Well folks, we almost dropped off the planet, or at least if feels like it since it has been so long since we’ve been in touch! We left off in Bocas del Toro and we’re over a week and two countries later now!
Our last day in Bocas we had a fabulous boat tour that took us to four locations–Dolphin Bay to see Dolphins of course, then To Cayo Crawl for our first snorkeling stint (and David and Elena’s first time ever), where in addition to large corals and colorful tropical fishes, David found himself over a large shark as well. After lunch, it was on to Red Frog Beach on the ocean side of Isla Bastimentos, and then to our second snorkeling site of Hospital Point of Isla Solarte. The highlights: making friends with the other tour guests, "diving" down for a closer look, drinking the coconut juice and scraping the flesh out of an immature coconut, the fishes incredible coloration. The lowlights: Bob’s blister from his snorkel fin, Jenifer not being able to see very far snorkeling without her glasses, and rain in the morning that felt like freezing pellets when the boat was zipping through the water.
The next day was spent in transit back to San Jose–not too exciting–the regular hassles of 3rd world travel. Slow hot buses, crossing borders, negotiating taxis, etc. I had made reservations at a San Jose (Costa Rica) hotel for us to return to and it was quite pleasant (though not air-conditioned) with a great breakfast buffet, lots of twisting corridors, gardens and seating areas. We had planned on only one night, but as we arrived on a Friday night, we found we could not get reserved bus tickets on to Managua, Nicaragua, on a more deluxe bus line (no stops, AC, etc) until Monday morning!! At 3am no less! Saturday I spent all day at the hotel with a bad migraine while Bob and the kids ran errands and did stuff around town. My migraine medication that was sent from the US never did arrive. I found a different triptan (migraine med) to try at a pharmacy and it worked well and was cheaper than Imitrex. Sunday we transferred to a "backpacker’s special" (i.e. nothing special) hostel in an absolutely horrific part of town (garbage and homeless drug addicts on the streets) two blocks from where the bus departs in the morning. We went to sleep at 8 pm, the hotel guy knocked on our door at 2 am, we were dressed and walking with our packs at 2:30. Bus left at 3:00. Tried to sleep, but couldn’t much after 6:30 when they turned the music on. Then there were the border crossings again (smooth) and a loud Bruce Lee movie played in Spanish making sleep much more difficult! Thought we’d be arriving at 10 am but got there at 12:30 pm–close to 10 hours!
The woman representing Henry Vargas, the missionary we know from our church, had been waiting far too long, I’m afraid, and spoke only Spanish–not a problem really. We piled our stuff in the back of the pick-up where it promptly got soaked by a deluge of rain which took us the next 4 days to figure out how to dry out in the incredibly humid weather. She drove us out to the school he runs on the outskirts of town (the school was not in session) where another team of 26 students and adults from Greensboro, NC, with Youth for Christ was serving this same week–small world. Elena recognized a bunch of them, but we really didn’t know any of them even though most of them go to our same church!
The accommodations for groups was rudimentary at best–a couple of outdoor toilet stalls, one sink, a couple of shower for the girls, outdoor showers for the guys. The others had come with their own blow-up mattresses and stuff, but we came without "equipment" so they scrounged up a couple of filthy mattresses and ratty sheets and pointed to a flooded classroom (from the rain) for us to "set up" in. The heat, humidity, bugs and dirt were utterly oppressive. And the work was heavy labor–planting yucca and plantains, macheteing fields of brush, clearing out trees and bushes to put up fencing, cleaning out garbage–filled swamps and dump areas, shoveling dirt from one area to another–nothing to do with the children (who return next week). The sweat poured off of us, our muscles ached, we drank lots of water, we got covered in bug bites at night, and we decided after 4 days we’d had enough–or prehaps I should say Bob and I had enough–the kids loved it and didn’t want to go!. The work was extremely disorganized, and often seemingly pointless. Many were getting sick from the poor sanitation (flies crawled all over the food) and work conditions. It was a good thing we left when we did, because Bob, not only unable to work half of most days because he would not pace himself well and overdid it, came down with a virus running through Nicaragua with a low-grade fever, body aches, weakness, diarrhea, etc. and was hardly able to walk around town, once we got here to Leon where we are now.
So we left the Vargas’ place on a Thursday evening, stayed the night in Managua–the AC and not worrying about bugs was pure heaven, even if the beds poked springs into our sides. We zipped to Leon in about an hour and a half in a minivan of people and had some trouble finding a hotel with a room for 4 available(it was Friday night again–the weekend) but found one with AC–Leon is a hot city- for a good price since we didn’t have reservations, but we did and promptly fell in love with Leon and Nicaragua. It’s so much cheaper and less touristy here, and yet has lovely colonial buildings and churches, the best modern art museum in all of Central America. It’s small and very walkable, and we’ve had great weather. The people seem friendly and there was a local festival going on yesterday in the central park.
Our last day in Bocas we had a fabulous boat tour that took us to four locations–Dolphin Bay to see Dolphins of course, then To Cayo Crawl for our first snorkeling stint (and David and Elena’s first time ever), where in addition to large corals and colorful tropical fishes, David found himself over a large shark as well. After lunch, it was on to Red Frog Beach on the ocean side of Isla Bastimentos, and then to our second snorkeling site of Hospital Point of Isla Solarte. The highlights: making friends with the other tour guests, "diving" down for a closer look, drinking the coconut juice and scraping the flesh out of an immature coconut, the fishes incredible coloration. The lowlights: Bob’s blister from his snorkel fin, Jenifer not being able to see very far snorkeling without her glasses, and rain in the morning that felt like freezing pellets when the boat was zipping through the water.
The next day was spent in transit back to San Jose–not too exciting–the regular hassles of 3rd world travel. Slow hot buses, crossing borders, negotiating taxis, etc. I had made reservations at a San Jose (Costa Rica) hotel for us to return to and it was quite pleasant (though not air-conditioned) with a great breakfast buffet, lots of twisting corridors, gardens and seating areas. We had planned on only one night, but as we arrived on a Friday night, we found we could not get reserved bus tickets on to Managua, Nicaragua, on a more deluxe bus line (no stops, AC, etc) until Monday morning!! At 3am no less! Saturday I spent all day at the hotel with a bad migraine while Bob and the kids ran errands and did stuff around town. My migraine medication that was sent from the US never did arrive. I found a different triptan (migraine med) to try at a pharmacy and it worked well and was cheaper than Imitrex. Sunday we transferred to a "backpacker’s special" (i.e. nothing special) hostel in an absolutely horrific part of town (garbage and homeless drug addicts on the streets) two blocks from where the bus departs in the morning. We went to sleep at 8 pm, the hotel guy knocked on our door at 2 am, we were dressed and walking with our packs at 2:30. Bus left at 3:00. Tried to sleep, but couldn’t much after 6:30 when they turned the music on. Then there were the border crossings again (smooth) and a loud Bruce Lee movie played in Spanish making sleep much more difficult! Thought we’d be arriving at 10 am but got there at 12:30 pm–close to 10 hours!
The woman representing Henry Vargas, the missionary we know from our church, had been waiting far too long, I’m afraid, and spoke only Spanish–not a problem really. We piled our stuff in the back of the pick-up where it promptly got soaked by a deluge of rain which took us the next 4 days to figure out how to dry out in the incredibly humid weather. She drove us out to the school he runs on the outskirts of town (the school was not in session) where another team of 26 students and adults from Greensboro, NC, with Youth for Christ was serving this same week–small world. Elena recognized a bunch of them, but we really didn’t know any of them even though most of them go to our same church!
The accommodations for groups was rudimentary at best–a couple of outdoor toilet stalls, one sink, a couple of shower for the girls, outdoor showers for the guys. The others had come with their own blow-up mattresses and stuff, but we came without "equipment" so they scrounged up a couple of filthy mattresses and ratty sheets and pointed to a flooded classroom (from the rain) for us to "set up" in. The heat, humidity, bugs and dirt were utterly oppressive. And the work was heavy labor–planting yucca and plantains, macheteing fields of brush, clearing out trees and bushes to put up fencing, cleaning out garbage–filled swamps and dump areas, shoveling dirt from one area to another–nothing to do with the children (who return next week). The sweat poured off of us, our muscles ached, we drank lots of water, we got covered in bug bites at night, and we decided after 4 days we’d had enough–or prehaps I should say Bob and I had enough–the kids loved it and didn’t want to go!. The work was extremely disorganized, and often seemingly pointless. Many were getting sick from the poor sanitation (flies crawled all over the food) and work conditions. It was a good thing we left when we did, because Bob, not only unable to work half of most days because he would not pace himself well and overdid it, came down with a virus running through Nicaragua with a low-grade fever, body aches, weakness, diarrhea, etc. and was hardly able to walk around town, once we got here to Leon where we are now.
So we left the Vargas’ place on a Thursday evening, stayed the night in Managua–the AC and not worrying about bugs was pure heaven, even if the beds poked springs into our sides. We zipped to Leon in about an hour and a half in a minivan of people and had some trouble finding a hotel with a room for 4 available(it was Friday night again–the weekend) but found one with AC–Leon is a hot city- for a good price since we didn’t have reservations, but we did and promptly fell in love with Leon and Nicaragua. It’s so much cheaper and less touristy here, and yet has lovely colonial buildings and churches, the best modern art museum in all of Central America. It’s small and very walkable, and we’ve had great weather. The people seem friendly and there was a local festival going on yesterday in the central park.
1 comment:
Your Nicaragua stint sounds GREAT, but a bit exhausting. When will you be heading for El Salvador and/or Guatemala? Hope all goes well with Bob. Doesn't sound too good if he comes down with Dengue fever. That can be very debilitating. Hang in there. Only a couple of weeks left. Ha.
Dad & Lilburne tmsumkds
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