TOURing Around

March 20, 2006
Granada, Nicaragua

I met up with GAP adventure tours on my last night in Antigua for a 17 day trek through a couple different countries en route to my final destination of Costa Rica. What can I say about GAP tours? The group of people I´m with are an interesting mix of about 6 people in aorund my age and about 6 more who are enjoying their retirement days. Everyone is really nice and we all get along very well but the group dynamic is certainly an interesting one. One thing I can say for sure is that I doubt I´ll do another tour anytime soon. Don´t get me wrong this tour is a very good one but I´m not really one for feeling like a duckling following my mother duck and the rest of my family around on public transportation. Especially when I know that I´m completely capable of making such arrangements on my own, and though it´s nice to be staying in mid range hotels as opposed to hostels, it´s really not neccesary and I´m not sure it´s worth the expense given the type of traveller that I am at this stage in my life. That certainly isn´t meant to be a knock at GAP or my guide as both are very good. My guide Jemise is really great in fact. She´s a lot of fun and someone I would totally hang out with if I met her on the road, as are many of the others on the tour. I guess it´s just my independant nature that disagrees with the whole tour concept in general.

Anyway, after a VERY early start from Antigua for our first day on the road, leaving at 4:30am, headed for the Honduran border and the days final rest stop of Copan. There are very beautiful Mayan ruins in Copan...I didn´t see them. I was really tired from a busy week and a long, early travel day and opted instead for a relaxing afternoon of reading my book and yes, I´ll admit it, watching a movie, since the hotel had TVs with HBO. It´s been a while what can I say.

The next morning we headed for Roatan Island, off the northern coast of Honduras. I was hoping to hook up with Sam´s mom, Perri, for a day on her boat, but that didn´t happen as they had taken the boat to another of the bay islands and didn´t get my email until the day I left (tour schedule and all). It was too bad but I still enjoyed Roatan. Again, on Roatan, I decided to keep things pretty mellow. I didn´t want to spend a lot of money as I´m feeling a bit worried about it, since I have to pay for 3 weeks in the very expensive country of Costa Rica still, and was still just feeling a bit drained. There comes a point in every long trip where you just have to give in to a few days of straight relaxation and Roatan was that place for me. I would have done most of my realxing on the beach, but the sandflies were pretty bad and in the 20 minutes I´d spent lying there the first day had managed to accumulate about 20 bites on one leg. So, I opted instead for a coffee at the Bakery and some reading, and yes, another movie. Ladder 49 is pretty entertaining, I liked it! I just couldn´t resist a little time in the comfort of my room with a good movie. Especially since I knew it would be a while (like whenever I got home) before I would get such an opportunity again. I did however really enjoy the west end of Roatan, where we stayed. It was another jolt back into the English speaking Carribean Island culture that I´d experienced on Caye Caulker, and in the past in Jamaica, and it´s a chillin culture that I really like!


night spider (think i'ts a tarantula) on roatan island

After Roatan it was a couple of very heavy travel days with one night stop in the large Honduran city of Comayagua, a couple hours outside the capital. We didn´t have time for much more than dinner and a trip to the supermarket there before taking of the next morning for our most gruelling travel day yet. About 13 hours, and another border crossing later, we arrived at our hotel in Granada, Nicaragua, thankful to be staying in one place for the next 3 nights.

Granada is another of Central America´s beautiful colonial cities. It reminds me a lot of Antigua but with fewer (still many, but fewer) tourists and the fresh coat of paint that Antigua has received. I like it here a lot. I think it´s one of the stops on this tour that I would spend more time in if I was here on my own. I really like these old colonial cities, they are so beautiful just to walk around and gaze at.


climbing rock walls in the enchanted forest

Yesterday we took a trip up the dormant Volcano Mambocha and walked around the top of the overgrown crater, through the enchanted forest, along the Puma trail. We were very lucky to have a great guide who enjoyed practicing his english with us while we too practiced our spanish with him. Legend has it that the volcano is home to many spirits who haunt it frequently. Security guards have reported many an incident of old trucks with no batteries that suddenly light up in the middle of the night, and apparently the enchanted forest on the Puma trail is a an especially haunted area. It was a beautiful walk atop the volcano and the day all ended in my favourite kind of way...with a canopy tour.


monkeying around at the canopy tour

I really think I have a bit of a problem with these things. I just can´t resist them!! I love swingin through the trees and this time I even tried a couple tricks, doing one line in the "superman" position and then another upside down, and I have great pictures to remember it by. We totally scored and had about 5 guides come with us, all of whom were really fun and gave me another opportunity to practice my spanish. By day´s end we had decided a couple drinks (after a much needed dinner) were in order and arranged to meet our guide, David, at Cafe Nuit.

Cafe Nuit has a decent tourist presence but it´s more easily overlooked as there are also plenty of locals. A live band provides music with a DJ spinning a mix of Salsa, Reggaeton and Hip Hop in between and after sets. It was great to dance the night away and continue still to practice my spanish. Most of the people on the tour know very little in the way of the Spanish language, but Maria (from Australia but born in El Salvador), Emma (British and a felllow student of mine from Ixchel) and I made a pact to use more Spanish with each other yesterday and so far we have been pretty good about it. Of course our guide, Jemise, is also fluent and very good about speaking to us in Spanish. I ususally understand it all but if there are parts I miss then I just ask and she makes sure I understand.

Tomorrow we are back on the road making our way to Ometepe Island. Ometepe is essentially and Island formed from 2 volcanos in the middle of the world´s 10th largest fresh water lake, Lago de Nicaragua, and I´m very much looking forward to the, apparently gruelling, hike up Volcan Maderas, and hopefully catching a glimpse of the only freshwater sharks in the world somewhere along the way. After a couple nights on the island we cross our final border into Costa Rica where I will be with the tour for about 4 more days through Monteverde and La Fortuna, before breaking off on my own again and heading to Tamarindo to commence the final leg of my trip down the Pacific coast of Costa Rica. I see many days on the beach ahead and some surf lessons, but beyond that, not a whole lot. It is time for me to wind down and beef up the tan, as the end of my trip is officially in site. I have booked my ticket and will be seeing you all again on the 19th of April. Well, probably more like the 20th since I get in that evening but what´s a few hours!

Looking forward to it friends! Hope everyone is well. Stay tuned for the final leg!

Much love from Nicaragua!
Mols xoxoxo