Nicaragua

We had to hotfoot it straight through Nica at first in order to pick up our van... This meant spending a night in Managua in transit. Not much to recommend the town, it was hot, dusty and seemed pretty dangerous. Luckily this was the exception! At the Costa Rican border we spent the day walking back and forward in the heat with immensely important (I gather) pieces of paper, in order to re-enter Nicaragua with the car. This meant a 1 hour vacation in Costa Rica, purchasing a nonexistent bus ticket and most of a day spent in perjury between nations.
When we were able to hit the road, we headed for Maderas near San Juan del sur. The van immediately began to repay the debt with super cheap camping right on the amazing beach and the freedom to come and go as we pleased.

The Howler Monkey family at Maderas were fun to watch, disturbing to listen to.

"Cafe la revolucion" was right in front of the beach. They did wood fired pizza, which was a nice change from camp food at times.

Great waves at Maderas. The giant lake Nicaragua sits in the south between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts. A nice by product is that the lake induces constant offshore winds about 350 days a year. Great for surfers, bad for people who don't like sand blown in their face.

Our Econoline. Looks small in this pic but its massive! We'll do more of a rundown on it next post.

Cooking pancakes for Laura's birthday breaky. The camping gear came with the van too. 

Wine and Pringles with the sunset for a perfect birthday treat.

And we got one of these!

After the coast we headed north to Granada, the old Capital. Its been sacked and burned 3 times by pirates and once by the self proclaimed "emperor" William Walker of the US. The lake is connected to the sea which made Granada the most important port in central America at the time. There are 2 volcanoes on one of the 365 islands in the lake, but this is Mombacho on the mainland. The eruption of Mombacho actually created all the islets when most of the top blew off the volcano into the lake!

An islet.

The remains of the Original Presidential Boat, now an old man lives in it. No, he's not the President.

No he's not the President either. This guy lives on the aptly named isla del monos (monkey island). A local animal carer rescues the monkeys from circuses etc. and re-habilitates them here.

The only unrefurbished building in the city is apparently this church. It's survived earthquakes, volcanoes, fires, pirates and Americans.

Laura in the bell tower.

Looking out toward the other major (definitely refurbished) church.

Car breaking down too often? Try new "horse".

Granada definitely hasn't lost the colonial look. 

Right now we're in Costa Rica, camping our way down the Nicoya peninsula. Writing from a bed in an actual room in Montezuma!

El Salvador

After a relatively easy series of buses we found ourselves in El Zonte, El Salvador. The weather was perfect; hot sunny days and warm nights with light winds. The bonus was a swell that started at about  head high and built to more than double overhead through the week, added to the fact that el Salvador is the land of the long, right point-breaks, it's a surfers paradise.
We spent a little over a week at a place called Essencia Nativa, which was incredible. Gorgeous place, amazing waves, cheap delicious food and we became good friends with an Aussie couple and the owner (Alex, picture Tarzan with a surfboard) and had a lot of fun with our little crew.

El Zonte beach. The volcanic sands in el Salvador take some getting used to.

This river runs to the beach. Picturesque but pretty grubby at the end of the dry season. Doesn't stop the locals playing, washing and swimming in it though.

Essencia Nativa. This was the view from our deck under the mango trees (scares the sh#% out of you when they drop on a tin roof). The beach was visible looking the other way, and having a pool was awesome, we floated around for hours every day. Despite the climate, pools aren't common (at least in budget hostels). 

Punta  Roca was hands down the best wave I've surfed. We started being silly and counting turns on a few waves. I think 12 or more on a wave was pretty normal! The locals stand on the beach selling beers and photos of your session. This is a marked improvement from a few years ago when (I hear) they waited on the beach to rob you when you came out...

We hiked through this crazy landscape to some amazing waterfalls. The hike was pretty tough but there were locals going back and forth with 40kg bags of cucumbers on their backs!

Cool colours.

We saw, swam and played in a whole series of waterfall-fed pools below these cliffs. Then the local guy we were with gave everyone a massive cucumber.

And what do you do when you find a waterfall? Jump.

If you're ever lost in Latin America, ask the nearest local. Most of the time they just escort you where you need to go whilst chatting about the weather and asking about where you're from.

Currently in playa Maderas, Nicaragua. And living in our van!

Guatemala.

Soo many puntastic t-shirts in Guatemala, guat a great place.
We've been so removed from proper internet access for the last month that we haven't been able to update the blog sorry. I'm actually amazed that there is cellular coverage at all in the middle of the Guatemalan jungle.
We got into Panahachel on lake Atitlan after managing to figure out that we were on a bus to the wrong San Pedro in Guatemala, being dropped on the side of the road on top of a mountain with some vague Spanish instruction s on how to get to the lake. Two 'chicken' buses (1950's bluebird buses with crazy paint jobs, crazy passengers and even crazier drivers) later, after dark, and with a storm blowing in we went hunting for accommodation in Pana...
The next three weeks were spent living with a local family across the lake in San Pedro while we studied Spanish. Its incredible how fast you can learn a language when its all you hear, speak and study. The family were lovely and so good to us, feeding us well (probably too well...) and really helping with our learning.
All the pics are again out of sync, I can't figure out how to reorganise the seemingly random order the get uploaded in, doh.

Us with the family.

These are little cabanas that we studied in at the school.

Jumping off the viewing platform at San Marcos with our French Canadian buddy Peo.

The view from La Nariz del Indio (the Indian's nose).

The dock at Panahachel, this was our first look at the lake and volcanoes.

Three volcanoes from San Marcos. From left to right, volcanes San Pedro, Atitlan and Toliman.

Another shot from La Nariz.

Laura watching the sunset at San Marcos. 

A 'chicken' bus, or camioneta in Spanish, shot from the back of a ute, the other common form of transport in central America.

Volcanes Toliman and Atitlan from the top of volcan San Pedro.

A nice tree.

Us with Peo above Santa Clara.

View from the top of San Pedro. Its a solid hike, 2km of altitude gained in 2 hours or so on steep nasty trails. The 3.5 km altitude messes with your climbing abilities. Our guide was 71 years old and climbs the volcano every day, drinking nothing but coffee... Mayans are tough.

After the lake we headed to Antigua for a few days. Its a beautiful little city of ancient streets and buildings with the backdrop of a huge active volcano. There's only a few buildings left from the 1600's which haven't needed rebuilding due to constant earthquakes.

Antigua, you can just see the volcano through the clouds.

One of the original buildings still un-repaired.

Pupusas, tortillas made with meat cheese or beans inside. They're awesome, and this lot cost about 2 or 3 dollars all up.

Us in the ruins of the cathedral. Its being repaired but its been demolished 3 times from earthquakes, most 'recently' in the 1700's.

Note the earthquake induced 'al fresco' feel.

For about a month leading up to semana Santa (Easter) they have daily parades which last for hours and stop the whole city. Central America is seriously religious.

Ahm, yep...

Maya-catholic artwork gets a little creepy.

Last destination in Guatemala was Semuc Champey. We spent 15 hours getting there after a demonstration closed the main highway and the bus broke down. On the plus side we spent the time with some great New Yorkers, Ellen and Adam, and a really sweet Italian girl called Stella.

As we only got into Semuc at midnight, one of our first daylight experiences was heading into the caves.

The caving was all done by candle light with a guide and friends from the hostel. It involve a lot of one handed swimming, climbing, jumping, sliding and cursing each time you doused your candle.

Victory!

The view from our hostel.

Some local muchachos.

Cacao. Here's what your fancy chocolate looked like originally.

Semuc Champey is a freak of nature. An underground river feeds a series of huge crystal clear pools linked by waterfalls. Set in the Guatemalan Jungle with amazing animals (including howler monkeys, who were a little camera shy), it's an incredible sight. We spent two days exploring and swimming here.

The river actually flows under the pools. Apparently it was as crystal clear as the pools until a month ago when the government began damming for a hydro plant.

From the mirador.

The hostel, called utopia, was awesome.

Phew, finished, hopefully we can keep up from now on and avoid massive entries like this. Currently in Nicaragua after a week in el Salvador. On our way to pick up our van...