The last couple of weeks I have been mostly going to the beaches. The first beach I went to was Mal Pais. This is on the far southern point of the Nicoya peninsula. I went with some friends in their car and it was about a 5 hour drive to the beach. An American who used to live in Bagaces had just moved down to Mal Pais so we went to visit his new apartment. The waves on the beach were huge, some of the biggest I had seen yet, and it was fascinating watching the surfers take the waves. There was a really cool thatched roof bar and restaurant right on the beach and we enjoyed the view of the beach. The next morning we were going to try surfing, but due to a very late night and copious amounts of rain, we decided to bypass on surfing.

The next week another intern showed up where I work. He is from Canada and was really looking forward to surfing. The other Canadian in town also was interested in surfing, so the three of us decided to go to Tamarindo to go surfing. We were all total beginners, and when we were renting boards the guy at counter recommended that we take a "teacher". We didn't want to pay anything extra so we declined. Later we found out he actually said "T-shirt", but by that time we all had raw, red chests. At first surfing seemed impossible. It was very painful lying on a board and paddling all the time and it was extremely difficult to get the board turned around in time to catch a wave. I was out about two hours, developed huge cramps in my legs, swallowed gallons of salt water but only managed to catch a handful of waves. I went back to shore exhausted and very pessimistic about surfing. I rested for about an hour and then decided to give it one more shot. Luckily, it was now low tide, and I was able to put my feet down. This improved matters immensely. Now I could relax between waves and swing the board around quickly to catch a good wave. I learned that surfing is a whole lot of fun. By the end of the day I learned to catch the good waves and how to stand up and surf the wave out. I still can't control my direction and I fall off a lot but falling into the water is almost as fun as surfing. The other Canadians had a blast too, and the new intern actually bought a cheap surfboard at the beach.


The next weekend I biked to the nearby waterfall with the two other Canadians. It has been raining pretty strongly for the last month or so and the road into the waterfall was nearly impassable. There was a tourist bus and another car stuck in the mud. The waterfall itself was about three times more powerful than I had ever seen and the pool underneath was brown and full. I went swimming and managed to catch another cold. Maybe next time I will learn. After we went to Liberia to watch the Stanley Cup final. We managed to watch one period at a bar before soccer came on and we got kicked out.

The next week I managed to injure my knee somehow which significantly reduced my ability to play soccer. Unfortunately, it also happened that this was the week that they started the mini soccer tournament in the company where I work. This meant that I will be unable to defend my title from last year and will have to watch the tournament instead. My knee injury also meant that I couldn't go surfing either. I went with the other Canadians to Tamarindo again, but I was only able to body surf, which is still a lot of fun. The one Canadian managed to snap his board in two and he was not too happy so he joined me in body surfing.

Hopefully my knee will be healed soon so I can get back to soccer, as well as go surfing again. Oh, and here is a picture of my new pet, Killer, snuggling up on my pillow.

My bike has been slowly wearing down as I have been using it but it wasn't until I moved into Bagaces that it finally decided to stop working. This meant I had a nice 2 km walk into work for a couple of days while it was fixed. I had to get the whole back rims replaced as well as fix the brakes and the gears. It was like a brand new bike and I was so happy about having my bike back that I promptly ran over a tack, popped my tire and had to send it back to the shop. When I got it back the second time I decided to make use of my newly fixed bike and pedal to the nearby Palo Verde national park.

It was 20 km of very rocky gravel roads to the entrance of the park. The road passed through cow pastures, sugar cane and other types of farms. Despite the road it was a relatively easy ride with the wind at my back and more downhill slopes than uphill slopes as the road made its way down to the river. At the park entrance I picked up a map and headed 8km into the park where there was some trails, a campground and a research center. The research center had rooms for quite a few guests and there were quite a few people there. The marsh was almost completely dry because it is the end of the dry season. The park is famous for the huge numbers of water birds that migrate here however it gets too dry for them in March and they all leave. So I missed out on the birds but I managed to see a group of spider monkeys hanging out in a mango tree. This was the first time I had seen spider monkeys and they amused me by swinging around on their long arms and tails and trying to threaten me by throwing branches and mangoes down on me. One even tried to pee on me but luckily they didn't have very good aim. I continued 2km to the river that is the base of the park. There was a big sign by the dock warning about crocodiles but I didn't see any lounging around on the shore. There were some things in the water far away but I couldn't tell if they were animate or not. On the way back I passed the mango tree again but it was now full of capuchin or white monkeys. Having seen howler monkeys earlier at the research center I had now seen all three types of monkeys in Palo Verde. I also saw hundreds of iguanas swarming around the campsites, a couple of coatimundi and some deer. The way back was much more difficult than I was prepared for. Not only was I very tired not being used to biking for such a long distance, but it was against a strong wind with many painful uphill stretches. The trip that took less than 2 hours getting to Palo Verde stretched to almost 4 hours returning and I was relieved to get back to the house. My bike managed to survive the trip intact, however on Monday morning I woke up to find my other tire was flat. I had to walk yet again to work. In this case I was glad to avoid the bike for the day.

The next weekend was a long weekend due to the Mayday holiday. Six of us from Bagaces decided to go to Nicaragua for the weekend and visit the island of Ometepe. The island consists of twin volcanoes rising from Lake Nicaragua. The taller volcano is named Concepcion and is one of the most active volcanoes in Central America. It's cone is bare of trees and you can often see smoke coming from the peak. The other volcano is slightly smaller but is dormant. It is covered in a cloud forest and has a crater lake at the top. To get to the island requires an hour long boat ride across Lake Nicaragua. The lake was quite choppy and the rickety ferry had water rushing in the sides, soaking shoes if you weren't careful. The ferry was packed and there seemed to be a significant lack of life jackets in the boat. However this was offset by the safety feature of signing our names on a list of passengers, preventing them from losing anyone. We managed to arrange a ride to our hostel from a guy on the boat with a pickup truck on the island. The island was very tranquil and rustic with cows, pigs, chickens, horses and goats freely wandering across the road. Our hostel was near the smaller, safer volcano and it was just as rustic. It was right on the lake and we went swimming as the sun set across the water.

The next day I arranged a guided trip to the top of the volcano through the hostel. I went with another Canadian from Oakville who just moved to Bagaces a week ago and is staying about 8 months while he does a co-op program from university. The first stretch was relatively flat across cow pastures. As we entered the forest the path started to steepen. The forest changed from dry tropical forest to rain forest jungle to cloud forest. When we got to the cloud forest the trail became extremely steep. Sometimes it was almost vertical as we climbed exposed roots and wet muddy clay. At the top it was too cloudy to see much but ever once and a while the cloud would clear just enough to see the blue lake in the middle of the forested crater. The climb down gave great views of the other volcano across the length of the island and it was very refreshing to swim in the lake at the end. On the return trip we didn't have a ride. It was much longer 2 hour bus ride with a transfer in the middle. We didn't get back to Bagaces until after dark.

Honduras IV

I awoke at 5am on Easter Sunday and I had to decide where I was going to go. I wanted to see the Caribbean coast and there were a number of different towns that I had to choose from, as well as the beautiful Bay Islands which are famous for their scuba diving. I didn't have time to visit the islands so I decided to visit the town of Tela.

I found a cheap bus to the city of San Pedro Sula. However, the reason it was cheap was because it stopped for anyone who wanted to get on or off. This made the trip much longer than it would have been but I didn't mind too much. One time the bus stopped and everyone started staring out the window. At first it looked like a traffic accident but the only truck I saw seemed to be parked on the grass undamaged. Then I realized there were two bodies lying on the grass. I imagine it must have been a gang execution and these two had tried to get out of their vehicle and run into the field. The bus stayed for a few minutes until a police officer arrived and started to check on the bodies. It was a grim reminder of the problems in Honduras.

I switched buses in San Pedro Sula and headed to Tela. Apparently I was the only one on the bus going to this town because we passed right by the town when I wasn't paying attention. I ended up having to walk a couple of kilometers back to the town in the hot sun. The town was right on the beach and it was full of Hondurans enjoying the holidays. After finding a cheap place on the beach with a very friendly owner, I went to find a place to rent a bike so I could pedal to some nearby Garifuna Indian villages. The Garifunas are an interesting mix of escaped slaves and Indians that intermarried more than 200 years ago and created their own culture and language. Unfortunately, none of the places listed in the guide book had bikes anymore so I ended up walking on the beach. The beach stretched on endlessly and walking barefoot on the flat sand was a relief compared to the steep mountain I had just been climbing. Its too bad that I didn't have much time left because I was interested in exploring the tens of kilometers of beaches that continue past Garifuna villages and large natural preserves. However I had to turn back to get to the town before dark. I found a small restaurant on the top of small hill overlooking the town just in time to watch the sunset over the ocean. The food in the restaurant was really good and I met a Canadian family eating in the restaurant. The daughter was living in San Pedro Sula teaching English and her parents came down to visit her for Semana Santa. They were enjoying their visit even though they had been robbed at gunpoint on the day they arrived. They were being extra careful and seemed to really like Honduras. Most of the travelers and Hondurans that I met in Honduras mentioned that Canadian travelers are very common but this family were the only Canadians I met. After eating I went exploring the town. I found a bar where they were showing the movie '300' on a projection screen, so I got time to try out the 4 different kinds of Honduran beer. After the movie was over I made my way over to a nearby dance club where I listened to a lot of the same type of music that they play in Costa Rica. Some of the songs I had never heard before but the main difference wasn't the music. Every half hour or so, a patrol of about 6 or 7 soldiers carrying large automatic weapons would come in, walk around the bar, watch the dancing for a while, and then file out. Given that Costa Rica doesn't even have an army and I rarely see police in a dance club, I definitely knew I was in a different country.

The next day I had to start making the long trip back to Costa Rica. I decided to head to Comayagua, a colonial city on the way back to the capital Tegucigalpa. I stopped in the town of El Porvenir (The Future) which seemed to be growing fast with many new developments, lots of American fast food outlets and a Pepsi plant. Unfortunately there was no buses to Comayagua until 5, so I headed back to San Pedro. I found the international bus station and I booked a bus from Tegucigalpa to Managua, Nicaragua for the next day. Then I took a bus to Comayagua. It was a pretty bus ride through the mountains, passing a scenic lake where the street peddlers were selling fresh fish to the bus passengers instead of the usual chips and pops. I finally arrived in Comayagua after dark and took a taxi to the central park. I was sitting in the park enjoying the beautifully ornate cathedral and trying to figure out where I was going to stay for the night when I was approached by three Honduran women. They had noticed me sitting in the park and wondered if I wanted a tour of the city. At first I assumed they were part of city tourism, but I realized they were just regular citizens. One was studying civil engineering in the local university and the other two worked in a bank. They found me a nice hotel to stay in and the student, who had a car, took me on a tour of the entire city. The city was formerly the capital of Honduras until the wife of the President was insulted by the city officials and convinced the President to move the capital to Tegucigalpa. This move actually helped preserve the colonial feel of the city and it has a number of very beautiful cathedrals and plazas. We were even allowed to enter the main cathedral which was full of intricate gilded statues. It is also famous for having the oldest working clock in the Americas. It was built by the Moors in the 12th century and given as a gift by Spain. The driver obviously was having trouble concentrating on both the tour and the driving because she managed to hit the curb, go the wrong way down a narrow one way street, and almost hit a bicyclist all in the first minutes of the tour. But I managed to survive the tour and I got to see a lot more of Comayagua than I had expected.

The next day I had to leave very early in the morning because I had to be on the bus leaving from Tegucigalpa at 9am. The Tica Bus that I was taking is very popular with foreign travelers because it is easier, faster and more comfortable than other buses. I sat beside a guy who was living and studying in Puntarenas, Costa Rica and had went to the Bay Islands in Honduras to scuba dive. I also met a girl from Guelph who was traveling across Central America and planning to spend a couple months working with the turtles in Costa Rica. The border crossing was very easy and the trip was long enough to watch 3 movies. I only had about $15 left to cross Nicaragua, so I had to be frugal, but I didn't want to spend the night in Managua so I caught the bus to Granada where I stayed at the familiar Bearded Monkey hostel. I caught the bus the next day to the border. I was hoping that by arriving on a Wednesday I would avoid the long lines at the border, although it was not to be. The border was less busy than before, but it still took 3 hours to cross. Even after crossing, there were huge lines waiting for a bus. Luckily they called more buses and the wait wasn't more than an hour or two. I finally arrived back in Bagaces where it was raining for the first time in three months. I had managed to avoid getting rained on the entire trip, even during my trek through the cloud forest and the rainy Caribbean beach, but here I was getting wet in bone-dry Bagaces. I didn't mind one bit.