Nicaragua

I was lucky enough to get a ride to the bus station and lucky anough again that a bus was leaving within a reasonable amount of time!!! I got in Tica bus, which runs form Mexico to Panama and headed to Managua, Micaraguas capital! The rde while uneventful was beautiful and comfy and I had a double seat all to myself! I grabbed some pics out of the window and here they are.... I am not sure if one is a market or slums and I guess I will never find out...there was a lady selling corn on the side....this is common everywhere...I have not really taken pictures of people on this trip and for once I decided to as I was on a bus and figured the windows were tinted!

After taking a pic of the corn lady she stared at me and I waved and she waved back!!! I guess te window werent tinted, but she was not mad as she returned my wave and smile!

Walking around Managua in search of a restaurant I was told repetatively not to walk aroudn and get in a cab! I guess it is a scary place and people are looking out for me! I did take a cab to get home form dinner! After explaining my diet at a restaurant (the one highly recomended in my guide book was no longer in existance) I received a huge plate of veggies!!! yum yum yum! That was all for Managua as I headed to the beach the very next morning!

Again my guidebook failed me with bus times...and after telling my mother the night before I was probably done with chicken buses I found myself on one as I headed to Rivas, on the way to San Juan del Sur and the pacific ocean!

When I arrived I was told by a guy on the street no problem I can camp right on the beach...but I decidednot to take his advice and found a room in a surf shop, for this was my reason for heading to this area!! To try surfing!!! Hang ten dude!!! As I was heading down to the Pacific for my first dip in it since California in february someone called my name and it was some Aussies I had met in Honduras...We caught up a bit and then I slipped into the water! It was much warmer than in the winter in California! I wasnt the only one swimming this time! That night I went to happy hour with Australians at a beutiful bar/hotel they heard of....we watched the sun set over the pacific and had neat drinks....

That second pic is of a pool with a waterfall at the end, and it is up on a mountain, in the back you can see the ocean!

The very next day with the Beach Boys on my mind i headed to another beach to try to ride the waves!! My instructor didnt really speak english and my spanish is not full of all the little words you need to understand how to pop up on a surfboard! So with much effort I did make it! Your first time (and probably many more after) you are not riding the waves but rather catching them after they break and riding the white stuff! This is still moving quite fast and on my third go I was up and standing....then down and falling!!! I may have even invented a few new ways to fall off a surfboard and surely increased my bodies salinity tenfold!!! What a ride! It was lots of fun, but not great enough to hold me at the beach for another day as the forest called! After a dinner with a fellow yid from Toronto, and some fun philosophical discussion, I hit the hay and was on the 7am bus back to Managua.... Without taking a breathe I hopped a cab across town to another chicken bus terminal and found an express microbus to Matagalpa...a city in the mountains....and here I am...air is fresh and mountains are lovely...

Happy father's day pops!

La Tigra

The day after my journey to the statue of Jesus I headed further up that road to a national park called La Tigra. My first surprise was that on most of the signs there was a most familiar leaf to be seen! a red one, surrounded by 2 red stripes!

Apparently Canada has something to do with the park, although what exactly no one seemed to know. This park is the source of most of the water for the city of Tegucigalpa and is far up in the mountains....it may have been created to preserve the freshwater as clearcutting is a national sport in Honduras and that reeks havoc on streams and rivers. The visitors center had a beautiful mural! This is just half of it...

I arrived as the morning was ending and elected to go no a 2.5 hr. hike that would make a nice loop. I strolled along leisurly as I had about 4 hours, stopping to sit by streams and look at trees or read a book. I finally got to see a plant/tree that I have been looking for for the past 4 months! A tree fern!

Ferns are one of if not the first plant and this one is as big as a tree with trunk and all! I found it on the road outside the park as I was heading back to the bus. Usually they are no more than a meter ff the ground with no trunk, just leaves coming out of the ground.

At almost the same spot a car was coming down the road from the park so I decided to put out my thumb as the bus was still going to be a while.... After passing me the car stopped and I hopped it. It wasa family that I had passed on the trail and they were very friendly. It was a father, his son, and his grandchildren, although the kids were from another sibling. The sons name is Omar and after talking a while we decided to head back to the park the next day and see more of it. He is a teacher and had the week off. This proved to be very lucky for me as I finally met a local who also spole fluent English. I was able to pick his brain about tons of things to do with the city and country, from politics to the education system. The next day we did a six hour hike roundtrip to a waterfall and saw many plants and animals...The animals consisted of birds and lizards! One posed for a photo!

There were many neat plants and some great views, sometimes cloudy and sometimes not! Here is the wierdest leaf I have ever seen! You may need to enlarge it to see why! I discovered it by wiping my hand on it! Bit of a mistake!After a long walk and a stop for a snack of giant avocado and totillas we made it to the falls!

Here is Omar my companion for the day...He was also going to show me some of Tegucigalpas nightlife but after the return hike we could barely walk and called it quits! I made one other friend on the hike and here he or she is!! The next moring I was off to Nicaragua, the last country on my journey!!!