After several quick hours driving down
the Pan American highway from Antigua to Playa El Tunco, El Salvador,
(including getting scammed out of $10 US at the border by one of the
currency traders) I arrived in the mid afternoon and found a guy
named Simon, whom I had met in Antigua, at the hostel where I was
meant to be staying, After checking in and grabbing a beer with him,
I was fortunate to start meeting a pretty awesome group of guys,
including 2 German guys, an Englishman, several Canadians, and a two
American brothers that I had also met in Antigua. After settling in,
and having a few beers to cool down from the incredible weather and
heat, a few of the guys were heading down to the beach, so I tagged
along and found out we would be playing some soccer on the beach with
a bunch of locals. I'm terrible at soccer, but I figured I could use
the exercise and joined in on the fun. It was quite a lovely
experience, as the local children were so friendly and playful with
us foreigners, laughing and joking around, which isn't something I'm
used to in other countries, as locals always seem to be quite
reserved towards foreigners, but the El Salvadoreans were so
amazingly friendly.
After the intense beach soccer match,
it was time to jump into the water for a little bit, as the local
kids were encouraging us to come jump off the giant rock structure in
front of the beach, which is shaped like a pig's nose, and is the
reason the beach received the name “El Tunco”. After jumping off
the 15 foot rock and cooling down, we just headed back to the hostel
to clean up a bit before a big group of us wandered on down to a
nearby pizza joint and had a pretty good, but slightly expensive
feast. After our huge dinner party, we all wandered back to the
hostel, where a few Israeli guys played some guitar and serenaded us,
until a family with some young children ended up asking us to move
the party elsewhere, so we popped up to the upper level of the
hostel, where a few more guys joined us including a dude named Scion,
who was a tattoo artist with a very unique style of tattooing that
involved using dots to create his tattoos, similar to the
pointillisme art technique , as well as a cool El Salvadorean gay
hair stylist named Carlos, who had given a few of the guys at the
hostel cool haircuts. I ended up being pretty tired from the previous
few days, so I just ended up sneaking off to bed to catch up on some
sleep.
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| The El Tunco Lodge |
After about 11 hours of sleep, I was up
the next day and wandered down for some breakfast with a few of the
guys from the hostel, before chatting with Carlos about getting a
haircut done, so we arranged a time in the afternoon for me to pop by
and receive a $5 haircut. Since I haven't had to worry about work, I
figured I would get a Central American style haircut, with his a sort
of mohawk deal, but with a bit of creative flair from Carlos, which
were some speed lines in the sides. It was a pretty fun session,
shooting the shit and hearing about his hilarious gay stories. After
the haircut, I was back to the hostel to just hang out for a bit,
before heading down to the beach for some more beach soccer, which
was another fun session, except we had way more players this time and
it was just plain crowded, plus the locals are pretty aggressive and
serious about the game, slide tackling and all, but still a good
session of exercise! After the game all wrapped up, we all went back
to the hostel, got cleaned up, and prepared ourselves to head into
San Salvador for ladies night.
A guy from San Salvador who had opened
a few businesses in the El Tunco area decided to organize a party
night in San Salvador, as there was a ladies night there every
Wednesday, so he organized a shuttle to take several of us into the
city to stop at the casino, then to a few nightclubs, and to the
strip club. There ended up being about 16 of us in total that decided
to head in and check out the nightlife, so we ended up filling up two
vehicles for the night. Unfortunately we had to wait until the hostel
shuttle showed up, over an hour and a half late because two Brazilian
guys had used it to go into town, and were meant to be back by 6 pm,
but took longer than expected. We finally had all the vehicles ready,
and started the drive into town, before being stopped by the police
about 7 minutes into the drive. It was rather funny, as most of us
had an open beer in the vehicle, and myself and the one Canadian girl
quickly hid our beers on the floor, while everyone else in the
vehicle just kept their beers in their hands....obviously our liquor
laws are a fair bit different from other countries. After a 6 or 7
minute wait, the police finally let our vehicle leave, so we
continued on, and arrived at the casino about 40 minutes later. By
this point we were all starving, and Raul, the organizer had told us
that we could get free food at the casino if we gambled, so we all
sat down and began ordering food and drinks, while pretending to
gamble. Unfortunately the service was rather terrible, and the food
barely ever came, and the drinks were few and far between. I wasn't
too worried about it, but one Canadian dude was getting pretty worked
up about the whole thing, and stressing out a bit too much.
Eventually it was time to move on and head to the mall where the
nightclubs were, so we were on our way, and I came out ahead $5 from
the casino, plus had a few drinks and some food, so it was a good
endeavour for me.
We arrived at the mall and had to wait
for Raul and his vehicle to show up, as he had all the money and was
the organizer, and he was taking forever to show up, so the Canadian
guy was stressing out even more and getting more worked up and angry,
so we were trying to calm him down, but we could tell he was going to
be a problem the whole night. Fortunately, Raul showed up and we all
entered into the nightclub and found our way to the VIP area where he
had reserved spots for us. The place was all locals, and they were a
bit surprised to see a big group of gringos wander in and settle into
the VIP area, especially as soon as we began to become more drunk and
were dancing like crazy, as everyone else was pretty low key and just
standing or sitting at tables, chatting it up. We had a bar right
next to our booths so drinks and shots were easy to come by, so we
had our fill and were all pretty drunk and wild, much to the
entertainment of the locals. After our 2 hours or so of free drinks,
it was time to move on from the place, and either head to the strip
club or else to the next club which happened to be next door. By this
point, since we had several girls in the group who didn't really want
to go to the strip club, and we would have had to leave the mall and
then come back to go to the next club, we just vetoed the strip club
and ended up at the next door club. We ended up getting a few bottles
for there, and continued our party. I had been flirting a fair bit
with the Dutch girl in our group, and it basically escalated at that
point in the second nightclub, where we were all over each other and
barely touched any of the drinks. Meanwhile, the angry Canadian dude
was getting into a huge argument with his g/f and causing a fair bit
of trouble at the club, causing Raul some worries, since he knew the
city well enough, and knew that there were some bad people at the
clubs that we should be worried about, and the last thing he wanted
was this dumb ass getting into a fight with some of the rough people.
Eventually he cooled down a bit, but was still an issue, and we were
all pretty drunk and the place was closing down, so it was back into
the shuttle and back to the hostel. I felt a bit bad for the driver,
as he had myself and the Dutch girl all over each other in the front
seat the whole ride back, but he as a good enough sport about it all.
We arrived back at the hostel, and after contemplating some skinny
dipping in the pool, just decided to head to sleep in the dorm room,
and ended up spending the night together.
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| Smoking may cause impotency |
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| new haircut and a mo! |
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| mini van party with Jake, Jakob, and Josh |
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| Our VIP area at the first nightclub |
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| Looking out at our audience...all the locals watching us strange foreigners |
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| Heated discussions/partiers |
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| Bottle service? Hell yeah |
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| me and Zion, the local tattoo artist |
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| Simon having way too much fun |
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| love partying with my new German buddy Joshua |
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| now the El Salvadoreans are having fun |
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| party rock is in the house tonight! |
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| We were in an elevator?? apparently... |
The next morning I woke up feeling
terrible and finding the room empty, including the Dutch girl even
though I was still in her bed. After stumbling out of bed, finding
some water, and seeing the guys, we wandered down for some breakfast
and coffee, while laughing about the previous night and sharing
photos. No one really remembered what had happened, especially after
the first nightclub, so we all had to review our photos to piece
together things...it was a hangover style of night, but great fun. We
eventually found out that the Canadian guy and his g/f had basically
broken up after the night, as he was way to psycho for her, and he
was up to some childish things, such as throwing her clothing out,
breaking her camera, etc. On top of that, he had transferred all his
money into her account, as he had owed the Canadian government tax
money and was worried they would take the money from his account, so
he was kind of on the run from that, which made it difficult for her,
since he had no bank cards or cash. Quite the drama fest. The women
ended up heading into San Salvador to do some shopping that
afternoon, while us guys just hung out at the beach for the day, and
around the pool at the hostel.
After a lazy afternoon, we ran out for
some more beach soccer with the kids, but it was a fairly big battle,
as the hangover was fairly prominent, so it was tough to keep up with
anyone. We ended up having enough people this time for 3 teams, so
there was a lot of alternating teams, giving some breaks, but not
very many. After the futbol, it was off to grab some food from a
delicious stir fry place called Take A Wok, which had actually been
started up by Raul, as he is a professional chef, and put together
some amazing sauces and food designs. After the wok stop, us guys
just ended up hanging out at a nearby bar that Raul had a partnership
in, listening to some music, and just chilling out, while the girls
were off at another bar for Ladies Night. I couldn't stay up much
later, and eventually just called it an early night, and crashed.
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| Quiet night at Raul's bar, with our new DJs and bartenders, zee Germans |
The next day was more of the same, as
we just grabbed some breakfast, and then several of us headed down to
the beach to watch a few people surf. I was tempted to borrow the
board that an American guy had rented, and was letting all the girls
use, but then I just decided I didn't want the punishment and
frustration of being in the water for some surf. Instead, myself, the
Dutchie, the Canadian girl, and the American guy just shared a few
beach beers and enjoyed the lovely weather and day. El Tunco is such
a quiet beach, with no one really hastling people and selling things,
plus the surf is really good, so it's a pretty ideal spot to chill
out, whether you're a surfer or not. During this time there also
happened to be a surf competition going on, so there were several
events being held during the day and evening, but the surf happened
to be fairly bad during this stretch, so the competition wasn't quite
as great as expected. After several hours of lovely sun and a few
cervezas, it was back to the hostel to clean up a bit, before heading
down to one of the beach bars for the sunset, where several Aussies
and Canadians whom Simon knew, had showed up. It was the first and
only sunset I actually watched while in El Tunco, which is pretty bad
considering the hostel was about a 4 minute walk from the beach, but
oh well, that's life. After a quick beer and the sunset, I grabbed
some more Take a Wok, while having a little pre party at the hostel
before several of us made our way down to the one bar that was
hosting a party for the surf competion. It was a fairly packed house,
with about 6 or 7 guys to every girl, but that's to be expected at a
surf competion. It was a fairly good party though, with lots of
interesting people to chat with, and the Dutch girl to keep me
entertained lady wise. After a few hours there, it was time to head
back to the hostel for the night, where I just ended up back in the
Dutchie's bed for the night.
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| The beach of El Tunco |
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| Some hot chicks hang out there |
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| Surfing, dog watching, and a rock face that I jumped off of |
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| Great, quiet place to relax...love El Tunco |
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| Simon showing off his beach rider |
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| Miranda enjoying the sun |
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| an El Salvadorean sunset |
The next day we all were up and hanging
out around the hostel, when Raul had mentioned to us that there was a
music video being shot that day at a friend's place, and that we were
welcome to go down there with him, as they needed some gringos for
the music video. Most of us didn't really know what to to think about
it, but we were at least intrigued, so after chilling out for awhile,
the guy who's house it was being filmed at finally showed up. The guy
was absolutely mental, laughing loudly at the most ridiculous things,
and it pretty much seemed like he was just high on cocaine the whole
time. We ended up piling into his shuttle van, and heading over to
his beach house, which was absolutely amazing. He had this huge
spread right on the ocean front, with a lovely pool, a large
entertainment area, and a big house. Upon arrival, they basically fed
us a bunch of food, and said help yourself to as many drinks, water,
soda, etc as we wanted. We wandered down to check out the set, which
wasn't exactly a high budget setup, but still kind of neat. Once the
singers showed up, it was time to get down to business, so they
wanted the two German boys to get out and dance with some local girls
for the first few scenes of the music video. While they were filming
it, a few of us watched on with interest and enjoyed the humour of
the filming, as the two German guys are absolutely hilarious when
they're dancing. Once they finished a few minutes of shooting, they
had to take a break, and Jakob, came out, basically blind, as they
were shooting salt water onto the roof of the canopy so it would drip
down like rain, but the salt water kept getitng in his eyes and
mouth, so it was a bit tough for him to get through the whole
endeavour! We all wandered back to the main area to relax and have a
few drinks, and figured it would just be the German guys in the music
video, but then shortly afterwards, they asked for a few more of us
to out and shoot the next scenes, so I had the fortunate part of
dancing with the cute casting girl/production manager. We shot a few
more minutes of footage, while getting drenched by the salty water,
which diluted a few of the people's drinks, as well.
After shooting for a bit, we took
another break and just hung out, getting to know the singers a bit.
They were brothers from Belgium, but sang Spanish love ballads. At
first I had tried speaking to the one brother in English, then he
asked if I spoke Spanish, which I told him no, then he randomly asked
if I spoke French, and that's how I found out about their Belgian
background. After a little bit more chilling out, they started
expanding the music video scenes, and having more of our entire group
in each scene, which made for a wild time, as I could be a bit of a
clown in the background, performing a bunch of stupid dance moves
such as the shopping cart, mowing the lawn, etc. It was quite a
blast. The whole process ended up taking about 6 hours of shooting
various scenes and what not; at first the song was actually quite
catchy, but after hearing it non stop for about 5 of those hours, it
became a bit old. All in all, we became fairly drunk, had lots of
laughs, and had a great day at the beach. After the filming finished
up, we all jumped into the ocean, played around a bit, before heading
back to our hostel in the evening. After the massive party, quite a
few of us were pretty wiped out, so I ended up falling asleep for
about 3 hours until the girls woke me up to ask if I was going to be
going with them to the party that night at the beach bar. I was a bit
disoriented, but up and keen to go check out the place, so we made
our way over to D'Roccas beach bar, where there was some live music,
lots of surfers, and a whole ton of people from San Salvador, making
for a very interesting and fun mix of people. Most of the group from
the hostel made it over as well, so we had a fun dance party and
shared lots of laughs throughout the night. At one point, some local
guys grabbed the Dutch girl and myself, and asked us to come join
them at their table, where they were basically pouring Grey Goose
vodka down our throats, and encouraging us to get rowdy with
them....gotta love the El Salvadoreans! Eventaully after way too many
drinks, it was closing time, and time to head back to the hostel, to
eat some late night pasta with the Swedish girls, before heading to
bed with the Dutchie.
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| the music video filming |
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| crazy locals that kept giving us vodka |
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| surf competition party |
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| trying to imitate the sculpture |
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| Dutch and Dutch lover hanging out |
The next day was another rough one, and
a fair bit of time was spent in front of the tv at the hostel, eating
Take a Wok, drinking coffee, and watching American football, while
trying to sort out my plans. I had planned to leave El Tunco by
Friday, to go back to Antigua, but had fallen in love with the place
and the people, and couldn't drag myself away. While lounging around
I began chatting with an American guy who was there with his family,
and he had mentioned they were taking an early shuttle right to San
Salvador to catch a bus to San Pedro Sula in Honduras. I had planned
to try and go to Utila for some diving, plus I thought I might have
some friends up there, so I basically decided last minute that I
would catch the shuttle with the family in the morning, and head to
San Pedro with them, and then catch a bus over to La Ceiba, where I
could take a ferry across to Utila. I had heard that La Ceiba was
only an hour and a bit away from San Pedro, so I figured I should be
able to get there in time to catch the last ferry at 4:00 pm. So, I
finalized those plans, watched some more football, and just hung out
with the crew for my last night. It was tough to say goodbye to
everyone, as it was such a fun and relaxed group, but I knew I'd see
them all again some day, as everyone was making their way south.
Since I had to be up for the 5:30 am shuttle, it was relatively early
to bed for me.
Waking up that early the next day was a
bit of a battle, as I had been used to going to bed so late and
sleeping in, so I didn't get a whole lot of sleep, but that bode well
for the upcoming long day of bus rides. I met the family in the
morning, hopped in the shuttle, and we were dropped off right at the
door of the King Quality bus company, an hour before departure. After
lining up for several minutes behind the family, while the employees
took forever to sort out their ticket price changes, I finally had my
ticket to San Pedro and was on my way. I hadn't really looked much
into San Pedro, but apparently based on statistics it's now the
murder capital of the world, awesome! But like anywhere in the world,
you can always find rough areas, and I wasn't too worried. We hopped
on the bus, which was surprisingly comfortable, and provided a fair
bit of food and drinks, which made up for the somewhat high price of
the bus ticket ($46 US). We arrived in San Pedro around 3 pm, and I
was hoping to catch the next available bus out to try and catch the
ferry, so as soon as I got off, and some bus company employee yelled
out La Ceiba, I quickly followed him. However, I soon found out that
it didn't leave until 4:30 pm, and there were no other buses leaving
any time sooner, so I was going to be out of luck for making the
ferry. I waited around the bus station/mall, grabbed a bite to eat,
and battled with the atms to try and get some money out, before
finally catching my bus at 4:30 pm. It was a fairly cheap bus ride,
as it cost about $6 to get to La Ceiba, but unfortunately it took way
longer than I thought it would, as we didn't end up arriving until
9:30 pm...oops. And of course I had no idea about La Ceiba, or where
to sleep, or when the ferries left in the morning. Fortunately, there
was a cheap hotel right at the bus station, and they knew the time
the ferries left in the morning, so I ended up just settling in there
for the night, watched the Monday night game for a bit, and headed to
sleep.
I was up the next morning, and tried to
grab a warm shower, but the “Widow Maker” wasn't heating the
water properly. The “Widow Makers” are these electric powered
shower heads that heat the water, but are pretty dodgy. I've been
shocked twice now by them, and it's not a pleasant experience, and
could potentially be fatal, hence the name. Anyway, after getting
shocked by this one, I quickly passed on the shower, and grabbed a
cab and went down to the port. I was hoping to pay for my boat with
credit card, as I was low on cash, and the bank machine wasn't
working at the port, but they only took cash, so I had just enoug
money to grab a small coffee and small taco to have for breakfast.
While waiting around, I noticed a cute girl show up, so I ended up
chatting her up for a little bit before boarding the boat, and
meeting two Aussies who had been living in Vancouver for awhile. We
all got along pretty well, and managed to make it through the
extremely choppy and rough boat ride. It was probably the most choppy
boat ride I've had before, and at least half the boat ended up
becoming sea sick. As soon as we hit the first wave, I started
looking around at faces in the room, and wanted to put together a
pool on who would be the first to vomit. I had picked one lady out,
and she did end up getting sick, but she was actually the 3rd
person on the boar...damn! I felt bad for one woman nearby who had 3
small children, all of whom were vomiting all over her. At least the
boat staff was relatively prepared, and had many plastic vomit bags
on hand ha ha. I felt really bad for the one guy sitting behind me,
who was as pale as a ghost when the staff carried him to the back of
the boat, and basically stuck him into a garbage bin to puke ha ha
ha.....Finally after 1 hour of choppy waters and some interesting
stories from the Leila, the girl I had met in the port (including the
story about how a boat captain had just been murdered a few days
earlier, how she had been robbed at knife point a few times, and how
lovely Utila really was other than some violence), we were in Utila.
Leila had been there for over a month and a half, so she knew a few
good spots to stay, and gave us some suggestions. The Aussies were
going to stay at a place that had a good beach area to chill out at,
and a volleyball court, so I ended up following them to that place.
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| the dude behind me was mega seasick...was later carried off by the staff of the boat |
We arrived at Underwater Vision, and
checked in and signed up for a dive the next morning, even though it
was Tequila Tuesdays apparently. After checking in, and lamenting
about the terrible and rainy weather, plus wondering why I left
lovely El Tunco, I settled down at the bar to order some lunch and
met a pretty cool American dude named Chuck, who was a semi
professional photographer, as well as a hardcore hitch hiker. We had
a pretty good two hour chat, while I ate his 2nd breakfast
burrito, as he couldn't finish them both, and three of the items I
had tried to order from the menu weren't available. Apparently it can
be a fair bit hard to get some ingredients on the island, and can
take a fair bit of time to procure them, so a lot of times the things
I'd try to order, they didn't have. After having a beer, waiting out
the rain, and just hanging out, the weather finally cleared a bit,
and some beach volleyball began, which was some good fun, as it
wasn't too competitive. After the game wrapped up, two Canadian guys
and one Aussie dude, who were doing their dive masters, told me about
Skid Row, and how good the food was there. I had also heard about the
bar from the one Canadian girl in El Tunco, as they had this
challenge where you have to drink 4 double shots of this terrible
alcohol called Guifity, and then you'd receive a free tshirt for $10.
Or you could say that you pay $10 for a tshirt and get 4 free shots,
depending on who you ask! So we arrived down there, in the pouring
rain (all the boys had umbrellas, and told me they had started an
Underwater Vision gang where they always carried around umbrellas,
and unfortunately I couldn't be part of the gang since I was
umbrellaless. We arrived at Skid Row, which was the definition of a
dive bar, as it's a pretty old and run down shack, but the staff were
pretty cool, and they have amazing hot sauce. We got there, and
myself and the Aussie ordered the challenge shots, while also getting
some very tasty calzones. When the bartender, a dude named Carlos
came with the shots, he threatened to give me a pink shirt if I
didn't drink them in a timely manner, but it was an idle threat since
I was kind of keen on a pink shirt anyways ha ha. I managed to finish
them in about 5 minutes, but it definitely wasn't the easiest thing,
as they were pretty nasty. Of course, they really hit you about 45 to
50 minute later.
After the shots kicked in, a few games
of pool with the absolutely crazy local drug dealer/hot sauce
maker/island lunatic named Webb, it was time to head over to the
Tranquilla bar with the guys. The 50 cent tequila shots proved to be
a real menace, as they were just so damn cheap and so terrible at the
same time. I ended up meeting a few more cool people there, although
it was pretty much all dudes, with very few girls. This would be a
strong developing theme of my time in Utila, as basically it was a 6
to 1 ratio everywhere I went, and if you would be chatting up a
woman, as soon as you left for the toilet, there would be 4 more guys
moving in on her ha ha...brutal but oh well! I was going to head home
early since I was meant to dive at 7:00 am, but then I noticed the
Canadian dive master who was supposed to be taking me out the next
morning, and she was just as drunk and having just as much fun as I
was, so I asked her if we could do an afternoon dive instead, and she
was totally up for that idea. Eventually the place shut down, and we
walked back to the dive shop, but then she found out that some other
people had signed up and that she wouldn't be able to cancel the
morning dive, damnit! So I just went to bed, set the alarm, and hoped
that I would be able to function in the morning.
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| Utila Honduras, from my hostel |
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| The main attraction of Underwater Vision...the volleyball court! |
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| after a few nights of partying in Utila...definitely one way to end up |
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| checked into Rehab...then found out it was a bar! |
I was up at 6:45 am the next day, and
got out of bed, but was way too disoriented and not in any shape to
head out for the dive, as I didn't want to be a liability to the
other divers, so I just went back to sleep, not waking up until the
early afternoon. Once I finally crawled out of bed I noticed that a)
the floor in the room was rather wet and b) that it was pouring rain
outside, and another dreary day, making me reconsider leaving the
beautiful weather of El Salvador. I ended up stopping by the nearby
coffee shop just in time to catch their last 20 minutes of service,
as they were a young American couple that only were open from 7 am
until 2 pm, but had the island's best coffee. I ended up chatting
with an older and slightly strang gentleman who asked me to come
check out his place that he had built, so I told him I would stop by
and check it out sometime in the near future. After my coffee, I just
wandered back to the hostel to grab a bite to eat, and hang out with
a few people there at the bar. I ended up meeting a pretty cool group
of guys named John, Karl, and Murray, who were having a few afternoon
beers, so they invited me to come join them. It was a pretty funny
group of guys, as John was an Australian commodity trader who was on
the island for some diving and to relax, while Karl and Murray were
two Canadians over for a quick trip to Honduras. I later found out
that Murray had moved to Australia and became a professional surfer
for RipCurl, and was meant to be heading to El Tunco in the next week
to do some surf video shooting, and had suggested I get in touch with
him if I decided to head back there for my birthday.
Karl was another hilarious character,
who worked in the oilfield but travelled a fair bit. I would later
find out that he had met and travelled with my friend Gael whom I had
met in Poland the previous year, as well as with a Swedish guy named
Tibor that I had met while diving in Malaysia this past year; pretty
small and random world. We ended up heading over to John's apartment
that he had rented, where the fridge was stocked with beers and rum,
and spent the afternoon hanging out, enjoying the rum and the
hilarious story about Karl, Murray, and their friend Chris's Honduran
adventure. Chris was laid up in bed, ill from the previous few days,
as they had quite the adventure in the Honduran jungle on the
mainland. They had randomly decided to hike up Honduras's highest
peak, and arrived in the small village near the mountain, without
having organized anything prior, but were at least carrying proper
hiking gear and had met a photographer for National Geographic on the
way there who was amazed that they hadn't actually planned anything
out, including having a guide. Apparently it is mostly jungle the
whole way up to the peak, and is quite a reckless endeavour without a
guide. On top of that, none of the guys really spoke Spanish, so this
photographer helped find a guide for them. Once their guide showed
up, he informed them that he had never actually hiked up the top of
the mountain before, but would try his best to show them the way, so
they set off on their hike. They soon realized that their guide came
very ill prepared, as he didn't have a sleeping bag, tent, any food
or water, and for the next 2 days the boys had to basically provide
him with everything, and even let him sleep in the tent while two of
the guys slept outside in their sleeping bag. This would turn out to
be a fair bit of a pain in the ass, literally speaking, as Murray
ended up finding a tick in his ass a few days later, and ended up
getting Lyme disease from it! On top of that, once they were within a
few hundred meters of the peak, the guide told them he was too tired
and couldn't go any further, but said they could continue on without
him, but the jungle brush was so thick, and they didn't have machetes
so they really had no choice to go back down with the man!
So after their hiking fail, they end up
back in the small town and the local drug kingpin/only person who
spoke English ends up meeting them in a bar and takes them on quite
the 2 day joy ride. They said he carried a pistol with him and
several clips of ammo at all times, and any time he would get a bit
excited about something or a story he would start firing off his ammo
into the air like an old cowboy! At one point, they mentioned that
they were in his truck driving around and they passed a hotel that
was owned by some men that the kingpin really disliked, so he began
firing rounds at the hotel telling the boys how much he hated the
“expletive that own that hotel”, all the while screaming and
yelling and hooting and hollering....the boys were in quite a bit of
shock, but it was still quite the interesting experience. Then at
night, the kingpin took them to stay at some house that he owned that
was filled with a bunch of his workers, where he basically told two
of the girls to sleep with the guys, otherwise there would be
trouble! And then after the guys were ready to escape to Utila, he
mentioned that he had a private plane flying there, presumably to
deliver drugs, and told the boys that they better get on it and that
there would be some of his “boys” waiting there, to make sure
they arrived safe without trouble and would take them to wherever
they needed to go, so the guys ended up hopping on the plane,
arriving in Utila unharmed, and with a helluva crazy story.
So after our afternoon of rums and
beers, and spotting the meanest looking goat that would roam near the
gate and chase after people if they came too close, we all wandered
down to Skid Row for some billiards and a bite to eat, before making
our way over to a place called Treetonic/Jade's Seahorse, which was
owned by the guy at the coffee shop that I had met earlier.
Unfortunately it was at night, so I couldn't truly appreciate all the
artwork and handcraftsmanship that had gone into the place. It was a
huge project that apparently took about 20 years or so to create, and
was one of the more incredible pieces of work I've seen. After
touring around at night for a little bit, we settled into the bar,
where Chris decided to join us, as he was finally feeling better
after a few days of illness. He ended up being quite a character, as
well, as he had never even left Canada before, and was thrown into
the crazyness of the Honduran trip, and he had some pretty funny
stories about life back home in small town Saskatchewan, getting into
fights with cousins and brothers, going into rival towns to cause
mayhem, etc. Karl and Murray ended up calling it an early night, but
since Chris hadn't been out and they were all leaving the next
morning, he decided to stick around with me, as he had a bunch of
money he wanted to spend anyway, so he kept buying drinks for myself
and anyone else in the near vicinity, while constantly making me have
bags of Swedish snus with him, as well. It was a rather hilarious
night, but a bit overkill, as far as poisoning the body goes. After
the treehouse place closed, we went with the cute bartenders over to
another place where the island party night was happening, and found
pretty much all of the people from my diveshop there, having their
own big party. I was given a pretty hard time by several people
there, as they were all asking where I was in the morning for the
dive. Chris continued to feed me more rum and cokes, and we partied
until that place closed down. By that point I was ready to head home,
as was Chris, so we said our goodbyes, and he gave me the remainder
of his snus and condoms (for some reason he figured he wasn't going
to use them since he was leaving the next day) ha ha ha....so I
laughed and sheepishly accepted them. I wandered back to the hostel,
and laid in bed for about 10 minutes before the spins kicked in real
bad, and soon enough I was outside having to rid my stomach of the
rum and cokes ughh. Once the sickness passed, it was time to head
back to bed to try and sleep.
I didn't get up until around 1 pm the
next day, as I was hurting fairly badly. After saying hi to a few
dive shop people, I just wandered down to try out a Papousa, which is
two tortillas melted together with vegetables, beans, cheese, and
sour cream and meat in the middle, sort of similar to a quesadilla,
but the Central American version. After my lunch, I ran a few
errands, picked up some laundry, and then eventually made my way down
to Skid Row for their American Thanksgiving Dinner, which was rather
awesome and tasty. I ended up hanging out there for awhile, while
watching the NFL games and playing some pool, before John and I
wandered over to a bar called Rehab with a Swedish girl I had met a
few nights earlier, who worked there. It was rather interesting to
find out that the owner was actually from Saskatchewan, and had been
the head coach of the Yorkton Terriers, the arch rival of my
hometown's hockey team, so I jokingly cursed him for that. After the
quick stop there, I ended up heading over to Tranquilla with the
girls and John for a drink or two, where it was rather rowdy as per
usual, and I saw a few people that I recognized from other spots in
Central America. I didn't have that much energy to really have a
crazy night, so 3 of us from Underwater Vision just wandered back to
the hostel. I ended up chatting with a Danish girl for about an hour
and a bit there (and laughing about the funny advertisements on her cigarette pack), as she was hanging around by herself in one of the
hammocks, before calling it a night.
 |
| hilarious cigarette label warnings...including how cigarettes kill cockroaches and mice...how did they get the money to buy cigarettes in the first place?! |
The next day I woke up and just kind of
wandered around the island a little bit, checking out the
Treetanic/Jade's Seahorse in the afternoon to truly appreciate the
artwork. It was just such a funky place, with so many unique items
used to create mosaics, bridges, swings, tunnels, etc etc. Hopefully
these photos can do it some justice.
 |
| The Seahorse bar/lodge..amazing art |
 |
| The tunnel of love |
 |
| Simply an amazing and quirky place |
After the photo session there, I ended
up running into the Swedish girl from Rehab and asked her if she had
any suggestions for a spot to eat some good food, as I had passed by
the Mexican restaurant, but it was closed, so she suggested a seafood
spot called Balibu's, so I wandered over there, but unfortunately it
was also closed. I eventually settled on a little Argentine place
called Che Pancho, and decided to try the grilled tuna filet, and
wow, am I ever glad that I did. I can honestly say it was one of the
best meals I've had my entire trip, as the spices they used to cook
that fish, were just phenomenal, as was the salad that came with it.
After enjoying the delicious meal, I was in the process of wandering
back to the hostel when I heard some girls yelling at me from a
nearby restaurant and waving. I didn't really recongize them at
first, but then soon realized it was the girls that I had met in
Antigua a few weeks earlier, and had taken them on a pub crawl tour.
Unfortunately, my German g/f wasn't with their group anymore, but the
Swiss and American girl were, plus a few more new friends of theirs.
I invited them to come hang out at the tight and bright party at our
hostel, but they had other plans for the evening, and were going to
head out to Tranquilla later on, so I figured I'd see them there and
catch up later.
I got back to the hostel and ended up
hanging out with a cool Canadian chick named Colleen that I had met
earlier in the day at the a tight and bright party that was being
held to celebrate the graduation of the dive masters. I threw on my
best and bright clothing and wandered down to watch the hilarious
events they had going on for the party. The staff were all really
great sports about it, and were all decked out in some pretty good
outfits, especially considering it isn't exactly a big island with a
lot of clothing selection. They had a few events for everyone, where
the graduates had to dance and striptease people in the audience, and
a panel of judges would decide on how great their dance moves were,
and according to their score, they would receive a better or worse
cup of alcohol. I think the best dance of the night was when one of
the guys came over and stripped off a fair bit of clothing off this
gorgeous Dutch woman, but then her bf put a stop to him going any
further with the dance.
Eventually, the party left the hostel
and moved on towards a place called the Lodge where it was karaoke
night, so myself and Colleen wandered over there, and found it to be
a super fun and small venue, where everyone was really getting into
the karaoke. It was also a cool spot, as there bar was actually
several moveable wooden structures, so you could basically create a
walk through bar if needed. We hung out there until close to
midnight, before heading over to Tranquilla for a bit longer, where I
met up with the Antigua girls. Because Utila is a dive island, it's
pretty much fully crowded with about 5 guys to every girl, so the
group of girls were treated like a bunch of pieces of meat upon
arrival, which was a bit too overwhelming for the majority of the
group, except for Amanda, the American, who decided to stick around,
so I just hung out with her for most of the night. I did have to
laugh, as so many guys kept trying their hand with her, and as soon
as one would leave to get a drink or to the toilet, there would be
another 2 or 3 guys moving in to make their move...what a sausage
fest! I had decided to finally go and do a dive the next day, so I
ended up taking it fairly easy and didn't stay out too much longer in
Tranquilla before just heading back to sleep.
 |
| Tight and Bright party! |
 |
| The contestants in the Tight and Bright sweepstakes |
The next day I was up and one of the
Canadian guys I knew there asked if I was going to be going to the
Caye with them, and I assumed he meant the diving spot so I said for
sure, but then I found out that the majority of the staff had rented
a boat and were going out to a gorgeous spot called the Caye for a
day of lounging in the sun, drinking beers and rum, and I had
unfortunately signed up for diving instead, shoot! But since I had
come to the island to do some diving, it was about time to get into
the water. I had a quick bite to eat, and got ready to head on out on
the boat. It was surprisingly choppy the water, and there were only 4
of us divers, so it was a relatively quiet dive boat. We arrived at
the location, and jumped in and found the current to be extremely
strong. When we started to descend, I found that I couldn't actually
get down even though I was using the same weight I had been using in
SE Asia, so I had to fight the current and go all the way back to the
boat to get more weight. Once I grabbed more weight, I still wasn't
able to descend, and had to swim back against the current one last
time to get more weight, but I was so gassed by this point and
breathing so heavily, that I knew it was going to be damn near
impossible to properly submerge, so I had to sit out the dive and
wait for the next one. I felt bad for the two other divers in my
group, as they had descended twice without issue, but having to
resurface and get back to the tow line, sucked a fair of oxygen out
of them as well, so their dive was going to be shorter than it
initially should have. After getting chewed out a bit by the captain
of the boat, I just relaxed and tried to calm my nerves a bit.
Apparently the visibility was fairly terrible and they didn't really
see a whole lot of interesting things, so I didn't miss out too much.
We made our way over to the next dive
spot, which had a lot less current to worry about, and I loaded up on
way more weight this time and was able to actually get down finally.
We dove for about 45 minutes, and saw a few nice things, but I have
been spoiled by diving in SE Asia for too long, as there really isn't
anything comparable to the reefs in the golden triangle of the
Philippines, Malaysia, Indonesia. The coral was fairly colourful and
vibrant in Utila, but definitely not as great as SE Asia. After
resurfacing, we made our way back to the shore and chilled out, while
I shared the ridiculousness of my day with several friends I had made
at the hostel. While hanging out, I noticed a familiar scraggly
haired guy walk past, and immediately recognized it to be Denzyl, who
had just arrived from Belize. Once he got checked in, we got caught
up on the past week and a bit since we had parted ways in Guatemala,
and shared some laughs over the ridiculousness that our friend Tess
had experienced during her attempt to get up to Utila. She had
arrived in La Ceiba in the evening, and checked into a hotel, where
the desk manager mentioned that she should be careful since white
people have been kidnapped quite a few times in Honduras, and
literally 30 seconds after he said that, the power in the hotel went
out, so she fled to her room and barricaded her door, nearly crying
herself to sleep, and decided to leave for Nicaragua the next morning
instead of staying in Honduras.....hilarious!
Denzyl was pretty worn down from his
Guatemala time, so he was going to have a fairly quiet night, so I
just went out for dinner with two of the people from my dive boat, to
the Mexican restaurant that claimed to have the island's best nachos
(to be fair, I hadn't seen any other place on the island offer nachos
on their menu), so I ordered them, and they were massive and very
tasty. It was a pretty nice dinner, and it was good to practice
speaking in French with the one guy from the dive boat, as well. The
group of Antigua girls were at the restaurant as well, and they had
one guy in their group of 8, so we were having a laugh at the Welsh
woman at our table when she mentioned they played a game called
“European or Gay” back in London, when they would see European
men walking around in their latest fashions. Her and the French guy
both figured the guy in the group of girls was gay, but I said
European, so we made our little wager and had a laugh. The girls
invited me to head out with them that night, but I was pretty tired
from diving and the previous few nights, so I ended up just chilling
at the hostel with Denzyl and my friends that I had made on the boat,
Joel and Amy, who had finally emerged this day, as they had spent the
past 2 days battling food poisoning, but there were still fairly run
down. They had a friend from Burma, but who lived in New Zealand, and
was in the process of getting his permanent residency in Canada show
up, as well, so we had all just chilled out by the beach chatting and
calling it an early night.
The next day the Swiss girl and 2
others from their group were at our place for breakfast, and I asked
her about their male friend, and she confirmed that he was gay, so I
guess my European acquaintances had a better eye for it than myself
ha ha. They had also lost Amanda the previous night, and were all
looking pretty haggard, as it had been a fairly big night apparently,
guess we missed out! They were leaving that afternoon back to La
Ceiba, so I said my goodbyes and then I convinced Denzyl to come for
a wander down to Skid Row for some lunch and some American football,
where we acted like idiots, had a few beers, played some pool, and
cheered for the Bengals. After a few hours of beers and food, we made
our way back to the hostel for some billiards and cards, before
making our way to a nearby restaurant called RJs that had amazing
barbecues every Wednesday, Saturday, and Sunday. I decided to get the
Wahoo, just because the name sounded so fun to pronounce, and it was
fairly tasty, but not quite as good of a fish as the tuna from Che
Pancho. After our huge feast there, we were all quite full, and ended
up back at the hostel for another fairly quiet night, as the next day
was shaping up to be a big one, since it was Amy's 30th
birthday party.
After waking up Denzyl and I headed
over to Che Pancho for lunch with a few girls that had showed up at
the hostel that Denzyl knew, and proceeded to have the grilled tuna,
again, because it was so damn great, plus several delicious
smoothies. I had noticed one of the girls staring intently at me
several times throughout lunch, but never really thought too much of
it. After our lunch, Denzyl and I wandered down to a place called
Float Utila, where you could enter this zero gravity chamber and
float in highly saline water with zero noise and light, to totally
densitize yourself, however, the place was closed so we weren't able
to try it out. After that we decided to pick up some rum for the
birthday party that was happening, as well as a birthday gift for
Amy. I found some hilarious Rooster themed kitchen wear, including an
apron and oven mitts, and figured I'd purchase some birthday cock for
her. We made our way back to the hostel, presented the gift, which
everyone loved, and started our little rum party, getting pretty
rowdy.
This carried on until about 7 pm, when
we were asked to take our party down to the dock, as it was movie
night at the hostel, and we were being too rowdy, our big group of 7
or so. We did demolish a few of the gourmet burgers, before heading
down to the docks, where the one Kiwi girl convinced Denzyl and one
of the Israeli guys to go skinny dipping with her, much to our
laughter and enjoyment, but she didn't end up actually going naked,
while the boys did, and of course one of the Aussie girls in our
group stole Denzyl's clothing while he was in the water, poor dude.
After the swimming, we were all pretty deep into the rum, and headed
down to Tranquilla for a big party there. We were there for probably
an hour or so before the one New Zealand girl who was staring at me
during lunch asked if I wanted to get out of there....it was fairly
unexpected, as we hadn't really chatted or flirted all that much, but
I said sure, so we just wandered back to the hostel for the night.
 |
| Amy's birthday party...starting in the afternoon |
 |
| The birthday cock...Amy loves it! |
The next day was a rainy and blah day,
and I figured it would be my last day in town before making my way to
El Tunco. It started off, as it usually did, with a trip to Che
Pancho with Denzyl for smoothies, and tuna, before just wandering
back to the hostel to hide away from the rain, play some cards, catch
up on some internet things, and just basically be a bum. Unless
you're diving, or partying, there isn't really a whole lot to do in
Utila, so that was basically what my days consisted of when I wasn't
diving, which was barely ever. After hanging out for several hours,
it was time to wander out for dinner with our group of 8 to the King
Restaurant, where they had some super cheap and large baleadas and
pastas. Our feast was quite tasty, as I had some chicken pasta, which
was a great deal for the $3 it cost. After our dinner and a few
beers, there was a big going away party for one of the divemasters
from our hostel, so everyone went back to Skid Row for more guifity
challenge. Since I already had one shirt, but wanted a tshirt, I
figured I'd give it one more go, since it was meant to be my last
night and all. I tried to convince Denzyl to give it a go as well,
but he wasn't having any of it. We arrived down there, and found a
pretty rowdy scene, as per usual. I tried to get my guifity out of
the way upon arrival, but the bartender wanted to wait until a whole
bunch of people did it at once, so we just hung out for about 2 hours
before everyone was ready to do the challenge. We had a group of
about 11 people all do it at once, and the guy who's birthday/going
away party made sure that everyone did the shots right away instead
of taking their time..ughh...not pleasant, but managed to somehow put
it down and keep it down.
After the shots, it was time to settle
up the tabs and head down to Tranquilla for tequila Tuesday, for one
last night, where it was again super packed full of dudes, very few
girls, and a lot of tequila flowing everywhere. After spending about
2 hours there, it was starting to clear out, so a few of us just
snuck out and left for the hostel and calling it a night. The next
day I woke up and the weather was crappy, and I didn't really feel
like taking the ferry, or walking to the ferry in the pouring rain,
so I decided to stick around one last day and just relax with my new
and old friends. It was a pretty chill day, where we just sat around
playing cards, listening to music, eating at RJs barbecue one last
time (amazing barbecue Mahi Mahi wow!), and just enjoying a quiet
night in with the new lady friend one last time.
 |
| The day after the birthday..rain...and Denzyl! |
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| At Che Pancho, for grilled Tuna and Smoothies...like nearly every other day |
 |
| Dinner with the Aussie/Kiwi team |
 |
| Guifity challenge...round 2! |
 |
| 4 "shots" for a free tshirt..okay |
 |
| Another day in Utila...rain rain rain... |
 |
| Amazing barbecue Mahi Mahi at RJs |
 |
| Big feast, great people |
 |
| Chris, showing how to pour a proper drink...with ice! |
The next day I just grabbed some lunch,
coffee, said my goodbyes, and hopped on the ferry with Joel and Ed,
who were on their way to Roatong, a nearby Bay Island, for a few
days. It was boat ride that wasn't nearly as choppy as the one coming
over, and I was a bit disappointed to look around and realize that no
one would actually be sea sick, including all the Honduras coast
guard that was riding along on our boat. Upon arrival, I said my
goodbyes to the guys, and caught a cab with some random guy towards
the bus station, to catch a bus to San Pedro Sula. I realized that I
would have to spend a night in San Pedro, which is statistically
speaking, the murder capital/most dangerous city in the world, as of
2011 based on murder rates per 100,000 people.
Fun times to look ahead to. I had found
a B&B in a decent area of town, and had sent an email saying I
would be showing up, and hoped I would be able to get a room, so upon
my arrival at the bus station at 9 pm, I asked around to a few taxi
drivers to take me to the place, yet they were telling me that I
should go to some other hostel/hotel that was where all the tourists
went....well there was an older lady that overheard this, and told me
to not bother with them and to come with her and her son, as they
were driving past my hostel and could drop me off, so going on gut
instinct, I hopped in their car and was on my way with some very
lovely and random strangers. The son was a law student, and his
mother was a business owner in the Bay Islands, so we had a lovely
chat about the city, the dangers and nuissances, and such before we
arrived at the hostel. I asked at the gate if they had a room, they
asked if I had a reservation, which I didn't think I had, since I had
only sent an email, and they told me they had no room
available...oops! So back in the car and the kind mother and son
drove me around to try and find a cheap hotel in the area that the
hostel staff had recommended, but they weren't able to find the place
so we went back to the hostel to ask again...at this point, the
hostel staff asked what my full name was, as the first time they had
asked my name and I only gave them my first time....hilariously
enough, once I told them my full name, they told me I had a
reservation there already, so after thanking and apologizing to the
family, while offering them gas money which they wouldn't accept, I
was checked into my hostel. Unfortunately they didn't take credit
card, so I had to make a run to the nearest bank, which was a 10
minute walk to the mall, and everyone says not to walk in San Pedro
at night, but it was in a decent enough area of the town that I
wasn't too worried and made the trek to the mall to get some
funds....while there I realized they had a movie theatre and that I
could watch the new James Bond movie, which I had really wanted to
see, so instead of heading straight back to the hostel, I settled
into the theatre and watched the film. After watching the awesome
film, it was time to walk back to the hostel, arriving around 12:30
am, and the hostel staff were quite worried about my wellbeing since
I had been gone for so long, but all was well, and I just settled
into bed for the short sleep, as I had to head to the bus station at
6:30 am the next morning.
I arrived at the bus station, bought my
ticket, and hopped aboard the frigid bus. They crank up the air con
so high, that the windows were actually a bit frosted, ridiculous!
Fortunately they provided me with some blankets, and they were highly
needed. I snoozed most of the trip, until we arrived at the border
crossing, where the immigration officer made sure I knew that I only
had 90 days of total time in Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, and
Nicaragua even though I still had over 50 days remaining on my
visa....strange but okay. So we made our way over to San Salvador,
where I asked to be dropped off near a place where I could catch a
chicken bus to El Tunco, and it ended up being in the city centre, at
the company's main office. I then made the 2 or 3 km walk towards the
local bus stop, much to the surprise to some of the locals, as it's
not very common to see a gringo walking with all their bags through
the streets of El Salvador, but no one bothered me. I found the bus
stop, and waited for a bus that would get me at least towards La
Libertad, as I could find my way to El Tunco from there. I had no
real idea if the stop I was at even had buses going that way, but
after hanging around for 15 minutes a bus showed up, and I was shoved
onto it and able to pack into a spot up front with all my bags on top
of me. A local lady soon sat beside me, and I felt a bit bad, as I
was taking up a lot of room, but she didn't seem to mind. I tried to
converse with her a bit, but she was pretty shy and didn't really
want to chat, so I just sat through the ride, which ended up taking
me all over San Salvador before actually leaving town....and we kept
stopping to let more and more salespeople on, hawking pretty much
anything imaginable. We then stopped in La Libertad, but I was
fortunately on the right bus that took me right to El Tunco, so
another 15 minutes of random stops before I was finally able to haul
all my bags off the bus and make the short walk to my old home, the
El Tunco Lodge.
 |
| Time to say goodbye to Utila |
 |
| Disgusted with the nice weather that shows up the day I leave |
 |
| Interesting La Ceiba... |
 |
| Mountainous Honduras |
Upon arrival, I immediately found Simon
still at the Lodge, so we caught up briefly, before I cleaned up a
bit and got all checked in. It was nice to get back, and I
immediately saw several more of the crew, including Ray and Carson,
who mentioned that the German boys, Joshua and Jakob were off doing a
photo shoot for a Buffalo Wings restaurant that was opening up
nearby, and they needed some foreigners to make some photos for the
advertisements...hilarious! I ended up meeting a few more new people,
including two hilarious Aussies named Chris and Jimmy, plus a super
cute and kind American girl named Brooke. After hanging out with a
big group of them, we made our way down to the new bar that the
Germans had opened up, where there was 2 hours of all you can drink
for $10. The place was owned by the same guy who owned the El Tunco
Lodge, and he had the Germans and Carson working the bar, plus Jake
was doing a dj set there, as well. It was a pretty good party, and
lots of people showed up for the 2 power hours. I was pretty excited
and happy to see the German boys again, as they are too of my
favourite people I've met on my trip so far, and they were also quite
happy to see me again. We partied, danced, and had a pretty good time
until it was midnight, when they stopped the music and everyone in
the place stopped to sing me happy birthday...it was a very kind and
touching moment, as the previous year's birthday I had a fairly quiet
night with only one friend, so it was a cool experience to have all
these people there to celebrate with me. Hilarious enough, several
girls came up to give me a kiss on the cheek, and one strange
Canadian dude actually gave me a quick kiss on the lips, so my only
real birthday kiss was from a dude...geez! I was then treated to
several shots, and Chris, the one crazy Aussie ended up buying our
table a bottle of Grey Goose vodka to celebrate...so that lead to a
pretty messy night in total, but all in all, a very fun time. I made
my way back to the hostel, after grabbing some late night hamburgers,
and called it a night.
The next day, waking up was a bit of a
challenge, as I was feeling a bit of the effects of the vodka, but no
worries. After grabbing some delicous beef fajitas with Jimmy and
Chris, I decided to finally get back out in the water and try surfing
again, rather than just sitting around watching others do it, so I
went with Joshua and rented a board and headed out. We started out
right at the front of the El Tunco beach, which was a pretty bad
idea, as the waves are rather large and they come in in very quick
sets. I was able to actually catch a wave properly for the first time
ever, which was exciting, although I didn't actually stand up, but it
was still a cool experience to at least have an idea what it feels
like. Unfortunately the rest of the day didn't go so well, as I just
continually fell and fell and fell again. At one point, I got knocked
under pretty good and was kept under by two waves, and just barely
made it up for air, which was a fairly scary experience. After that,
I decided to head in and take a break and try and regroup a bit.
After awhile, Joshua decided to head over to another spot called the
point, where the waves were a bit easier to ride, so I headed over
there with him, but again no luck actually standing up, which was
quite frustrating. Eventually I got a cramp in my calf, and didn't
feel like risking swimming out on one leg, so I just called it quits
and headed back in to the hostel, returning my board and being a
total failure at surfing once again, ah well!
After returning to the hostel, I ended
up joining Chris, Jimmy, Simon, and a few others for some afternoon
vodka sodas, and was shortly after forced to have 6 shots of vodka
for my birthday drink, yuck! We hung out at the hostel for a few
hours, just hanging out, listening to music and having a little
party, before heading out for some dinner at tak a wok (seriously
love that place), and then made our way back to the hostel where
there were some huge drinking games going on, and everyone was
partying pretty hard. We played some flip cup, and I had one bad
game, and this one Canadian dude subbed me out, much to my
disappointment, so I was kind of bitter towards him, but eventually
got over it. Eventually our whole group then went out to the big
party being held at D'Rocca's bar. It was a pretty packed house, the
live band was great, and we generally had a great time making a big
party there, although there was no love for Rye Rye on his birthday
again, I still enjoyed the night with some very cool and lovely
people. I eventually returned home and met some crazy American guy
who was obsessed with my travels and wanted me to sit around and have
a beer with him and some Uruguayan guy, so I entertained them for
another hour or so before I was finally falling asleep and made my
way to the dorm room for the night.
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| Some old and new faces...back in El Tunco! |
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| birthday boy...looking rather sketchy |
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| drinking games galore at the El Tunco lodge |
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| more games and shenanigans |
The next day was a pretty quiet day or
so I thought, as I just grabbed some lunch and was planning on
watching American football for the day, but then I found out that the
Germans and Raul were organizing a Sunday barbecue and pool party at
the hostel, so both locals and other tourists alike were showing up
for that event. I managed to watch some of the games, but then soon
enough was distracted by the loud music, the big barbecue, and tons
of people starting to get rowdy. Shane ended up deciding to organize
a beer pong tournament, and after asking around for awhile, trying to
find a partner, Jimmy said he would be down with entering the
tournament with me. Meanwhile, I ended up chatting with a lovely
American girl named Brooke, who was actually living in San Juan del
Sur, and she told me she was going to be heading that way the next
morning. I had planned to leave for Nicaragua in the next day or two,
and since my buddy Doug happened to be there at the moment, I figured
I should just be spontaneous and join her on the trip back to San
Juan, and surprise Doug. I went to University and lived with Doug,
and have just missed meeting up with him a few times now on my trips,
but since he happened to be in Nicaragua, and was close by, we had
talked about trying to meet up for a bit. After finalizing plans with
Brooke to leave the next morning at 3:30 am, I just enjoyed the
evening's festivities, and hung out with my El Salvador friends for
one last night.
The beer pong tournament took forever to start, but once it finally did, it so happened that the team Jimmy and I had put in, were scheduled to play against a team that he also happened to be on, but Shane rescheduled it so that he wouldn't have to play two games simultaneously. Unfortunately for our team, we were able to get out to a fast start, but missed sinking the last cup after about 30 opportunies and were beaten out, so we missed out on any of the prizes. Jimmy's other team didn't fare any better, so he was done pretty early. After the pong tournament, a few of us just wandered out to find some burritos, before I called it a night since I had to be up so early the next day, so I said my goodbyes once again to all my friends, and will hopefully see a few of them in South America in the next year.
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| the new pool bar at the El Tunco lodge...with the greatest German bartenders |
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| cute Swiss girl and me, sharing a pink day |
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| zee other German bartender Josh, showing off his bar maiden |
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| Shane organizing the beer pong tourny |
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| these boys are shotgunning....Red Bull?! |
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| Beer Pong tourny in full force |
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| El Tunco Sunday Funday |
I grabbed a few hours of sleep, and was outside to meet with a Spanish guy named Marcos, who was also heading back to San Juan del Sur, but Brooke was nowhere to be found. She had mentioned she was staying with Scion, the local tattoo artist, and I had recalled where he lived, so we drove the shuttle by that place and had to honk and shout several times before she finally woke up, as she had apparently slept through her alarm. Once we had her, we were on our way to San Salvador to catch the 5:30 am bus to Managua. The bus trip was fairly uneventful, but really long, but fortunately I was so tired that I ended up sleeping for about 10 of the 12 hour bus ride. After two border crossings, and some tasty fried chicken in Nicaragua, we arrived in Managua around 5:00 pm. There was apparently one last bus that left for San Juan del Sur at 6 pm according to Brooke, so we quickly grabbed our bags and caught a taxi to the bus station thinking we could catch it. Unfortunately, the last bus actually left at 5:30 pm, and we arrived about 5 minutes too late, so we had to go on a different bus, that would take us to Revis, where we could then catch a taxi to SJDS.
It was quite handy to have Carlos
along, as he made for an excellent translator at all times, and was a
pretty cool dude. He also happened to be celebrating his birthday on
the upcoming Friday, so he mentioned there would be a huge party and
that I was more than welcome to come join. We arrived in SJDS around
8 pm, and after dropping Carlos off at his mini mansion that he was
renting, Brooke and I headed into town, and stopped at the spot where
I could catch a shuttle up to the Naked Tiger hostel, where Doug was
staying. Unfortunately, I just missed the shuttle, and was going to
have to wait 2 hours for the next one or take a taxi. After we had
just paid 300 Cordobas to drive 40 kms from Revis to San Juan del
Sur, I was shocked when the taxi drivers wanted anywhere from 100 to
200 Cordoba to drive me to the hostel, which was literally 2 kms
away. They kept trying to say there was a huge hill and it was
difficult to drive up, but I didn't want any part of it, so I just
grabbed some dinner and hung out at the restaurant on the corner. I
was working on some Spanish lessons, when some small child kept
coming over to me asking me various questions, and then running back
to his mother to give her the answers. Eventually he even asked me
for my phone number to give to his mother, but I don't have a phone
so I wasn't able to give it to him. She eventually showed her face,
and she wasn't terribly attractive, and I really had no interest in
getting involved with a local with a child, so I just politely said
goodbye when my shuttle finally arrived.
It was full of a bunch of drunk girls
and a few guys, and they told me they were going to celebrate ladies
night somewhere, but I was way too tired to bother joining, and just
headed to the hostel, where I was checked in by a very high and young
Australian girl, who could barely function....welcome to The Naked
Tiger! I found Doug, and we grabbed a few quiet beers, but were both
pretty tired and decided to have an early night in. We also happened
to be in the same dorm room, and when we went to bed, we were laying
there and some English dude came in and asked if we would be mad if
he did something “really antisocial”....strange question, but
okay....so I said yeah sure no worries, do whatever you got to do,
and he told us that he was going to smoke some crack....what the
hell! So I was a bit leery about my stuff at this point, as you never
really know with people like that, but he just did his thing and then
ended up leaving the room to go out and party or something. On his
way out he asked us to not tell anyone because he didn't want anyone
“thinking he was a crackhead or something”...what an end to a
long day!
The next day I was up before Doug, as
he likes to sleep in even more than I do, and I just grabbed some
breakfast, and hung out with a few people from the hostel, before
Doug got up and we sorted out some plans for the day. The brother of
a friend of Doug's was also in town, and was going to head to a surf
beach, so we decided we would head over there with him, as well, so
we had to head into town to catch a 12:30 pm shuttle to the beach. We
went in on the 12 pm shuttle, and wandered around for a bit, grabbing
some money, and popping by the surf shop where Brooke worked to say
hello, before heading out to Madeiras with a big shuttle full of
gringos. Madeiras was a pretty nice spot, although it was a fairly
busy beach, where lots of people were learning to surf, making for a
crowded spot. There were two pretty cool Canadian girls who hung out
with us, so I just chilled out with them on the beach, while Alex and
Doug were out surfing. Fortunately, Doug didn't go for too long each
time, so whenever he'd come back in, I'd just borrow his board and
head out and do my thing. It was another day full of falls and bumps
and bruises, but at least it was fun to be in the water and doing
something active. I don't think I stood up once that day, but at
least I was getting the hang of catching the waves, even if I was
just riding the board on my belly the whole time. After a few hours
of enjoying the lovely view ans some surf, we eventually just
relaxed, grabbed a few beers, and headed back into town. The shuttle
service was a pretty unorganized mess, as they had all our names
written down for when we left town, but half the time our names
weren't on the list to go back into town, even though we had tickets
to prove we had paid, but oh well.
 |
| First day of surfing in Nica with Doug and Alex |
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| Maderas Beach |
 |
| Dougie getting some waves |
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| Doug's amazing moustache that matched my moustache glasses perfectly |
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| Rye and Doug's Nica adventure |
We arrived back into town at dark, and
once we had the boards returned, we grabbed some pretty tasty food at
a cheap local restaurant, where a chicken napolitina was only about
$4, plus a few beers. Whlie enjoying dinner there, I ended up
spotting two of the Swedish girls from El Salvador, so we caught up a
bit, and they told us it was their last night and to meet them at the
Iguana bar later on, so we agreed to that. We ended up having about
another 35 minutes to kill, so we just wandered down to another cool
spot called the Black Whale to grab some 2 for 1 mojitos, before
running back to catch our shuttle back to the Tiger. We were just
heading up there to grab a quick shower and get ready to come back
into town. The Tiger was pretty happening, as per usual in the
evenings, and we ended up hanging out with another big group of
Canadian girls, who were all pretty cool, before making our way into
town to meet up with Alex and head out to the most popular nightspot
called Iguanas.
We arrived there and it was already
super packed and I soon recognized Miranda and Skye from El Salvador,
so we quickly caught up, but unfortunately Miranda was leaving the
next morning, and the others in their group were all ready to head
back to the hostel so the girls didn't stick around for long. Skye
had tried to introduce me to some sketchy local dude that was hanging
around their group, but he wanted nothing to do with me, and I
instantly had a strange and weird feeling about the guy, as well as
some of the others that they were leaving with. Sure enough, later on
during the walk back to their hostel Skye was pushed to the ground
and had her purse stolen by some locals, so I think it may have been
a setup.. Meanwhile, the rest of us just had a fun party night,
hanging out and meeting a few new cool people, and having a generally
fun party night, except the girl from the previous day that had used
her child to try and pick me up. She really wouldn't let go, and kept
dancing with me or trying to, and just kind of latched on, but I
wasn't having any of it, although it did give me a bit of a chance to
practice speaking in Spanish. I eventually realized that the guys had
snuck off, so I had to go and try and catch up with them at the
shuttle bus stop, but the girl ended up following me there, and
basically ordering food at the same time as I was and told me she
didn't have any money to pay for it, so I would have to pay! Crazy
woman, but fortunately she just kind of wandered off to go home and
let me be...Doug and I thought that we could still catch the last
shuttle, but we just barely missed it and had to end up taking a taxi
back. On the taxi ride back to the hostel, our driver suddenly
stopped on the long road up to the hostel and told us to look ahead,
as there was a scorpion on the road. The thing couldn't have been
more than 6 inches long, and I was shocked at how great his eyesight
was to spot it, especially at night. I went outside and took a closer
look at it, as I haven't actually seen an alive one up close, and I
find them to be fascinating creatures, but the driver told me to not
get too close, as it was poisonous. After some brief inspection, we
made our way up to the hostel, where it was pretty quiet
surprisingly, considering the reputation it had as a party hostel, so
we just called it a night.
The next day we were up, and decided to
go for a walk up to see the large statue of Jesus that overlooks the
bay. Apparently it's the 2nd largest statue of Jesus, next
to Christ the Redeemer in Rio de Janeiro. It was a pretty hot day,
and everyone was a fair bit hungover, but it was still a nice walk
and a chance to sweat out any poison left over, plus it provided some
breath taking views of the surrounding area. When we arrived at the
gate to enter, I tried to barter my way into convincing the man
working there that I was a Nicaraguan, but he wouldn't believe me, so
I grudgingly paid the $2 entrance fee, and we arrived at the statue.
I had to laugh a bit, as when you would look up at the statue from a
certain angle, it actually looked like he was giving himself a
moustache, the way his fingers were curled and underneath his nose.
After hanging around for awhile, and enjoying the view, we made our
way back down into town, and settled onto a street corner to have a
beer or two while having a laugh over a man with a cheap, makeshift
wheelchair that he switched between actually using and then pushing
around. After hanging around for awhile, we popped by the beach for a
nice sunset before heading back to the hostel, grabbing a bite to
eat, and a few beers. I was sitting around the table talking about
how Jimmy, the Aussie from El Salvador, had recently told me about
his trick of wearing a collared shirt every Saturday so he knows what
day of the week it is, when I looked over and saw him pop in and say
hello. He had mentioned that he came down from El Salvador with a few
of the other guys from the El Tunco Lodge, so we could have a little
reunion night. He was having an early night in, as he was meant to be
heading out surfing in the morning, but several others of us had a
little warmup party, before heading into town to a hostel that was
hosting an open mic night.
Upon arrival there, I soon ran into
Joel whom I had met in Honduras, and didn't think I'd ever see again,
so that was a nice surprise. We ended up hanging out for a fair
portion of the night, having some shots with some girl from Winnipeg
that we kept teasing about how terrible her city was, until she had
enough of us and went off to find some other people. I didn't even
pay much attention to the actual music being played, but apparently
some of it was quite good. When the music was all done with, several
of us wandered over to Iguanas, where we continued our party until
that place shut down, and then wandered over to the after party at
some placed called Arriba, before trying to run over and catch the
last shuttle. Doug and I stopped by one of the taco stands, and some
local dude started chatting with us while we were ordering, and then
told us we should come over to the casino with him. We walked along,
and waited for the shuttle that never came, so we went over to the
casino with the local dude, and he called some friend to come join
us. Once his friend joined us, he excused himself, but ended up
stealing our pack of cigarettes ha ha.....so we were laughing a bit
about that and his friend felt bad so he gave us some of his
cigarettes to make up for it. We ended up spending the whole time
chatting in Spanish, but at a slow pace, so it was another good
practice session for myself and for Doug, who was just learning
Spanish as well. There happened to be a cute girl who was working at
the casino, so I kept making eye contact and winking at her, until it
was time to head back to the hostel. The local guy ended up giving us
his number, and told us to come check out the zipline place he worked
at (he was due to work at 8 am in the morning, and it was already
4:30 am when we were leaving), so he gave us his number and said to
call anytime. Then, as we left the casino, the doorman stopped me,
and handed me a piece of paper with a phone number, that apparently
belonged to the girl working in the casino ha ha ha! So I took my two
phone numbers, and we started walking around, trying to get a taxi
for a fair price, but were having a fair bit of trouble getting the
price we wanted, so we began to walk all the way back to the hostel,
while one taxi kept passing by us until he finally agreed to the
price we wanted, and we were on our way back for the night.
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| San Juan del Sur, the main beach |
 |
| on the hike to the Jesus statue |
 |
| More SJDS from above |
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| San Juan del Sur from Jesus |
 |
| from below, it almost looks like he's giving himself a moustache he he |
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| didn't think I'd see a John Deere down here in this neck of the woods eh! |
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| Old man pushing his strange wheelchair |
 |
| Sunset at the main beach |
 |
| Us boys enjoying some ice cream and a sunset...just the right amount of gay |
The next day, Carlos, the Spanish guy
popped by, and was heading off to a beach for some surfing, and had
invited us to join him, so after some breakfast, we hopped in his
jeep and were on our way to the beach, or so we thought. Since it was
close to Christmas time, apparently the Nicaraguan police needed some
extra money for gifts or something, and decided to do a blitz on the
streets, stopping any tourist and asking to see their passport, as
it's apparently Nicaraguan law to always carry it on person...bs!
None of us carry our passports, as it's something one doesn't really
want to have stolen. Carlos argued for a fair bit with them over this
stupid event, telling them they should be focusing on stopping the
local thieves that have been robbing tourists, instead of targeting
us for fines and such. They forced us to go back to our hostel, and
him to his house to grab our passports, and then fined each of us the
equivalent of $2.50...which was peanuts really, but still a
nuissance. We took our fines, and were on our way into town, to grab
a board from the surf shop where Brooke worked, and ended up picking
up Jimmy, who was going to come join us, as well as some small boy
who was hitch hiking to a place near where we were going. We
eventually made our way to the beach, where we ran into a big road
construction project, where a large truck was coming down the one way
road and basically forced us and all the vehicles behind us to back
up and get out of his way. Well this caused the large truck behind us
to back up and get stuck and block half the road, so that we couldn't
back up any further, and the large truck couldn't drive past us.
While the other truck was stuck, the driver of the truck coming
towards us had the nerve to sit there honking his horn at us, as if
we were in the wrong, even though we clearly had nowhere to move to
get out of his way...jerk! It took a few people, and some
conveniently placed stones to get the truck dislodged, so that we
could all get out of the way. After that 35 minute ordeal, we were on
our way again, and were flying down some fairly bumpy roads, as
Carlos had forgotten that we had the small boy in the box of his
truck, poor kid ha ha. He was alright though, and we dropped him off
and arrived at the beach.
 |
| Damn cube van that got stuck behind us and backed up all the traffic |
The beach was a massively long and
quiet spot, with some big waves, and not very many surfers. It was
also notorious for having a lot of sting rays, so people were stung
pretty much every day there. Carlos was telling us about a poor
Russian girl, who had gone there twice to try surfing, and had been
stung both times, now that's some bad luck! Doug and I just
alternated taking turns and getting smashed around by the waves. I
ended up heading out with Jimmy for a bit, and that was fairly
helpful, just as far as improving my paddling techniques, so that was
about the only positive from the day, as I couldn't stand up again
that day. The only other positive, was that I did step on a sting ray
and was very fortunate to not be stung, as it's an extremely painful
4 to 5 hour event after being stung. Sure enough, when we were ready
to head back, we found some British girl who had been stung.....that
Playa Hermosa, as beautiful as it is, always has sting ray
casualties. After a few hours of trying to surf, catching some sun,
and hanging out with some cool Dutch girls, one of whom had her board
damaged by Carlos, when he borrowed it, so he offered to take it back
to town and have it fixed for her. After a nice day on the beach,
watching some baby turtles released into the ocean (pretty funny to
watch, as they would make all this progress towards the ocean and
then a wave would come in and push them all the way back to where
they started) and one beer, we were on our way back to town. Jimmy
tied down the boards, as Doug and I didn't want to tie them down,
since we didn't want to be responsible for anything, and sure enough,
when Carlos was ripping down the bumpy roads, the boards came loose
and went flying off the truck ha ha ha. Fortunately for Doug and I,
our board didn't fall off and wasn't damaged, but Jimmy's was fairly
banged up, but it was his fault for not tying good knots, so he
wasn't too upset about the ordeal, and just added it to the pile of
boards needing repairs.
We arrived back in town, unloaded our
stuff, and Carlos drove us back to the Naked Tiger, where the
Immigration and Tourist Police were, doing a blitz....damn these guys
were relentless. Apparently they were actually there, as there was an
Israeli guy who had been stopped earlier in the day, refused to pay
the fine, argued and offended the police, then was thrown in jail for
awhile, and then brought back to the hostel to collect his things and
was being driven to the Costa Rican border and deported! All over
$2.50 US ha ha ha...damn stingy Israelis! I decided to hop in the
shower, so I left my passport at the desk, and was busy showering
when one of the girls from the hostel knocked on the door and told me
the officials wanted to speak to me...damnit! I was already tired of
the guys, and had contemplated coming out completely naked to prove a
point, but I grudgingly dressed myself and went out to see them. They
were asking about an immigration card that was in my passport that
actually belonged to Carlos....the idiots had put his card into my
passport earlier in the day, causing further headaches, but
fortunately the hostel owner was able to describe to them what
happened, and they didn't give me any more grief. Afterwards, Doug
and I decided to just have a quiet night in, so we just hung out, had
a beer or two, chatted with some people and called it an early night.
 |
| Quiet Hermosa Beach |
 |
| releasing some baby turtles! |
 |
| Go baby turtles go! |
The next day we jended up just bumming
around the pool most of the day, enjoying the lovely views and even
more amazing sunset, before getting ready to head into town for the
big birthday party on the beach for Carlos, and his twin brother
Julian. We arrived at the party a bit early, as there weren't a lot
of people there, so we just kind of did our own thing for quite
awhile, before more people started to fill in. It was a pretty good
party, and pretty cool to see a bunch of El Salvador people that had
showed up for the event, as they had all met Carlos in El Tunco, and
decided to come check out his party. The guys had even brought in a
dj from Los Angeles to play at the event, and had rented out a hotel
on the ocean, so it was a pretty cool venue, with some good music,
cheap drinks (well free for me as Brooke was able to get free drinks
from her boss and just give them to me), and a lot of drunk and rowdy
people. After the party was kind of finished winding down, we all
wandered over to Iguana's to continue partying there, until that
place was shut down, and we then moved over to Arriba. I was a bit
late joining the guys, and when I arrived I saw Doug and Alex holding
their heads, and Jimmy laying on the beach in a bit of pain. It was
pretty funny, as they had decided to start jumping off the deck into
each other's arms, but then Jimmy took it one step further, and
climbed up a big pole and launched off of there, but it was a bit too
high to accurately land in the guys arms and his momentum ended up
knocking the guys arms down and them to bump heads with each other,
bringing pain and laughter to all. I later noticed the marks on
Jimmy's face from falling, and it was quite hilarious. We continued
to party hardy there, until the bitter end, where I was tired of
rejection from all the girls there, and decided to head home. But
before I headed home, I met some nice American girl outside, and
convinced her I was from Papua New Guinea, which is a new prank I've
decided to start pulling on some people, and she totally bought it. I
had to fess up eventually though, as she seemed cool enough and I was
interested in maybe going on a date or something with her, but it
never did materialize, as she just wandered off without giving me her
contact details, so I just headed home for the night, where I ended
up sleeping outside on one of the cushions, as it was much cooler and
comfortable than our hot and sweaty dorm room.
 |
| Sunset at the Naked Tiger hostel |
When I finally woke up, and showered
up, I discovered that the Spanish boys had brought their after party
to the hostel, and were continuing right on from the previous night
with little to no sleep. These boys were crazy! The whole hostel
ended up filling up with probably another 75 people or so that showed
up for the party, so we had a huge pool party at the hostel. Doug was
pretty wiped out from the previous night, so he wasn't keen to head
into town, but everyone else that I knew at the hostel, including two
Aussie girls that showed up, whom I had initially met in El Salvador,
then again in Honduras, and they were keen for a big night out, so we
had our big party at the hostel, before making our way into town to
go check out Iguana's yet again. It was pretty good there again,
although way more guys this time around, and the girls didn't end up
staying too long, as they felt like it was a meat market, and they
couldn't turn one way without 3 or 4 guys approaching them....yeah it
was that bad! I just continued hanging out and partying with Jimmy
and a whole bunch of the hostel staff, but spent most of my time
chatting with one girl from the hostel, which I actually had no
recollection of, as she told me the next day that I had spent about
80% of the night hanging out with her...ooops....Nothing too crazy of
note really happened there, at least that I recall. After Iguana's
was shut down, Alex and I decided to head over and grab some tacos
before heading over to the casino. I ended up spending all of $5 on
the slot machine, that was a very old machine, and it took me
probably about 45 minutes to get through all my coins, before finally
grabbing a taxi and heading back to the hostel, where I decided to
sleep on the outside couch yet again.
I woke up the next day, feeling very
worn down and really in need of a day of doing nothing, so I just sat
around the hostel all day, playing Nintendo 64 (they even had Mario
Kart and Goldeneye, win!), and just relaxing with the others who were
feeling the same way. I think I was in bed by about 10 pm that night,
and finally caught up on a bit of sleep. Doug was thinking of leaving
the next day to go check out another spot, but decided to stick
around the hostel for one more day, so we ended up heading into town
with Brad, a Canadian guy who I had met recently in Utila, and rented
boards yet again and went down to Madeiras. It was another hot and
lovely day, and by this point I figured that if I wasn't able to
stand up on my board that day, that I should just quit surfing and
not bother anymore. Well, as luck would have it, I finally managed to
stand up 3 times that day, which was fairly exciting. Unfortunately,
near the end of the day, I also happened to have a really bad crash,
landing on my board and badly brusing my ribs, which was a painful
enough injury, and lasted for about 2 weeks before healing! After the
few hours of surfing, some beach volleyball, frisbee, and then the
injury, it was time to head back into town on the last shuttle of the
day. We arrived in town, and decided to meet up with Alex and Brooke
that night, and have a nice dinner at a seafood restaurant called El
Timon. I ended up ordering some almond and garlic infused fish fillet
that ended up being amazing, and came with a whole pile of tasty
clams on top of it, damn it was great, and only ended up costing
around $9, so well worth it! After our dinner, and a few beers,
Brooke wanted to go out and find a party somewhere, but we were all
pretty tired from the day, and I was in a fair bit of pain, so we
just headed home and called it another early night.
The next day I didn't really know what
to do, and Doug decided to check out and head out to stay at a
quieter locale on Madeiras beach. I sat around debating what exactly
to do when the hostel girls asked if I was going on the boating trip
with a bunch of Americans, so I inquired about what exactly it
entailed and thought about it for awhile, then decided last minute
that I would head out on it. I hopped onto the shuttle into town with
Doug to grab a eat and wander around trying to find some souvenirs.
While our shuttle stopped at a gas station, Zak, an American guy from
El Salvador, drove up on a motorbike, and told us that several of
them had rented bikes for the day, including Shane from Canada, who
had never ridden a bike in his life. Apparently, within the first 15
minutes of driving or learning to drive, Shane had already side
swiped a car, as well as run into one of the other guys, oh man! They
figured it was going to be a hell of an interesting day, and later on
in the evening when I ran into them again, they told me that it only
became more interesting. Shane's bike had broken down when they were
making their way back, so while sitting on the side of the road
trying to figure out what was happening, some bike mechanic drove by
in his vehicle, stopped, and ended up using the spark plugs from one
of the other guy's bikes to get Shane's bike running long enough to
drive it to his shop, where he proceeded to fix it. While he was off
fixing it, Ian, the guy who's bike had the spark plugs taken off, was
waiting with the others for Shane to return when a van pulled up, and
several guys in ski masks and shot guns jumped out and held them up,
however, they had nothing of any value to the guys, so they all just
jumped back into the van and drove off! Shane returned shortly after,
and they proceeded to make their way back into town, relatively
unharmed for the day.
Meanwhile, I wandered around town a
bit, and then joined up with the group at the shop where the boat
trip was organized. We hopped into a truck, and were driven down to
the docks, given the rules and instructions of the boat, and hopped
aboard. It was a decent mix of people, including 3 American girls, 2
Canadian guys, 2 Irish girls, and 2 more American dudes, plus myself.
We started out driving around, fishing for awhile, and having some
rums and beers, before making our way to some small private beach,
where we could swim or sunbathe. I was still in a fair bit of pain
from my surfing accident, so I didn't bother going in the water or
anything, so I just sat in the boat, chatting with people and
enjoying the sun. Initially they were pouring what appeared to be
Flor de Cana rum, which is Nicaragua's best known and best selling
rum, but it really isn't that cheap. However, we noticed that when
the bottle was finished (which only costs about $3), the staff were
pouring some other even cheaper rum to refill the bottle...sneaky
buggers! We called them out a bit over it all, but mostly just
laughed at them and accepted there wasn't really anything we could
do. We continued on with the cruise, and eventually returned to
shore, a little drunk, and mostly satisfied with our day. We had
caught a few fish, and they boat staff tried to keep them, but one of
the American guys wanted the fish, so he went and grabbed one of
them, and began walking back into town with this large fish in his
hand, arriving at the spot where our shuttle bus was too arrive.
There happened to be another vehicle there, with a guy who spotted
the fish in his hands and asked if he could have it, and at this
point, the American guy didn't really feel the need to continue
carrying the fish, so he just threw it into the vehicle and told the
guy to keep it ha ha! I saw that, and tried to barter with the guy to
drive us to our hostel, since we had to wait another 20 minutes,
while some hammock guy came over and tried to sell us hammocks, and
told me that he would give us a free hammock for the fish, while the
driver of the vehicle refused to give anything in exchange for the
fish! I gave the American a hard time about it, but all was good and
we just grabbed some fish tacos, and waited for our shuttle.
 |
| gone fishing aye |
 |
| party boat/love cruise |
 |
| more boat fiesta time |
The shuttle arrived, and we went back
to the hostel, cleaned up a bit, and headed into town for open mic
night at the one hostel. It was nearly a complete El Tunco reunion
there, as a whole ton of people from the beer pong night were all
there partying and some were even singing. It was rather hilarious
when Jimmy walked into the bar, wearing a very tight dress that one
of the Irish girls from the boat had lent him, the guy had no shame!
At one point, the Irish girl was up singing a song, while Jimmy and a
girl named Bre from the hostel were acting as backup dancers to her
rendition, it was great. We had a pretty good time there, and two of
the American girls from the boat kept flirting with me a fair bit, so
I figured I had a good shot. Eventually the three of us went over to
Iguana's bar, where several guys kept asking if the one was my gf and
if she wasn't, if they could talk to her.....very strange. Some
really strange Indian guy even came up to her and asked if she was at
the beach earlier that day, and she said no because she was on the
boat all day, and he kept insisting that she was at the beach that
day and was lying, and wouldn't take no for an answer! Eventually he
buggered off, but the girls wanted to leave, so we went down to the
taxi stand to negotiate a price, but they all kept saying 200
Cordobas, which is way too much, so I ended up telling a whole row of
taxi drivers to go fuck themselves....which probably wasn't the best
idea considering the somewhat dangerous nature of Nicaragua! So we
went back inside the bar, where I kind of hid out for a bit, until we
decided that it was time to go again, and we waltzed right past the
big taxi stand and found our way to the shuttle spot and headed back
to the hostel.
 |
| Jimmy rocking the dress like no one else |
 |
| Typical end to a San Juan del Sur party night...a stop at the taco Stand with some awesome peeps |
There was a pretty large group of
people still up and about, so we ended up hanging out with them for
awhile, but then everyone started to go to sleep, and it was pretty
much just me, Jimmy, Bre, two sleeping Israelis, and one of the
American girls. After sneaking into my room and finding that there
were two people awake on the bed next to me, the American and I went
down to the pool area and ended up spending a fair bit of time there,
before retreating to her bed for the night around 5:30 am. I woke up
the next day, the bed was empty, and I sauntered downstairs, not
feeling all too great, when some of the hostel staff started laughing
and saying that I was obviously sleeping in someone else's bed that
night and asking whom it was. Meanwhile the girl was sitting right
there, so I just played it coy and laughed it off without saying
anything. I ended up finding out that the group of Americans were all
heading off to Ometepe that day, as was Jimmy, and a few others, so I
was tempted to go with them, so I could find a quiet place to relax
for a few days, but again I couldn't really make up my mind. I had
promised Brooke that I would meet her at 10:30 am that day and walk
to Madeiras with her, but I had obviously overslept that, but figured
I should still head down to the beach for the day since I had no
other real plans. The Irish girls from the hostel were going in the
hostel shuttle, so I just hopped in with them, and a few others and
made our way down to the beach. Pretty much right on arrival, Doug
also showed up, having wandered over from his hostel, so we ended up
just hanging out on the beach that day, enjoying the lovely weather,
and the scenery. Brooke ended up joining us eventually, as well, so
we all just chilled out together.
 |
| Hot chicks on the beach, again :) |
 |
| Tough days in Paradise |
 |
Another wicked sunset from the Naked Tiger, this time with a cruise ship in the distance
|
I had planned to head to Ometepe the
next day possibly, but then I spoke with the Irish girls who were
heading to Costa Rica the next morning, and had mentioned that a lot
of the buses were filling up to Costa Rica, and that the Tica buses
from Nicaragua to Panama were already full, which worried me a fair
bit, as I had to get to Panama City to catch my flight to Colombia.
As per usual, I made a last minute decision to head off with the
girls in the morning, try and catch the early bus to Costa Rica, and
then possibly hop in a car with them to drive to Bocas del Toro. I
didn't really have a chance to properly say goodbye to Doug, as we
were meant to meet up the next day and hang out before I went off to
Ometepe, so it was a shame, but that's how it goes. Brooke had also
put in her notice at work, since she was going to move to El Tunco,
and had mentioned that she could get me a free hat from the place she
worked, so I was supposed to grab it from her the next morning,
however, because of my spontaneousness, I was going to be leaving
before their shop even opened, so she agreed to just meet up later in
the evening.
We went back to the hostel, had a bite
and then I headed back down to the Black Whale to meet with Brooke,
where they were meant to be having a live music night, but
unfortunately it was cancelled for whatever reason, so we just
grabbed a mojito, and chatted for awhile. Eventually a few of us made
our way down to the Iguana bar for one last night there, although I
didn't plan on staying too late since I wanted to have a bit of sleep
before heading off the next morning at 8 am. It was a fairly similar
night to other nights, with mostly dudes, a few girls, and a pretty
aggressive market in general. I was hanging out with two of the
Aussie girls that I knew, and one of them was approached by a guy who
asked if she wanted to “dance with the big boys” ha ha ha...she
couldn't help but start laughing and say no thanks, she'd take a pass
on the big boys.....needless to say, I've chatted with a few girls on
this trip, and some of the things that guys say to them are
absolutely hilarious. After about 2 hours of just hanging, dancing,
and saying goodbyes to a few people, I was back in the shuttle and on
my way back for the night.
The next morning was an early one, and
I was hoping to grab breakfast before our taxi left, but
unfortunately the kitchen wasn't open. Myself and the Irish girls
hopped into the cab and were driven to the Tica bus station in nearby
Rivas, where I tried to unsuccessfully purchase a ticket for the same
bus they were on, and was told that there was only a ticket for the 2
pm bus. So I contemplated going to Ometepe, but kind of wanted to
make my way south as I was running out of time. So I went for a quick
wander, leaving my bags with the girls to find a bank, as the bus
station didn't accept cards for payment, and soon realized it was a
much longer walk than expected, as I had to stop by 4 different banks
before finally being able to retrieve any cash. I have had a very bad
experience with TD CanadaTrust, as their bank cards are absolutely
rubbish everywhere, and it's a really annoying experience trying to
get any money anywhere. So after finally finding a bank that worked,
I had to rush back to the bus station, as the bus was arriving and
the girls had to leave, with my bag being unattended, so I just
caught up with them in time to say goodbye and grab the name of the
hostel they were staying at in San Jose, Costa Rica. After saying a
quick goodbye, and buying my ticket for the 2 pm bus, I just wandered
over to a small Nicaraguan restaurant and had some food and coffee
there, while killing time, until it was about an hour and 20 minutes
before my bus. I tried to find some internet in coffeeshops and
restaurants nearby, but no luck, so I just went into an internet shop
right by the bus station, fooled around for a bit and then went
outside where I met a super cool and gorgeous Costa Rican girl. I had
never met one before while travelling, and she was quite a lovely
woman, and we got along pretty good. She didn't have any money other
than a $100 USD note, and was hungry, so since I had some spare cash
I grabbed us some food and water for the bus ride. We hopped aboard,
and I found I had a spot free beside me in the back, and was going to
ask her to come join me, when some woman came from the front and sat
beside me, speaking Spanish. I told her I didn't really speak much
Spanish, so she told me in English that she had come sit by me
because the man she was sitting beside up front smelled so horribly
that she couldn't sleep because of the odor ha ha ha, so of course I
said it was fine to sit down.
 |
| On the road to catch a bus...passed a horse carriage with a refrigerator on it...old and new technology collide :) |
She was a very very chatty Venezuelan
woman, but a nice enough lady, and we spoke for a fair bit of the
ride, even though I was quite tired at points and nearly falling
asleep. She did notice that near the end of the 8 hour bus ride, and
did mention that I should try and sleep a tiny bit, so I caught about
20 minutes of sleep on the ride, but did get some valuable insight
into San Jose from her, including a restaurant that served a very
delicious dish called Chijfrio, that she told me I had to absolutely
try out before leaving. We finally arrived, and I was kicking myself
a bit for not grabbing the Costa Rican girl's number, as she was from
San Jose, and probably had some ideas of some cool spots to go check
out for the weekend, if I was going to be staying, but I just missed
her at the bus station. I managed to find two American guys who were
going to the same hostel as I was, so it was handy for us to split a
cab there. We walked outside, and started negotiating with one guy
when another guy stepped in and kept undercutting his price, which
then lead to a fairly interesting verbal battle, where the one guy
was calling the other guy all sorts of dirty names in Spanish, and
then the other guy told us to not trust the guy who was taking us, as
he was a thief. We ended up negotiating a price of 3000 colones,
which seemed like a fair price and were on our way with the “robber”.
Sure enough, when we finally arrived at the hostel, he wanted to
charge us 6000 colones, according to his meter, and wouldn't take no
for an answer. We argued that we had negoatiated the initial price
but he tried to say it was for each person, even though the math
didn't add up. Seriously, politicians and taxi drivers are the
world's two most corrupt people! So after grudgingly paying the fare,
we arrived inside the hostel, and I found an American guy that I had
met in Mexico and Guatemala, and he was there trying to find work, as
his bank card wasn't working, and he had no money for a room. Since I
knew the guy, and like to pay things forward when backpacking, I
ended up picking up his room for the night, as his other option was
to sleep on the streets.
After sorting out the room for the
night, I just popped by the hostel restaurant, and found they had
Chijfrio on the menu, so I decided to try it out and I was very very
impressed, as it was rather tasty and had a bit of spice, plus it was
a very filling meal for someone who had a fair bit of hunger. After
enjoying my dinner, I was pretty tired, and ended up just heading to
the room and calling it a night. The next day I woke up, and hung out
for a little bit with a nice American guy named James, who had been
in Costa Rica for awhile, and was interested in joining me for lunch
and for my trip to a place called Paraiso, where an acquaintance of
mine had recently opened a hostel. Rather than take a taxi to the
restaurant that was a fair ways away, James wanted to take the local
bus, so we ran around for quite awhile to find a bus, before finally
finding a bus to take us to the neighbourhood where the restaurant
was located. Fortunately James's Spanish was better than mine, and he
was able to chat with a guy on the bus who knew exactly where we were
going, and was going to be getting off the bus near the restaurant,
and could show us the way. We arrived probably about 1.5 hours after
leaving the hostel, as the traffic was heavy, and the buses were
running very slow. We arrived at the restaurant, and found a table
and ordered the chijfrio, which was massive and so damn tasty! After
our lunch, we wandered around aimlessly trying to find another local
bus to get us back to the neighbourhood where our hostel was. This
was a rather lenghty endeavour, as we were sent to several different
bus stops, even stopping at one stop where the driver wouldn't let
anyone get on the bus, as he decided he was going to go for lunch and
not drive anymore ha ha! We finally found a bus, and then I had to
spend another 45 minutes trying to find a bank that would actually
take my shitty bank card....we finally arrived back at the hostel
around 4 pm, and I had already wanted to be on the road by about 2 pm
that day, so that I could arrive before sunset.
 |
| Exploring San Jose Costa Rica |
 |
| Chifrio...one of the best dishes ever! |
We grabbed our bags, and ended up
taking a taxi to the bus station, where we found our bus to Cartago,
which is a city about an hour away from San Jose, before switching to
a bus heading to Paraiso. We asked the bus to drop us off at the
“Salta de Novia” as instructed by the directions I had received
from the website of the hostel I was going to, however, the bus
driver said that wasn't possible, so we told him to drop us off near
two houses that were on the highway. Unfortunately it was quite dark
when we were dropped off in the middle of the highway, and had to use
a flashlight to try and find signage indicating the directions to the
hostel, which was a rather interesting event. We did manage to find a
dirt road that had some signage, and nearly missed the second turn,
but managed to make it and trek up a hill and pass in front of the
hostel. Then we couldn't figure out how to get through the gate, and
thought we might be locked out for the night, as we didn't have a
phone to even call the place, but eventually figured out the gate and
were able to stumble into the hostel, unannounced and unexpected. It
was a pretty quiet spot, but it was cool to see someone I hadn't seen
in several years. The hostel is called Brewha Costa Rica, and is
situated in a rather spectacular region called the Orosi Valley, and
also happens to be a microbrewery. James and I settled into our
rooms, and heard the trials and tribulations of the hostel, as the
main highway from Cartago to Paraiso used to run right in front of
their place, but then there had been a heavy rain storm that had
washed away a bit of the road, so a secondary road was now used,
which made it more difficult for traffic to actually reach the
hostel, and thus the reason the driver couldn't drop us off at the
Salta de Novia.
We just sat around chilling out and
hanging out with the workers and owners of the hostel, playing some
video games, and trying out the microbeers from the hostel before
calling it a relatively early night, as I had come to relax and take
it easy. I had to laugh as one of the hostel dogs was a very friendly
dog and has always slept in a bed with someone (typically his owners,
Zack and Jaclyn) but he decided he wanted to sneak into James' bed
this night, which was rather funny since we had paper rock scissored
for the bed, and I lost. The dog ended up not only farting a fair
bit, but also kept pushing and taking over more and more of the bed,
to the point where James only had about 25% of his bed ha
ha.....After a decent sleep, it was time to get up and enjoy a nice
cup of coffee and breakfast, with a stunning although cloudy view of
the valley from the deck. After the tasty breakfast, a few of the
people from the hostel decided to go for a hike to the nearby
waterfall, but I didn't have any good hiking boots, plus I just
wanted to chill out and work on catching up on a few things, so I
just chilled out and continued to enjoy the amazing view of the
valley, plus worked on painting a sign detailing the distance of my
home town from the hostel, as the guys there had made up a directions
pole for their guests, great idea.
 |
| View from the Brewha Hostel |
 |
| Lovely spot for a hostel |
 |
| Added Melville, Sask to the pole of guests' hometowns |
After a nice quiet afternoon, people
returned from their hike, and we hung out playing some games and
having some beers and dinner, which was really really tasty....the
guys at the hostel make meals every day and are actually really great
cooks, so the food was well worth the price. I was going to try and
make it to Bocas del Toro the next day, so I had them arrange a taxi
to pick me up for 7 am the next day, to take me to catch a bus to San
Jose and then hopefully catch a bus to Bocas from there. I figured I
would have an early night again, but then the owners told us that
they were going into a nearby town to check out a coverband called
Flashback, and that it was an absolute must to go see them, as they
were incredible, so of course having my rubber arm, I was talked into
heading into town with all the others. We went to catch some taxis
from a nearby stopping point, that required a fairly lengthy walk, in
the dark, that nearly resulted in myself falling several times,
before finding a taxi waiting for us and some private vehicle that
had apparently taken the wrong road, as we were on the washed out
road. The others had to wait for a more official taxi, which showed
up shortly afterwards and we were on our way. Hilariously enough, the
hostel stray dog that the group had sort of adopted off the street
decided to chase the taxi and ran for a good 2 kms or so at
least....feed a dog and it will never leave you alone apparently. We
made our way into town, and arrived at the bar which was fairly quiet
and had a band playing already, however, they were singing all their
songs in Spanish, so we knew it wasn't Flashback yet. We ended up
hanging out, having a few beers and just waiting around for the band
to start up. And they were definitely well worth the wait! The band
was a 5 person group, and each person sort of had their songs that
they specialized in singing, as well as certain instruments they
played when not singing. The one lead singer was absolutely
fantastic, and could hit pretty much any note from several classic
rock songs....it was a really wicked 1.5 to 2 hour show, that was
well worth the small entrance of $5. The beers were a decent as well!
We all had a hoot dancing, singing, and being the only Gringos in the
entire bar. After it all wrapped up, we went outside to chat with
some people, and ended up convincing a motorcyclist to smoke his
tires in front of the bar, and then about 6 minutes after him and his
friend left on their bikes, they came flying by the front of the bar,
driving probably about 170 km/h....they were nuts! We eventually
found two cabs, and hopped in them and were on our way back to the
hostel. Our vehicle arrived in a faster time than the other taxi, and
we waited and waited at the hostel, without the second cab showing
up...we started to worry a bit about them, and they finally showed up
about 25 minutes after us. Their cab had taken them to to spot where
we had originally taken cabs from, while ours had taken the back road
and dropped us right off at the front door of the hostel, win! I
crashed for about 4.5 hours before waking up bright and early to
catch my taxi at 7 am that was supposed to be at the door...well I
waited, and waited, and waited for about 30 minutes and there was no
show! I grudgingly went back down and sat in a hammock and just
bummed around until it was breakfast time. The guys at the hostel
said they were having troubles with their “taxi driver”, and that
he had been a no show a few times, and that they would be looking for
another one.
 |
| Flashback!! |
 |
| random Tica we convinced to burn out for us |
So after having some breakfast, I
decided to stick around for a few more hours and watch some NFL on
the tv, since there was no way I was going to make it all the way to
Bocas del Toro that day, and would have to spend the night in San
Jose anyway. After chilling out for several hours, James and I
finally walked over to the highway, caught a bus on the highway to
Cartago, which was absolutely packed and with barely no room for our
bags, and then arrived in Cartago, wandering around to find the next
bus stop to head on to San Jose. We eventually found it, and were on
our way, arriving in an area of town we didn't really know, but after
walking around for a bit and asking some directions, we found out we
weren't all that far away from the hostel, and managed to walk our
way through the “dangerous streets” of San Jose. A local on a bus
a few days earlier said it was dangerous for foreigners to walk the
streets, but we really had no problems, as did several other people I
spoke to at the hostels, but I guess locals just worry about us a bit
more than need be. We arrived at the hostel, checked in and I sorted
out my bus for the next morning before heading over to the hostel pub
to watch the Sunday night game, and to bet against James on the
outcome, since he was a 49ers fan, and I figured that the Patriots
would beat them. Of course that bet turned into quite a wild ride, as
the game featured some very large scoring swings, but in the end
James's team came out on top and I had to pay him 2 beers. I had to
be up fairly early the next morning, so it was a relatively early
night for me.
 |
| better view from the hostel on a sunny day...the Orosi Valley |
 |
| The chick chillin in Costa and enjoying the view |
 |
| random highway we had to walk along to catch a bus |
The next morning I happened to run into
Ben and Chris, two Canadian guys from Honduras, who were on their way
to Colombia and had told me about a music festival there, so I told
them I would try and meet up with them at the festival, and ran off
to catch a cab to the bus stop. In San Jose, there's no real central
bus terminal, as buses to various areas of the region just leave from
different spots around the city, which can make for a bit of a
headache. The bus to Bocas del Toro was leaving from an area on the
other end of town, so I drove down there and waited around outside
some hotel for quite sometime until a bus finally showed up, late as
per usual. I met a few cute Israeli girls while waiting in line, but
didn't chat with them too much. We all hopped aboard and made our way
towards Panama. I had read that the border on the Panama side
actually closes at 5 pm, so it's important to catch an early enough
bus to make it all the way there before closing. Well of course our
bus ended up having to stop halfway to the border and we were delayed
for nearly an hour and a half. At first I just thought there was an
accident, but then about 45 minutes after having stopped, a huge
convey of cyclists went driving past, as there was apparently some
race going on that day. Strange I thought to stop the traffic that
early before the cyclists arrived, but oh well. Then we continued to
wait and wait, and slowly started moving again, when a huge protest
march approached us from the other direction. Apparently that's what
we were initially held up for, but then the cycling race just
happened to also be going on at this time....crazy bus systems,
haven't seen that one before. After the protesters marched on past,
we finally started back up and were on our way, arriving for a quick
lunch before finally arriving at the Costa Rican border. Of course we
had to wait in a huge queue to get our exit stamps, and the time was
already getting to be near 5 pm. Our bus just drove on past the
border and told us that they would wait for us on the other side.
After finally getting our paperwork done, some Panama tourism agent
told us that we wouldn't be able to make it all the way to Bocas that
night if we continued on the bus, and we would have to take vans to
the port to catch the last water taxi of the night, and none of us
really wanted to spend the night in the border town, so we pretty
much all agreed to catch the van instead.
We walked across what has to be one of
the more unique border crossing points I've experienced, as it was an
old wooden train bridge, that was now the walking pathway to Panama,
complete with missing planks and a 30 foot fall into a river below. I
jokingly told some others that I thought the Panama Canal would be a
lot bigger, but no one seemed to get my joke, as it was just the
Israeli girls I told. After clearing the Panama border around 5:30 pm
local time (apparently it doesn't shut right at 5 pm), we chatted
with the tourism guys a bit more and they again insisted we had to
take the private van to make the last water taxi, even though it was
an hour and 40 minutes away, and the last water taxi supposedly left
at 7:00 pm, so we all piled into two seperate vans and were on our
way. While driving to the port town, I was a bit curious as we were
followed by a police vehicle for quite some time, with their lights
flashing, but I driver seemed to show no concern, and eventually the
vehicle just overtook us and continued on driving...I guess they just
drive around with their lights on at all times, no matter what, which
makes for a difficult decision on when to actually stop for them if
they are indeed chasing you down. It was also interesting to notice
how many people were walking in the pitch black dark, along the
highway, without any light sources...I have no idea how these people
find their way! We finally arrived at the water taxi pier, and found
out that there was actually an 8 pm taxi that went to Bocas, so we
could have realistically continued on with the bus and still arrived
in time to catch the last water taxi...damn scam artists preying on
tourists. We hopped onto the water taxi and made the quick 20 minute
trip over to Bocas. I had known of a few different hostels there, and
had been recommended a few but didn't really have an idea of which
one I'd try to go to, so I just kind of wandered the streets with the
Israeli girls, who invited me to come stay at their hostel, so I just
went with them. While walking with them, some local guy ran into me
with his skateboard quite hard, apologized, and then tried to sell me
drugs! I was fairly perplexed by his behaviour and told him that I
certainly wouldn't be buying anything, and that running into people
to try and sell them things isn't an efficient manner of doing
things! We arrived at the hostel shortly after and ended up being a
pretty cheap place, called Diamond Hostel, and it was nice enough.
I'd soon find out, however, that it was pretty much an Israeli only
hostel, as there were maybe 2 non Israelis staying there, and about
30 Israelis. We got all checked in, and I went to my dorm room where
I noticed a lot of stuff strewn about everywhere, and what appeared
to be blood on one of the bed sheets...ewww.
 |
| Stuck on the highway to Panama...waiting for hours |
 |
| Exiting Costa Rica |
 |
| The Panama Canal!...thought it was a lot bigger |
 |
| on the dodgy bridge, entering Panama |
Shortly after getting my clean bed, one
of the two other guys in the room (who both happened to be named
Dave) wandered in and introduced himself, and told me about his
adventure the previous night with the other guy in the room. They
both had gone out to a party at a hostel called Aqua Lounge, which
was on a nearby island, and then had both gotten mugged in seperate
instances. The Aussie guy had been hit from behind with a bottle and
had his money stolen, but fortunately the police had just come nearby
when the assailants were starting to attack him while he was on the
ground, and the police ended up taking him to the hospital where he
was stitched up and then discharged with no real idea where he was,
and somehow managed to make his way back to the hostel. His head
wound explained the blood on his bed ha ha! Meanwhile, the other guy
had been drugged or something, as he suddenly woke up in the streets,
with one guy holding him down and the other guy stealing his shoes!
When he was coming to, one of the guys punched him in the face, but
he managed to fight them off enough that they ran off. It was quite a
crazy night for the two of them, so they were having a quiet night in
for obvious reasons, and they thus welcomed me to the “infermary”.
After settling in, I joined them outside for some beers, before we
wandered off to buy some groceries and cook some dinner. It was the
first time in quite a long time that I actually made myself some food
at a hostel, but the pasta meal ended up being fairly decent. We had
a few more beers, before I called it an early night as I was quite
tired and didn't want to risk going out into the crazy streets of
Bocas at night!
The next day, after sleeping in a bit,
I grabbed some leftover pasta for lunch, and got ahold of my Dutch
friend Miranda, from El Salvador. She was leaving that afternoon, but
we agreed to meet up for a beer before she took off for Panama City.
I wandered over to grab a water taxi across to the Aqua Lounge, to
meet her there, but couldn't find her anywhere, so I just kind of
wandered around the hostel checking things out. It was a pretty cool
spot, as they had a trampoline and swing set where you could jump
into the water from, as well as several little chill out spots and a
bar. I grabbed a beer at the bar and had to watch with interest, as
two workers were in snorkel gear underneath the bar, reinforcing the
floor panels. Apparently the hostel hosts some big parties, and the
dance floor was actually starting to give way, so they were being
proactive in reinforcing it, although it was through fairly
interesting measures. Eventually Miranda showed up, and we caught up
a bit, before I noticed that Joel from Honduras/Nicaragua was outside
with a bunch of friends. I had thought I wouldn't see him again, so
it was a nice surprise to catch up once again. We ended up all
hanging out, having a few beers and enjoying the sunny afternoon,
until Miranda had to head across to catch her water taxi. I also
happened to be out of money and needed to make a bank run, so I
accompanied her across, but told the guys I would stop by their
hostel later on that night, as it was Joel's last night in Bocas, and
they were going to head out for some fun.
 |
| floor repairs by snorkeling employees |
 |
| Bocas del Toro |
Miranda and I went on over to the water
taxi stop, she dropped off her bags, and then we grabbed a quick bite
to eat before she had to head off, so I just wandered back to the
hostel to hang out for a bit, and grab a shower. The guys from the
room were heading over to AquaLounge for a beer or two and invited me
to join them, so after cleaning up, I wandered over there to join
them for a bit. The two guys just loved playing chess, as they were
playing it all the time at the hostel, and sure enough, they were
playing chess at the Aqua Lounge as well, although one of them was
playing with a cute Costa Rican girl. I joined them for a few quick
beers and a chat, where I found her to be flirting with me a fair
bit, but didn't think too much of it. Eventually the guys were
heading back to the hostel, and I decided to head over to Joel's
hostel for a bit, which was on the same island as the Aqua Lounge. I
asked the staff if it was alright to walk there, but apparently some
girls had been mugged two nights before when walking back to that
hostel, so they recommended just taking a water taxi instead, so I
went to grab one. I don't know if the guy didn't understand where I
wanted to go, or just wanted to make a bit more money, but rather
than driving me to the hostel, we drove back to the main docks,
picked up some people, drove back to the Aqua Lounge, picked up
another few people, drove them back to the main dock, and then
finally the guy drove me to where I needed to go. What should have
taken 3 minutes, ended up taking 15 minutes, not a very efficient
taxi! I arrived, and found the group to be just chilling out. Their
hostel had run out of water, so they all were in a kind of grubby and
slightly bitter mood about not having any water for showers, etc.
Plus the hostel staff were a bunch of stoners, and didn't really care
too much about helping the guests at all. I tried to get a drink from
the bar, and they wouldn't really help, so Joel's friends had to pour
me one from their stash.
After hanging out there for an hour and
a bit, everyone was finally ready to head over to the Iguana's bar,
where the party was happening that night. We arrived by boat, and
there was what I thought to be a fairly young group of girls with an
older man, at a table, and it appeared that they were his daughters
and that he had brought them on a family trip. They started whistling
at our group and saying hello, but I was a bit weirded out by the old
guy so I never bothered to chat with them. We arrived inside and
found the place to be pretty packed already, with lots of cute women
and lots of creepy local black drunk dudes! We ended up having a
pretty good party night, and I met some pretty fun and cool girls,
including one Dutch girl that I tried to convince that I had saved up
for my trip by working in the “blue light district” selling my
body in Utrecht, Holland. We were getting along pretty great, but
there was a local creepy dude who wouldn't leave her friend alone,
and her friend wanted to leave, so I had to say goodbye. The rest of
the night was just spent dancing, acting crazy, and hanging out with
the hot Israeli girls from the hostel, until the place closed down
for the night. We all walked back to the hostel together, and I
remember one guy who had tried to unsuccessfully pick them up,
getting pissed off that I was walking with them and saying something
along the lines of “why the hell are they with that
douchebag”...some guys get so jealous, even though I wasn't
actually with the girls, just walking them home. We arrived back, and
called it a night.
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| probably the funniest Hostal rules yet...not too sure what exactly makes for a scandal, but I want to find out! |
The next day I was just bumming around
at the hostel, getting ready to go grab some lunch when the Israeli
girls came over and asked me if I was going to be coming with them,
to go quadding for the day. I really had no idea and said sure, and
then a whole big group of them told me to hurry up and that we would
be leaving in 5 minutes to get the quads, so I quickly got ready, and
didn't even have a chance to eat lunch or anything, so I grabbed some
water and a candy bar from the store next door, and we went down to
the quad rental place. We ended up getting 7 quads for 15 of us, all
Israelis except for me. It was going to be a Hebrew filled day! I
ended up having Koral, one of the Israeli girls from the bus ride to
Bocas, as my passenger, and she had never driven one before. We
started out easily enough, making our way through town, towards the
highway that would lead us to some good trails, but soon had to stop
and wait for one of the girls, who was driving alone, and had
absolutely no idea what she was doing on the quad....she couldn't
even figure out how to change gears...it was going to be a long long
day at that rate. A few of the guys went back to find her, and
eventually did, and got her to come along and catch up with us, where
she then pulled in front of oncoming traffic and effectively blocked
off the roadway, trying to park her quad at the store...oh boy! After
we grabbed some more supplies, we were on our way, hitting the
highway, and eventually getting into some offroads, of course having
to stop several times to wait for “slow girl” as I called her. I
hadn't driven a quad in quite some time, so I was a bit worried about
crashing, especially since I had a passenger with me, so I took it
pretty easy. After stopping for some photos at one spot, I let Koral
drive, and for some reason, none of the other guys would let their
lady passengers drive...I guess chivalry is dead in Israel!
It was a bit of a scary decision I'll
have to admit, as Koral wasn't exactly the most experienced driver
and a few times I had to put out my hand and put on the brakes or
help her steer...I was a bit worried, I'll have to admit. Meanwhile,
a few of the other Israelis were getting stuck probably every 20
minutes or so, in various manners and locations. One of the guys had
rented a quad the previous day and we arrived to take a break at a
spot where he mentioned that the terrain was about to get really
really rough, so Koral asked to switch back and let me take the wheel
again, which was probably for the best. We ended up going through
some pretty thick boggy areas, where everyone got stuck again, except
for me and Koral, so I was feeling a bit overconfident, especially at
the every end of the trail when we had to go up a steep incline to
get to the beach. I went up the incline in the wrong gear and didn't
make it to the top then started rolling backwards, and then Koral and
I both fell off the quad onto some rocks! Then I got up and saw the
quad rolling towards her as she was sitting on the ground, so I had
to run over and get in front of it and push it aside before it really
hurt her. I felt so bad, as she had banged up her shoulder a bit, but
she was fine, and I just had some cuts on my elbow, nothing too
major. After shaking things off and getting back on the quad and
driving up the hill without Koral on the back, we all parked and
enjoyed an amazing secluded beach all to ourselves. We just hung out,
had a little swim, and sat around enjoying the view. Unfortunately I
was the only non Israeli, so that was the only language spoken pretty
much the whole time, so I didn't know what the hell was going on half
the time. After our time on the beach, it was time to head back.
We made the trek back, with the “Slow
girl” again getting stuck in some pretty ridiculous spots, so we
had to keep stopping to help her get out before finally making it
back to the main highway, where Koral had asked to drive again. I
said why not, and I was terrified for my life, as she was driving
pretty much as fast as she could, even through heavily populated
areas, and at one point took a turn at a high speed and we were up on
two wheels, I was terrified! Damn Israeli women are scary!! We
fortunately didn't crash or roll the quad, and somehow made it back
to the shop in one piece, although I had broken our flag when I had
fallen off the quad going up the hill, so I had to pay $5 for that.
We had actually returned the quads about 1.5 hours later than we we
were suupposed to, and of course the shop was asking for the money
that was rightfully theirs, however, when you're with a big group of
Israelis and there's extra money being asked for, it's a hell of a
battle as they are so so so cheap! They fought and whined and
eventually we settled on a price that was far below what we should
have paid...I'm sure if it was myself and some friends from Canada,
we would have just paid the full price, but oh well. After we had
everything all sorted, we hung out at the shop for a beer with the
owner, who was actually a pretty cool guy, and had lost his leg in a
base jumping accident (I had earlier asked if he had lost it driving
one of his quads). After the beer, we were on our way back to the
hostel, as we needed to clean up, since we were all covered in mud
and soaking wet.
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| one legged quad renter giving us instructions on the usage |
 |
| douchy! |
 |
| letting Koral drive the first time..scary |
 |
| one of the many isolated beaches we explored |
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| and the Israelis get stuck.. |
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| Secluded beach to ourselves |
 |
| and the Israelis are stuck...again |
 |
| last secluded beach of the quadding trip |
After showering up and cleaning my
shoes and socks, which were absolutely filthy, I found Aussie Dave,
who had just returned from having some beers at a nearby hotel, where
the other Dave and the Costa Rican girl were having some Ceviche. I
had heard a lot about Ceviche, but had yet to try it, so I decided to
head down and join them for a bite to eat. Ceviche is fish that is
soaked in lime or lemon juice, which actually cooks the fish, and is
then added to some vegetables to make a bitter but zesty dish. I
arrived at the hotel, and found the Costa Rican girl sitting by
herself at a table, so I sat down and joined her and ordered my food,
which ended up taking forever. They definitely aren't about quick
service in the Carribbean. I figured we'd have a nice chat, but the
girl spent most of her time on her laptop, and wasn't very talkative,
so it was kind of a boring time for me. The food was delicious, once
it finally did arrive, although it was a bit of an expensive place,
so it was one of the more costly meals I had eaten in quite sometime.
After the hour and a half of painful awkwardness, where she would be
surfing on her computer, then ask me a question, that I'd answer and
try to continue having a conversation without any reciprocation, I
finally ordered my bill and took off. It was meant to be Ladies Night
at the Aqua Lounge, so I was going to head over there, as it was
actually going to be my last night in Bocas, since I had decided to
take the all night bus the next day to Panama City, instead of flying
in a day and a half, as the bus was only $35 (although the Israeli
girls got it for about $25, so their negoatiating ways were obviously
much better than mine), and the flight was $110.
I got back to the hostel, and chatted a
little bit with some people who had found out that the Aqua Lounge
party night was actually cancelled, as the whole island was now
without water, including the hostel where Joel and his friends had
been staying. I bet it was quite a treat dealing with all that! I
didn't really know what to get up to, so I just hung around the
hostel with the two Daves, and 2 Spanish guys that had showed up. We
ended up just hanging around the hostel, having a pretty low key
night, but then one of the Daves decided he was keen to go check out
the one spot that was having a party night, so we wandered down there
for a few hours. While I was there, some guy had brought a book to
give to his g/f but then they forgot it on the table, so I decided to
try out a funny move and pretend like I was at the bar to just read a
book and nothing else. I noticed a woman staring at me, so I just
waved the book at her, and sure enough, she eventually came over and
started talking to me. Interesting pull tactic...she was interested
in me, but unfortunately I was leaving the next day, so I walked her
and her friend back to the hostel, as they had some drunk local guys
who were kind of bothering them, and she invited me to come hang out
with her the next day, but since I was leaving I didn't think I'd
make it down there, so I just headed back to the hostel for the
night.
The next day was a pretty quiet day, as
it was raining cats and dogs, and I had to be down at the pier to
take a boat at 5 pm, so it was mostly just spent hanging around,
practicing some Spanish, surfing the net, and admiring the beautiful
Israeli girls in the hostel (there was probably about 10 of them that
were all absolutely gorgeous but not very talkative with foreigners).
After awhile I went on a money run, as I had owed one of the Dave's
$20 since my card had been blocked (thanks TD once again you
assholes!), and then I aimlessly wandered around the small town
trying to find a splitter adapter so that two people can plug
headphones into my computer and watch tv shows, since Koral wanted to
watch Dexter with me, but trying to speak in broken Spanish and
getting what you want, is a pretty tricky adventure, so I never did
find the necessary piece. Eventually it was getting to be around the
time when the local tour guide wanted to lead us to the water taxi
place to catch our taxi to the bus, even though it was way too
early...but I had to follow him since he was the one organizing the
taxi and bus ticket, so I grudgingly packed up my things and wandered
through the rain to the water taxi stop. Of course we arrived and had
to wait another 30 minutes before the next water taxi would leave,
and made our way over to the mainland, where we were left at the bus
station and had to wait another hour and half. While waiting there, I
was surrounded by two very drunk Panamanians trying to get money off
me, and one obviously well fed child asking me for money for
food....he bothered me enough that I finally caved and gave him a
dollar....eventually the bus showed up, and we were on it and ready
to go to Panama City.
I had to laugh as there was an Israeli
guy sitting next to me on the bus, and I asked if he had been staying
at the Israeli hostel as well, but he said no, that he didn't like to
hang out or travel with Israelis, so I mentioned that several of us
were going to be staying at Casa Luna, including the Israeli girls,
so he told me he'd be finding a different hostel....well sure enough,
I saw him the next day, hanging with a few of the Israeli guys and
staying at Casa Luna's ha ha ha. So after the long overnight bus
ride, we arrived in Panama City around 5:30 am, and the girls
actually decided not to go to Casa Luna's as they didn't have a
private room, so I just caught a cab and went there myself. I had
Miranda book me a bed there, but they said they weren't sure if the
bed was available and that I would have to come back to the desk in a
few hours time. So to kill time, they said I could go down to the
hostal's movie theatre and have a sleep there, so that's what I ended
up doing, for several hours...it wasn't the most comfortable sleep,
but it was alright enough. I eventually woke up, and managed to get a
bed in the same room as Miranda, so I went up there and found her
awake, and surprised that the hostel didn't give me a bed sooner, as
most of the dorm was actually empty.....apparently they weren't very
well organized at the hostel but oh well. After getting settled in,
we went downstairs for breakfast, and I noticed a few familiar faces,
the Canadian girls that I had met in Antigua, Guatemala were there. I
had just missed Tim from Aus, who had just left a few days earlier
which was too bad, but it was still cool to see some familar faces
again. The hostel has free pancakes for breakfast, so that was a nice
treat. We caught up a bit, and I was excited to hear that everyone
was interested in attending this huge music festival in Cartagena,
Colombia in the New Year, called Summerland. The lineup was crazy
good, and I had spread the word to a few people about the festival,
and they had spread it further. I decided to book my ticket right
then and there, as well as a plane ticket from Bogota, since I was
going to be returning from Cuba to Bogota on Jan 2nd.
After getting all that sorted out, I
wanted to go check out the Panama Canal, but was having a hard time
convincing anyone to go with me, until I started chatting with a cute
Dutch girl, who had met some local guy in Bocas, and who said he was
going to come pick her up and show her around a bit. She mentioned
that I would probably be able to tag along with them if they went to
the canal, but would ask first. The guy ended up showing up about an
hour and a bit later, and said it would be no problem to go with
them. Unfortunately, I was starving by this point, and hadn't had a
chance to stop somewhere to grab a quick bite before we took off, so
I hopped in the vehicle and we were on our way. The canal visitor
centre closes at 5 pm and it was already nearly 3 pm, so we had to
hurry down there. The guy was a pretty good guide and had some
interesting history tidbits for us on the ride to the canal,
including pointing out some of the houses along the way that were
occupied by major contributors to the project. We arrived at the
canal, paid our entrance fee and went up to the observation deck to
catch a few photos and to hear a bit more about the mighty Panamax
ships that were passing through. They are the largest ships that can
possibly pass through the canal, and carry 13 cargo containers wide
and as many tall as the ship can accommodate. We witnessed two of
them pass through, and were in awe at the massive size of them. The
crazy thing is that there are ships being built now that are too
large to pass through the canal, so the Panama government has started
an expansion project to build even larger and more modern canal locks
to help these ships pass through. The observation point we were at
was the Pacific entry point, so we couldn't actually see the massive
man made lake that was the largest built, at it's time, for the
canal. After watching a few ships pass through, we made our way to
the movie theatre where they had a quick 10 minute presentation on
the canal. It was interesting to hear at the end of the presentation
how the film didn't really give any credit or thanks to the Americans
for building the canal....I believe that if they hadn't taken the
project upon themselves, there really would be nothing in Panama, and
it would be poor like most of it's fellow Central American countries,
but that canal has lead to a high standard of living for Panamanians,
so it was a bit weird to not hear any gratitude towards the US, but
oh well.
 |
the real Panama Canal!
|
 |
| an absolute engineering marvel |
After the film, we just bummed around a
bit more, before it was closing time, so we hopped back into the car
and our host had to leave us to go meet his parents for dinner, so he
dropped us off near the main beach walkway so that we could go grab
some ceviche from the nearby fish market. It was pretty funny to
watch a local bus hit a pelican that was trying to desperately fly
away quick enough, but the bird was too big and got caught by the
mirror of the bus, sending it sprawling and skidding along the road,
but at a low enough speed that it wasn't really hurt, just a bit
stunned. After skidding to a stop, it managed to hop onto the
sidewalk and fly off to lick its wounds a bit. We wandered into the
market, and found a shop and ordered two massive bowls of ceviche
that were rather tasty, but way too big and filling! It was a lot
cheaper than the ceviche I had in Bocas, so that was a relief,
although the later at the counter charged us more for the one bowl
than was listed on the menu, which we tried to argue about, but she
wouldn't have any of it, so we just grudgingly paid the price and
that was it. I had a nice dinner with the Dutch girl, who was
unfortunately heading north instead of south, so I wasn't going to be
able to travel with her or anything, which was a shame but oh well.
After our ceviche, we wandered back to the hostel, and got ready for
the wine and cheese party, as one of the Aussie girls that had joined
the Canadian girls, was having a birthday party at the hostel.
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| Ceviche! |
 |
| Panama City by night |
After cleaning up a bit, I wandered
down to join the festivities, although I missed out on all the
cheese, and wine, but no worries, as the beers were cheap anyways. We
had a little mini party at the hostel, until the hostel bar
downstairs (well it was associated with the hostel somehow) had happy
hour from 9 pm until 10 with very cheap drinks, so we took our party
down there, although it was completely empty. Crazy Nikola from
Canada, decided she would try and get 13 drinks in that on hour, as
she is a bit of a crazy drunk...I opted to keep it a little more low
key, but still had a few. Chris and Ben, the two Canadians I had met
in Utila also showed up, so they were keen for a bit of a party, and
even had some Panama girls coming to meet up with them, although once
Miranda and I had a few drinks, we kind of rekindled our little El
Tunco thing and spent the rest of the night together. The bar did end
up filling up, and there were a lot of locals there as well, so it
would have been a good spot to meet some locals, but I ended up
spending most of my time with Miranda and chatting with a few other
backpackers...silly I know, but I was leaving the next day anyway. We
partied there until close, narrowly avoided being sucked into a big
fight, and eventually called it a night, ending up in the same bed in
a dorm room once again, oops!
I fortunately didn't have to fly out
until 5:30 pm the next day, so I was able to sleep in a bit, before
packing up and getting ready to check out. Miranda and I wandered out
to eat at a “Coca-Cola” restaurant that was fairly popular with
locals, and was nearby. After the decent Spanish omelette and bad
fries, we wandered around a little bit, seeing some of the old city,
which is quite lovely. We eventually got back down to the waterfront,
and I was in awe of how beautiful the Panama City skyline really is,
I'd definitely rank it up there with some of the best I've seen.
After the quick wander, it was back to the hostel to organize a taxi,
which fortunately for me, there happened to be 2 German guys heading
to the airport at nearly the same time, so that cost was a lot better
for us 3. After saying a few more goodbyes, I was off to the airport
with the guys, arriving well over 2 hours before my flight, which is
pretty rare for me! I went to the check in line, and waited and
waited and waited...the Avianca staff was so terrible!! They would
all be sitting at their check in desks, just doing nothing and
chatting amongst themselves...a few of us waited at the front of the
line for nearly an hour, without them calling one person up...it was
so frustrating, and I sat there looking around, waving my arms,
wondering what the hell was going on. Finally, they called a few
people up to check them in, and it was already less than an hour
before the flight...oh well...welcome to Latin American culture I
guess! After checking in, it was off to Bogota, arriving late in the
evening, fighting with cash machines to try and take out some money
before finally finding a machine that took my card. I found a cab to
my nearby hotel, which took him forever to find, and where the staff
only spoke Spanish, so it was a bit of a challenge, but all good. I
checked in and had a quiet night in, even though I was staying in a
fairly lively area of Bogota, with lots of nightclubs and such.
 |
| Exploring Panama City by day |
 |
| Amazing skyline..one of the best in the world I think |
 |
| view from our hostel |
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| Driving to the airport, seeing more of the skyline |
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| One of the funkiest/coolest skyscrapers I've seen |
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| This is Avianca's staff...doing nothing while we waited in line for an hour |
The next morning I was up early, had a
quick breakfast, and was off to the airport to get ready for my
flight to Venezuela, and then on to Cuba. I thought it a bit odd that
the airline wouldn't issue me an ongoing ticket for Cuba, even though
they checked my bags on through, but oh well. Also, the plane left
nowhere on time from Bogota, as we all just sat around the gate for
over an hour wondering what the hell was going on...ConViasa isn't
exactly the best airline I've flown with, that's for sure! The plane
finally took off, and we were in Caracas, where I didn't have to
clear customs, but had no on going ticket, which presented a
challenge with getting through security to the continuing flights
area. Fortunately I had a copy of my plane ticket on my computer, and
that was good enough for the lady, so I was able to get through to
the next level. I waited around that area for quite some time,
sorting out some food (there's no bank machines in the Venezuela
airport, so I was fortunate to find one restaurant that at least took
one of my cards), and had some pizza while waiting and waiting...and
waiting some more. The plane was delayed over an hour already before
they finally started calling people up to board, and I was able to
buy my Cuban visa and get on the plane. I was pretty exhausted, and
fell asleep nearly as soon as I got to my seat on the plane. Before
sleeping I had noticed some guy who had this massive teddy bear that
didn't look like it would fit anywhere on the plane, and that it
should be checked in, but I thought nothing of it and drifted off. I
woke up about an hour and 15 minutes later, thinking we were well on
our way to Cuba, and found that we were still docked to the gate and
hadn't moved at all!!! What the hell was going on with this airline!
I noticed that same guy from earlier, walking back on the plane and
sitting in his seat, without that damn teddy bear, and I'm thinking
the plane might have delayed itself for that long so he could check
that stupid teddy bear in...but who knows! Finally, well over 2 hours
after we were meant to leave, we were on our way to Cuba, which is
where the next post will continue from of course!
Adios, y hasta el proxima vez
Rye
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