. Literally. I cannot see her anywhere, and I have full view of at least the closer half of the lake. Worry begins.

12:45. Mild panic sets in. I'm imagining all the horrible things that could have happened: she capsized and hit her head, and she wasn't wearing her lifejacket and drowned. She got to the other side and got attacked and kidnapped. She's lost somewhere on the other side of the lake.

1:00. I'm wondering how I'm going to contact her family and tell them I'm coming home without my travel buddy. I'm going to feel guilty for the rest of my life.

1:05. Finally I see her paddling across the lake from the side (not from directly ahead, as she should have been if she hadn't gotten lost). Anger sets in.

1:10. I give Teryn the cold shoulder. She refuses to let me be mad at her because she got lost. Eventually I let it go.

So when we left at 3:30 I noticed Teryn was getting a little red. Okay, a lot red. Her legs are kind of hilariously burned. Or it was hilarious, until mine set in two hours later and MY SHINS ARE ON FIRE. We did not get any catcalls this evening, but we did get a few stares.

We're just going to be applying aloe all night. That's literally our plan for the evening. Because we are gringas who know how to party.

I've probably been blacklisted by the Nicaraguan border authorities

Oh my god we had a day yesterday. Every resource we had (the internet, lonely planet, our cab driver) told us the bus left at 5 or 5:30am. Okay. That sucks because it's early but we can deal with it. We got up at 4 am, Oscar was there to pick us up about 4:40 (which is what passes for the agreed upon 4:30) in his little ¨taxi¨ (I use the term loosely because it was just a gutted out Corolla painted yellow - no taxi sign, no interior on the doors). So we get to the bus station, wait because they don't start selling tickets until 5am, find out the bus leaves at 8:00 (or ¨8 or 9, more or less¨ as one guy said) or 11:30. My friends, that is a long time to wait in a San Salvador bus station. In desperation, we cabbed to another bus station only to find that THAT bus had left and we would have to wait until tomorrow. So we cabbed back. In a real taxi with tiger print interior. With a driver who ran every red light we had.

I'm just happy we got out of San Salvador alive.

So we bought our tickets for the 8am bus and we sat in the bus station for hours. Literally hours. 5:30-almost 10am, when our bus FINALLY arrived. That's right, we bought a ticket for the 8am bus and we left the station - after idling for about half an hour - around 10:20. The brochure also claimed that we would reach Managua at 6 or 6:30. LIES. Want to know when we really got there? 10pm.

In order to get to Nicaragua, we had to pass through Honduras. This means we went through 2 borders: El Salvador-Honduras and Honduras-Nicaragua. Now, my Lonely Planet says that there is an agreement between those 3 countries and Guatemala to allow tourists to pay one ¨tourist card¨ fee for all 4 countries, and receive only one passport stamp... but that border guards will often ¨forget¨ about this new law and charge people anyway. So when our bus asked us for $13 to enter Nicaragua (which is $11 more than the land migration fee we were supposed to pay), I started to get a little rage. I tried to explain this to our bus attendant in pretty mediocre Spanish, and she told me there was no such agreement and she would take me to the immigration people so they could explain it to me. Well, the explanation was ¨$12¨(the guy was pretty snippy, actually). He said my book was bad and there was no agreement (folks, FYI, this book was published October 2010). He told me this after he dug my passport out of the pile to identify me. Awkward.

And I'm still not exactly sure what that extra dollar was for, except that our bus probably kept it.

I talked a bit to a guy on the bus who was born in Nicaragua and is living in the States; he said he always has to pay the extra tourists fees for every country. Not only that, he had to pay about $200 for the girl he was travelling with to leave Guatemala... I'm not sure why. This place is ridiculous.

On the bus we ran into one of the girls we'd met in Xela (from our sister Spanish school), who was on the way to Granada with her mother. We split a very expensive taxi to Granada (another hour away) and finally arrived at our hostel, which has a pool and free internet. These are good things. Especially since even at 11pm I was sweating in the heat. I am constantly glistening. It's not very pretty.

We went out this morning for a massive breakfast and we plan on taking a well-earned relaxing day.

We accomplished a heck of a lot less today

For the first time this trip, we got picked up on time. It was 5:33 am when our ride picked us up from our hostel to take us to the bus station. He drove like a bat out of hell to get there... god knows why, because we just sat there in the bus for, like, an hour. Finally we left and our bus proceeded to stop for the most random things. I'm not even sure WHAT we were stopped for most of the time, but at least a couple times it was so the driver's assistant could buy the driver food. And once so the assistant could buy some watermelon.

Now, this trip would have been bad enough if it had been as advertised: 9 hours from Santa Elena, Guatemala, to San Salvador, El Salvador, arriving around 3 pm. As 3 pm approached and we had yet to reach the Guatemalan border, it became abundantly clear that we were not adhering to this schedule.

At least the ride was reasonably safe (at least by Guatemalan standards... I think we only had one or two near-miss collisions) and we didn't have any trouble at the border.

Unfortunately, we arrived in San Salvador around 6pm, when night was beginning to fall. I don't know if you know anything about this city but it scares the crap out of me. For serious. We caught a cab to our lovely hotel (twice the price of any place we've stayed in but TOTALLY AWESOME. You know what I said about the trifecta? This place tops it because it also has air con and shampoo. And a TV. We couldn't ask for anything else to have while we hide indoors from the very sketchy San Salvador night).

Regardless, we won't be here long - our cabbie (Oscar) is coming to get us at 4:30 tomorrow morning and we will head to the bus station and pray it is open and has seats for us for the bus to Managua. 12 hours... at least in advertising.

What did you do before noon today?

I'll tell you what I did:
- got up at 4:00 to leave by 4:30
- saw a crocodile, a giant tarantula, several spider monkeys, a bunch of howler monkeys, and assorted lizards and birds
- climbed about 5 ancient Mayan temples
- took over 150 photos
- witnessed/heard a howler monkey face-off (have you ever heard a howler monkey? They sound disturbingly like jaguars or other giant nasty things. It's kinda scary)

Teryn and I spent the day at Tikal, a giant Mayan city in the rainforest (not jungle, as our guide specifically pointed out). It was good times.One of the temples in the mist early in the morning.



Once the fog cleared
















MONKEY!!!

The hostel trifecta: TP, towels, soap

Sorry about all the posts in one day - I was waiting to have access to the photos so they were more substantial posts and so we're pretty behind.

We're currently in Flores, which is a town in the northern region of Guatemala. It's nice and warm here, and we have both gotten sunburnt, which is kind of a nice change from all the cold weather we've had... at least in some ways. Tomorrow we're taking a tour of Tikal, a very large Mayan city in the jungle. I am looking forward to it, except for the leaving at 4:30am part.

Our first hostel here was actually a hotel - technically one of the most upperclass places we've stayed. You know how we can tell? Not only did we have a private bathroom, the bathroom came with toilet paper. And soap. And we got towels. It was the most exciting thing ever. Until, of course, we got home from meeting some people for dinner and found our room to be flooded. That was less than awesome. On the upside, we got a room with a view for the night (I'll post a photo when I can, at least on the photoblog, but this computer isn't reading the camera right now). We switched rooms and are paying 2/3 the price but we can tell we're in a less classy establishment because we have to bring our own supplies to the bathroom.

Tomorrow: Tikal. Next day: bus adventure to El Salvador. Following day: More bus adventure! Stayed tuned... I hope to be contacting you with good news from Nicaragua in a few days.