21-31 Aug - Spanish classes

I thought while Phil is busy studying to be a scuba instructor, I´d take some spanish classes, and here`s where I ended up!

La Esperanza

This place appealed because it was described as a cool (temperature wise), country mountain town with a good fresh fruit and vegie market... so I thought it would be a nice place to study at their language school for a week. Only problem was, they`re not taking students at the moment! However the friendly hotel owner organised for one of his friends to tutor me, so all worked out quite well in the end, and I´ve been brushing up on verbs and reading articles in the newspaper.

The town itself while certainly functionaly isn´t really much to look at, apart from this one grotto church on the hill, from where you get quite a good view. The people are quite interesting though, with many are farmers from the surrounding countryside coming in to sell their produce in the markets. Think potatoes, beans, cucumbers, peppers, chiles, apples, bananas, lychee, strawberries... yum. And there are many Lencas - the name given to the local hondurenos decended presumeably from the maya some time back. The Lenca women wear quite distinctive headscarfs, and they are apparently quite good potters too! Tourist info in the town was scarce, the lonely planet somewhat out of date and the map when I did eventually find one was cryptic! So I didn´t end up finding the mysterious holes in the ground (thought possibly to be mayan mines for obsidian), even though I did wander a fair bit in my spare time.

Trujillo

It was a bit of a hike across the country (10 hours, 6 of which were in a cockroach infested bus) to get to Trujillo. Trujillo is on the carribean coast, and is a town with some history... founded in 1500s by the spanish, its been relocated, fought over and raided several times, deserted for about 150years, then re-occupied and re-built with fortification, and then in more recent times its been influenced by americans and their fruit trading in the area (bananas, coconut, pineapple and others). Anyway its a gorgeous town on a hill, overlooking a lovely huge sand bay, with a mountain range behind. Lovely. Hot, but there generally is some breeze.

Life is pretty laid back here, there aren´t many tourists, and people are friendly and want to talk to you. Food is good with lots of seafood, pan de coco (coconut bread)and fresh fruit and veg, and I´m enjoying the beach - swimming, and sipping on limonadas while trying to read the newspaper! I´ve tee-ed up some spanish classes with a local school teacher (Chavely) through the tourist information centre here. So I´m practicing my verbs and grammar, and also learning more about local issues and customs. And I´m finding myself using spanish pretty much all the time (as there is no one to speak to in English, and the TV is all spanish too)

Yesterday I went out to visit a nearby palm oil factory (yes, I know I´m a worry, but I can´t help but be curious!), and the engineer there was very helpful explaining the process and showing me about. Honduras is now using palm oil to produce bio-diesel (amongst other products) and this is in the news a fair bit as the government is currently subsidising petrol (costly) to keep it accessible to the public, and it is pushing for the use of more bio-diesel as a more affordable fuel. Currently its being trialled in increasing proportions in community buses.

Whats next?

Heading back to meet Phil in La Ceiba this Friday... and by then he`ll be a fully qualified dive instructor... WOW! (And yes he should put something on this blog to let you know what fun he´s got up to over the last few weeks)

16-20 Aug - Karens visit to country honduras

While Phils busy studying in Utila, I´ve gone exploring the countryside... so heres a little about some of the places I´ve been...

Santa Rosa de Copan

A nice colonial town set up on the hillside, with some nicely restored buildings and cobblestoned roads. I visited the Flor de Copan Cigar factory and got a guided tour to myself which was quite amazing - over 1000 employees and nothing automated in sight. The smell was overpowering, and the amount of handling required to air, wash, dry, classify into sizes, pull out veins, roll and compress into cigars, label, package and even make the boxes from scratch. Halls of people doing each task.

Gracias

Another quiet colonial town nestled in the mountains with a definite cowboy feel to it... cowboy hats and horses all over the place. There´s an old castle on the hill with nice views over the valley, and they also have some very nice hot springs about an hours walk out of town.









San Juan
Wow smaller still. A one street town in the mountains, with nothing much to do, but really friendly locals who are trying to encourage tourism with guided tours in the surrounding area, as an alternative source of income for the locals (this is one of the poorest parts of honduras, and there are several foreign aide organisations in this mountain area). My host was a lovely old lady, only too happy to chat and tell me about the area. I also wandered along the road to some more hot springs and visited a family who make roof tiles.

8-16 August - La Ceiba/Utila

La Ceiba
Spent a day here, while Karen recovered, and Phil went on a rampage trying to find a bank that would provide US dollars.... none of them do. (We didn't fancy carrying around '000's of Lempiras - the local currency, which would be a wad a couple of centimetres thick.) We needed this volume of cash for Phil's Dive Course, oh, well, let's hope they let Phil through on good will.

Although, they will give you the local Lempira, then let you exchange.... so you can lose out twice on the fees and then the exchange rate. And the banks will also direct you around town to all the other banks which also don't provide US dollars!

Then the ferry crossing to Utila.... it wasn't a comfortable ride for an already ailing Karen. Naturally seasick, she got a bit green (think Kermit).

Utila
We're staying here at the Mango Inn... Phil's classroom is just on the left. Our room is upstairs in the far left corner.
After taking a day to recover, Karen started, and has now finished her Open Water course!! She's now officially a diver! (I'm starting to influence her).

Karen went on a couple of fun dives too, saw a sea turtle, squids, moray eels, fish, coral, fish and coral, oh, and more fish. It's also quite amazing how much dead coral makes up the beaches around the island.

My (Phil's) course starts today, and I'll unfortunately have to hang around this tropical paradise for another couple of weeks. Karen's leaving today for numerous Spanish schools and still has no idea what direction she's headed.

5-7 August - Tela and Garifuna Villages

Hey all, still Phil here... Karen and I had a dodgy pizza last night, (we´re feeling okay) but we´re staying an extra day in Tela than we planned... best to be close to ¨facilities¨, if you know what I mean..... Enough said.

We´re now in Tela, which is on the Caribbean coast (North coast) of Honduras... it´s a seaside town, pretty nice, I´ve now bought another (actually, our third) hammock... the other two are on their way home in the mail... all different styles of course.

Yesterday, we went to Tornabe, a Garifuna village west of Tela. The Garifuna are black carribeans who settled here about 200 years ago, and retain their own language, their own customs, and still hold Garifuna style traditional dances. We visited through the day, so no dances were on but the town´s, particularly the town Miami, is predominantly constructed of traditional materials... banana leaf thatched roofs and the like... and Miami has no power or running water. Definitely back to basics. Karen loved this particular beach, shady groves of coconut palms, and a beautiful clean beach with a sandbreak all the way along.

It´s official... I´m doing my Scuba Instructor Course in Utila with Utila Dive Centre. I´m going to be there for 3 weeks, the first doing some DiveMaster work, then the next two in classes... culminating with the Instructor Examination (IE) on 29/30 Aug. Karen´s doing her Open Water with me...I´ll be the DM on her course, and then while I´m studying, Karen is looking at doing another week´s Spanish Course, this time in La Esperanza... things are a bit fluid, we´ll let you know any changes.

2-4 August - HONDURAS (and NICA wrap-up)

Tegucigalpa

Hi all, Phil here.
Seems the photos are working.... and of course, I´m unprepared... so I nicked this photo from Wikipedia of Tegucigalpa... we´ll get some originals soon.

We took a Tica Bus (coach) from Estelí in Nicaragua, had a pretty uneventful Border crossing, and made our way to Tegucigalpa.
It´s a gorgeous city, really steep, everyone must have massive calves walking up and down the streets, and comes complete with obligatory noisy buses, tooting horns, and elderly women approaching us, calling us ¨her children¨ and asking for a ´regalo´(gift).

We spent a couple of days here and found ourselves stuck! There has been an ongoing teachers strike (huelga) during which 8,000 of them blocked off the only major highway north. We had to keep up-to-date reading the El Heraldo newspaper, which was one of the continuing sources for the Fidel Castro revelations.... talk about the end of an era. It took about 3 days after the abdication of power to his brother for the papers to announce he has cancer also. One of the interesting side notes is that his brother (forget his name now, anyone know?) has been in charge of the military in Cuba since 1959.

(P.S. Just checked the El Heraldo website, the teachers are still front page - always good articles to read in Spanish)

Oh yeah, Karen and I went walking through La Tigra National Park too.... a good walk, great views of the city, and got offered a lift (about an hours drive) in the back of a pickup by a Syrian, Mohammed, and his Honduran family... so, Thanks Mohammed!

NICARAGUA WRAP-UP

Highlights:
1. The view of Volcán Momotombo and Lake Managua from Leon Viejo
2. Travelling with Rachel and Kuhtahya
3. Granada and Leon - definitely worth a visit

Funnies:
1. Running out of money on Isla de Omotepe
2. Karen´s Spanish teacher - Blás, a very astute guy
3. Phil´s Dive Guide - Lorenzo, VERY loud.

National Beer: Victoria or Toña

30-31 July - Leon and its Surrounds

Leon

Leon is another colonial town, the sister town of Granada. It seems to have more life of its own, and is definitely grittier than Granada. It has it´s fair share of churches and the largest cathedral in Central America, but is also known as the home of student resistance, the Sandinista movement and has a number of galleries, murals and photo walls documenting it´s political history. We recommend picking up a book and reading about the Iran-Contra affair, and the Sandinista movement, our curiosity is piqued!

Last night was a festival for the Saint of the local cathedral, so they had effigies of christ on the cross walked through town, with a band, church bells ringing, and LOTS of pyrotechnics - most of which were let off from home-made mortars in public areas, close to everyone! There was also a pyrotechnic bull (a guy in a make-shift costume) with pyros randomly flying off as wicks burnt, scaring children and harming others!

Leon Viejo

At the foot of Volcan Momotombo lies the ruins of Old Leon, it was rediscovered in 1967. With a variety of ruins showing brick structures of churches, merchant houses and more, the highlight was the view from what was the fort overlooking the town. This vista is AMAZING. You see Lake Managua, surrounding and highlighting a chain of volcanoes, perfectly conical, some islands within the lake ... just wait for photos. It was spectacular.

Oddly enough, Old Leon is a fair distance away from it´s present location, it was apparently moved due to a volcanic eruption of Momotombo in 1610.

San Jacinto Boiling Mud Pools

About half an hour out of Leon is a bizarre creek floodplain with bubbling mud pools and steam vents dotting the landscape. Local kids wander around with thongs, poking and prodding the mud, hoping to make a buck out of molding little candlestick holders from freshly warm mud. The water sits in the pools at about 100°C, and the steam, smoke and sulphur are palpable. Our guide told us that locals have had pools of boiling mud rise up under their beds overnight, and that running underground services within the area is, shall we say, problematic!

29 July - Volcan Masaya

Today we walked up to Diria, a town overlooking Laguna de Apoyo, along with our teachers, as the last activity with our school... Diria originates in the preColombian era and it´s name (like that of Ometepe and others) comes from the native language (not Spanish). It has a nice big church, older than white settlement in Australia.

we then proceeded on a BIG transport day... many phases (they aren´t modes for all those people concerned with the apostrophe ¨´s¨ debacle - which remains unresolved) of transport

1. From Laguna by LandRover to base of the crater.
2. Foot to Diria
3. Bus to Masaya
4. Taxi to Laguna then to Masaya
5. Bus to Volcan Masaya
6. Bus with Puerta Rican Missionaries to the top of Volcan Masaya
7. Foot around the bat caves and Santiago Crater
8. Someone´s jeep when we hitched down the Volcano
9. Mini-Bus to Managua
10. Mini-Bus to Leon (balancing packs on laps)
11. Taxi to Hostal (to find it was full)
12. By Foot in drenching rain to a second hostal.
13. Sleep

Volcan Masaya

A really impressive active volcano with the active smoking Santiago crater. We were first impressed by the lava-strewn landscape solidifed into a bizarre rocky world...
There are two active volcanoes with 5 craters between them. We were impressed by the signs asking people to park their cars facing downhill, ¨for a quick getaway¨ in case of eruption, or requesting that people ¨hide under their cars¨if the crater starts spitting out rocks... this is one ACTIVE volcano.

We then went with a guide down a lava tunnel (or Bat Cave). Interesting formations, loads of stalagmites and -tites and hardhats with headlamps which barely lit the way.

24-29 Laguna de Apoyo Spanish School

Apologies for the delay of a week or so... and the lack of photos...
We´ve been off the beaten path for a week, and blogger has been stubborn with posting photos... just means more reason for a slide night when we get home!

This week we were at the Proyecto Ecologico Escuela de Espanol. We had a week staying at a guest house, where we both had one-on-one tutoring for 4.5 hrs per day. Karen´s professor was Blas and Phil´s was Madeline (Photos to follow). One other student in attendance was Bruno, a nice swiss guy with boofy blond hair who was studying there for 3 weeks.

SPANISH SECTION
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Karen y yo fuimos a aprender español por una semana. La escuela se llama ¨Proyecto Ecológico¨, que ofrece bucear en la Laguna de Apoyo. Karen recibió más conversacion mientras yo aprendí mas sobre de gramatica. Yo buceé dos veces, cada uno fué asombroso. Mi primera buceo de agua fresca fué muy único. La laguna tiene solo una especie de planta y un par de especies de peces que son nativos porque la laguna esta aislada.
-- Escrito por Phil
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Karen learnt much about Nicaraguan history, festivals and national symbols; along with grammar, verbs, verbs and more tenses of verbs.
Phil learnt verbs. Phil got frustrated learning verbs and not being able to say what he wanted, particularly when your teacher is trying to conduct a conversation on political history! (I would´ve been more content reading ¨Run Spot Run¨)

But that said Phil can now read and write a little better and Karen can engage locals in political debates on street corners (yeah, like Karen´s the sort to incite political uprisings!)

The Laguna was Phil´s FIRST FRESHWATER DIVE!! It´s a crater lake that has been isolated for all history, and so has only eight species of fish (one of which is introduced) and only one species of plant (Charcha). How did the other 7 species get there?

The lake is about 5km wide and 200m deep, and is a lovely clear blue, visibility extends to about 10m max, and the bottom is mainly mud and rock, with occasional volcanic outcroppings which is where the fish hide-out. The water temp is 28°C - no thermoclines.