Fire, Water, Earth...

Fire
We had already decided to 'skip' Costa Rica when we got to its capital San Jose from where we wanted to catch a bus to Nicaragua. And even though we drove along very pretty beaches, got to see where millions of Chiquita bananas come from, went through lush jungles and passed by beautiful volcanoes on our way to San Jose we were not inclined to change our mind. High prices and the omnipresence of all-inclusive tourism combined with our most recent lecture of 'Panama is the new and better Costa Rica' (ask any Panamanian and most backpackers who have visited both countries) we put Costa Rica on our 'come-back-when-we're-all-rich-and-grown-up' travel list instead. We had to wait in San Jose for 1.5 days until we could get our bus – enough time to explore the city a couple of times.

San Jose was without special appeal to us, as it had little, if any, touristic attractions and the street life was rather provincial after the metropolitan capitals that we had visited lately. A couple of plazas and small parks, very few impressive buildings (the national theater is quite the eye-catcher, though) and a pedestrian mall make up the downtown area. We walked around it a couple of times and got bored quite soon (and must have enjoyed it, as there is a number of museums that we just didn't take advantage of). The most excitement we got was when a building a block down from our hostel was on fire and almost burnt down to the ground. The firefighters were doing a great job, though, and got everything under control after an hour or so. No one was hurt in this incident and as far as people told us, the building was old and didn't belong to anyone, so we can honestly and without any guilt say that it was the best thing that happened to us in San Jose as we had something to watch for a couple of hours. (It even made national news, so we got to see it again in TV later during dinner...)

Water
The next day we left Costa Rica and went o north to Nicaragua. The boarder crossing was quite time consuming as every traveler's bag was searched and the officials took their time with handing out tourist cards. When we made it, we soon reached the shore of the Lago Nicaragua, a huge body of fresh water with waves that make it seem like a small ocean. In the distance we could see the majestic joint volcanoes that make up the Ometepe island while we drove through tiny villages, fields, herds of animals (both cows and pigs...), a windpark and beautiful forests before we reached our destination: Granada.

The Lonely Planet introduces Granada as Nicaragua's golden egg of tourism, and we found it to be just that. Luckily it is low season at the moment, so the beautiful colonial town was not crowded. We wandered around its streets that are lined with small old houses, visited the numerous churches and sat in the central park, eating huge 20 cent hot dogs (garnished with what we baptized 'the-weird-but-tasty-pickeled-stuff' as we never found out what it really was) while watching the colorful crowd of locals and tourists going by their business in front of the picturesque cathedral. We climbed a church tower to get an overview over the city and catch a glimpse of the two volcanoes that tower over it on the one side while the other side meets the shore of Lago Nicaragua and enjoyed the cool breeze eating typical Nica cuisine al fresco after nightfall. The atmosphere was very holiday-like with tons of relaxed people and a very laid back pace. To speed it up a little, we checked out the frenetic market where ten mangoes cost less than 50 cents and you can buy everything you never needed for less than a dollar – clothes, food, games, jewelery and everything in between.

Next we had planned on hiking up the active Masaya volcano at night – even though we were only half way up for it since we just recently had done something similar. Therefore the news of some bush fires on the volcano's slopes and the resulting closure of most of the hiking trails in the National Park didn't hit us that hard. We just decided to tour the 360 little islands that dot the water in front of Granada (Los Isletas) instead. Some of them are private and are owned by the rich and famous. They have beautiful villas, neat tropical gardens and show every sign of luxury – from yachts to helicopter landings. One island is inhabited by a special family: some spider monkeys live here since a couple of them were taken from their previous owners and put there by the government. By now there is a generation of monkeys that were actually born in the wild and since the monkeys cannot swim they just live on the little piece of land in the huge lake. After we had passed the monkey island we reached islands that are inhabited by local Nicas. Children passed us by in rowboats on their way to school and a family was bathing in the lake while fishermen tried their luck on the islands' shores. We stopped and visited a chief at his hut and he showed us around his garden where he grows tons of different types of fruits and veggies that he sells at the market in town. Inside his bare bone hut he proudly presented a small kitchen and we found evidence that women around the world are in fact the same: they love shoes. Before we parted from him, he invited us to a tasty coconut milk that we enjoyed while sharing travel stories. One of the guys from the tour talked about the great surfing at the southern pacific coast of Nicaragua – and made us change our travel plans in no time. Instead of going up to the north right away and go surfing in El Salvador we decided to take it slower and skip that country in favor of more time at other places and just get our surf-fix in San Juan del Sur.

It took us almost the whole day to make our way back there in local chicken buses and it was quite a ride – but once we got there, we were really glad about our decision. San Juan is a tiny seaside town (some might call it 'resort' but it's far too little developed for that) that sits in the middle of a picturesque horseshoe bay, flanked by highly photogenic cliffs and inhabited by a very welcoming and friendly crowd. There aren't any good waves directly in town as the water is too sheltered in the bay, but just a couple of km north and south of it, you'll find some of Nicaragua's finest breaks. So we got ourselves boards, shirts and some sunscreen and were off in the first beach shuttle we found. We had a great time, caught most of our waves quite well and even remembered the steering part after a while. Keeping in mind that this was the Pacific, not the warm, inviting ocean at white, soft sanded Kuta beach, we did a great job and only hurt ourselves a very few times – and let's face it, really: for us beginners, falling in and tumbling around is part of the fun.

Earth

After we've had a great time surfing in San Juan we went back north, passed by Granada again and headed towards Managua. We took the earliest bus there was as we were eager to get to Nicaragua's capital in the morning so we would have the whole day to explore the city before taking the bus up to Honduras the next day. We got to Managua around 9am and were ready to go – except everyone kept telling us not to go anywhere because it supposedly was too dangerous. We had to get out of the hotel, though, since we needed some money. Two friendly local hotel guests took us to the nearest ATM, just in case. They lead us through a labyrinth of small alleyways that were all spookishly calm and kept saying 'Don't go there, it is dangerous there!', 'Don't turn here, that street down there is dangerous!', 'Don't go to far into this direction, it is dangerous!'...We didn't even dare to ask what it actually is that makes those parts so dangerous, we just followed their guidance blindly. The ATM was at a smallish mall where the couple left us. We sat there, drinking a coffee to get over the whole 'shock' and then decided to just go watch a movie since we apparently couldn't go anywhere anyway. When the movie was over it was early afternoon. We walked back to the hotel, following exactly the same path that was shown to us as being safe (there was absolutely no reason not to feel safe, by the way, only all the talking of the people...sometimes ignorance is bliss and we somehow wished we hadn't talked to them before) – and then sat in our hotel room again. But we weren't ready to give up on our sightseeing quite yet. The Lonely Planet said something about the former central area of Managua, that was leveled to the ground during the great earthquake of 1972, and a couple of ruins and parks that could still be visited. We caught a cab to go there, even though it was just a couple of blocks away - we had been advised that walking was too dangerous. After we got off the cab and had walked down a closed street for about 100m, one of the hundreds of policemen that secured the area (as they do everwhere in town - they made us feel more uncomfortable instead of safer, though, with all their arms and stuff) stopped us and told us that we couldn't go anywhere in this area and had better leave. At first we tried to argue, than we tried to find a way around the closed zone to maybe see some sights from the other side – and then it started to pour and we just gave up. There really is a reason why most traveler's don't linger in Managua – there is just nothing to do for a tourist here. We caught a cab back to the hotel and went to bed early. It didn't matter much, as we had to get up really early the next morning anyway to catch our bus.
The next morning came, the alarm went off and – we missed our bus (for the first time on this trip, that's not so bad...). The next one went the next morning. Great. Another long day to spend in Managua. We went back to bed. When we got up again much later it was definitely time for some good breakfast and we went to a very good local cafe around the corner, ordered up some coffee, gallo tinto, eggs and tortillas and just got ready to dig in when for a very brief moment everything seemed to turn silent. Then, like a train that is coming ever closer, a thundering sound started, first quite silently but constantly turning louder and louder. And with it, the earth started moving. We, the furniture, the whole house – everything was moving from left to right, always a little stronger. Cooks and waitresses came out of the kitchen, people ran into the streets – and then it all stopped, just as quickly as it had begun. We had just experienced our first (and hopefully last, as it was a very scary experience) earthquake – a 6.5 on the Richter-scale as we learned later on. After that shock we went for a walk along our secured pathway and further up a heavily guarded hill from where we could see most of the city. There a only very few high buildings, everything is ducked away and the city lacksplazas or parks that could mark its center since everything was destroyed in the 70s. All in all it is just a very spread out accumulation of houses. The Lago Managua behind the city and the beautiful volcanoes along its far shore were a pretty sight, though. We walked back to the mall, watched another movie, caught a taxi to get to the next supermarket (how frustrating that you can't even do your grocery shopping without feeling unsafe and having to hop into a cab), cooked ourselves some dinner and were back in bed really early again. We have tried our best to enjoy Managua – it just wasn't for us. While we definitely fell in love with the other parts of Nicaragua that we've visited (we might even say it was the best country in Central America so far) we were now ready to leave and get to Honduras as soon as possible.