Category: Nicaragua

As we say goodbye to our seventh country, we’re starting to hit similar climatic territory, and making strategic decisions with our time and money. There’s a few main things we skipped in Nicaragua, especially as this country seems to be at the start of its tourism boom, and tourists realise all the wonderful places on offer here. Talk to any backpacker and suddenly you find out about x and y that is just amazing! No doubt this will only grow for Nicaragua and we’ll wonder why we didn’t go to x or y before it got ruined.

Well actually, what we’ve come to realise is that it is not only all relative to what you like as a person, but what your route is. If you’ve seen a bunch of waterfalls, are you really going to do an expensive dog-leg to see yet another one? If you’ve been to, and have more gorgeous beaches to come, are you going to spend your entire country budget flying to a gorgeous island? If you’re about to see an active volcano, are you about to take a shuttle-boat-bike one way to climb an inactive one? We’re getting more confident in prioritising our sanity and our budget, at the potential expense of missing the next big thing.

This is merely to reassure our future selves that what we missed, we missed for good reasons for us at this time. That we skipped anything is no reflection at all on those locations, we continue to hear amazing things of places we skipped, and that’s fine with us. You can’t see or do it all!

So, about our time here. Well it really was nothing that we expected. Our expectations were that after Costa Rica we would essentially go back to ‘familiar’ ground like South America, but poorer. I thought political instability would have slowed down development here, but I couldn’t have been further from the truth. Nicaragua has been greener, more beautiful, more expensive, with more history, more culture, more stunning beaches, and so much more variety and things to do than I ever imagined or knew it had going for it. Also a lot hotter. When we arrived to Granada, from the naturally abundant but culturally less-so Costa Rica, we were pleasantly surprised with how clean, pretty, and colonial-esque it was.

If only the price tags hadn’t increased far beyond my expectations as well! Which I hope is a good thing for the country, but everyone we’ve met has been surprised by how expensive it has been here, after all, we’re not in Costa Rica anymore. It’s a fine balance between tourists accepting a good fleecing for an experience, and just choosing to go somewhere more affordable. There’s plenty of people on the ground here ready to tap into the burgeoning tourist market, but the prices already feel far beyond their worth. We’ve been in a fair range of Latin-American countries now. This has felt like the first cheap country where we’ve had to live expensively (as in, paying well over the odds for something that, in real terms, costs hardly anything), like you’re getting charged Costa Rican prices when wages, services and goods cost nothing like what they do there that ‘justify’ those prices.

Another surprise has been the lack of any middle-of-the-road mode of transport. Here, your only travel options seem to be on a $2 ‘chicken bus’ (where again, there are ample scams of people being charged double the locals), an extremely pricey private shuttle (minivan) or an over-priced shared shuttle. How we miss South American luxury coaches at affordable prices.

And so it’s a tricky one. It’s been nothing like we expected, in good and bad ways. It was a lovely breath of Latin-American air after Costa Rica, but admittedly now we’re in Guatemala we realise just how far the country still has to go to compete with its northern neighbours on the tourism front. That said, we seem to be at the beginning of the boom, where perhaps there isn’t enough competition to even things out, or maybe it’ll end up like Costa Rica. A lot depends on the government I fear, and Antonio hints that the Nicaragua us tourists see isn’t the full situation, with much of the population still living in poverty and unemployment. Another wait and see for which way the pendulum swings here, and how much tourism grows and keeps feeding into the economy in the meantime.

Rule of Three

Highlights (Alex): Eden, seeing lava, sitting on the vast beaches watching the sun go down and the stars come up with a rum and coke in hand

HIghlights (James): Eden experience, hunting lava at dusk, getting thrown around in the waves of the Pacific Ocean

Lowlights (Alex): getting in my head too much in Popoyo, our hosts being friendly and unwelcoming at the same time, our shuttle driver who hadn’t slept and drove like a lunatic out of the country

Lowlights (James): A bit of a mood dip at Popoyo, chafing on the long walk along the beach, fellow travellers shouting conversation at each other the entire long ride from Granada to Leon

Takeaways (Alex): there’s still hope for me yet. Central America has become hugely more expensive in the last few years, it’s not just Costa Rica anymore. Further exposure to the extent of US government influence and power on Latin America, and the impact of those actions still prevalent to this day.

Takeaways (James): Nicaragua was fine but if anyone is visiting Cental America for a holiday there are better options with more interesting activities, even if you have to pay more. Yoga retreats have a lot more to offer than just a bit of downward dog. It’s OK to feel deflated/tired/anxious while traveling, as lucky as we are to do this, there are still challenges and I shouldn’t feel guilty about that.

Description (Alex): more expensive than you think, glorious untapped beaches, not what you expect

Description (James): worth a visit if travelling long term, if not possibly a skip. Surprisingly expensive. Hot.

Entertainment

TV & Film: All Quiet on the Western Front, Black Mirror, The King

Books: The Dark Tower Series – The Gunslinger

Podcasts: More or Less, Criminal, This Is Love, Infinite Monkey Cage, Science VS, Freakonomics, Talk of the Devils, You’re Dead to Me, Eden on the Chocolata, Behind the Bastards

Where we stayed:

A new segment where we thought we would like to keep track of where we stayed and give an honest rating.

Hotel Il Padrino (Granada) ⭐️ 4.5

Aloha Bungalows (Popoyo) ⭐️ 2

Eden on the Chocolata (San Juan del Sur) ⭐️ 5

Harvest House (Leon) ⭐️ 1.5

Cutting Room Floor

• Horse and carts still a viable mode of transport
• A guy walking his bull down the road like any other vehicle
• Cats in small spaces
• Seeing men slowly struggle to pedal their tuc-tucs with passengers going no faster than a walk, trying to consolidate the unfairness of it alongside knowing this gives them money when maybe they can’t in other ways for whatever reason?
• It’s not just British tourists that can be loud and obnoxious, yes I’m looking at you loud shuttle Germans
• Luna, the cat, jumping out from the pedal bin. No idea how she got in there still!
• The nose snort seems to be spreading, even a Brit was doing it on our shuttle!
• Sand flies are actually fleas, and unlike animal fleas they live on humans
• Walking into Eden and my first meeting of Chelsea is as she does a bomb into the pool to soak fellow-Edener Jack. Awesome first impressions!
• Seeing another Edener light up as she talked about trying to be the best aunt for her neice, so heart-warming.
• Damn dogs. Damn fighting cats. Damn cockerells.
• Siren going off at 8am and midday in Leon on Sunday, why?
• Bumping into the frenchies from Popoyo in the street
• Meeting a British couple, Sacha and Paul who were doing the opposite route and trading tips and currency
• Thinking we were smuggling a young woman across the borders, when actually it was just because you need to give 7 days’ notice for Honduras and she hadn’t done it. So still smuggling, but not nearly for as nefarious reasons as we worried about!

A car on a flat-bed truck on another flat-bed truck:

If I fits, I sits:

Why did the chicken cross the road?:

Chasing lava:

Skies:

Night-shots:

The cute little black kitten who joined the family when we arrived and we had to trick Luna so she wouldn’t steal the food we wanted to give the kitten:

Views from Eden:

The garden and cat at Harvest House:

Being ready for our 2am pickup:

19 hour shuttle bus ride from Nicaragua, through Honduras, stopping off at a garage to change the brakes, through El Salvador, finally into Guatemala:

After Eden, we start our rather long journey up to Guatemala in two parts. The first part involves a shuttle bus up to Leon, killing a day there, before the second leg all the way through Honduras and El Salvador to Guatemala in one go.

Our shuttle to Leon is smooth, excluding some incredibly loud gringos from Selina (a hostel that is highly promoted on social media but seems to attract the worst tourists), and we treat ourselves to a giant 18″ pizza, breadsticks, and an accidental 2 litre jug of iced tea!

Unfortunately the one full day we have in Leon happens to be a Sunday, which means the one museum I want to see is shut. The other main attraction is to go volcano boarding, but we decide to skip this one. After all, in two days we will be walking up and back down one. So, that leaves me with the trusty free walking tour.

James decides to skip it, there’s football to watch, and he’s a bit bored of them anyway, so football provides a good excuse! My guide for today is called Antonio, a Nicaraguan-born, Costa Rican-raised returnee, and our 21 strong group consists of predominantly Dutch and Germans. Antonio teaches us about the geography and history of the country, and takes us around the food market to try some local food. Here’s a roundup of some of the info.

We start with the basics;

• The name Nicaragua means “Land surrounded by water”.
• It has 16 volcanoes, of which 7 are active.
• Nicaragua has two of the largest rivers in Central America, Rio Coco and San Juan.
• It has the only lake in the world with sharks in it, it’s that big!
• Nicaragua also has the largest island in a lake, Ometepe, which is basically two volcanoes rising from the water, and a place most tourists rave about.
• Nicaragua has the third most important forest reserve, although Antonio tells us the government isn’t doing enough to protect it from logging and deforestation.
• The Panama canal was meant to happen in Nicaragua, geographically its a much better option, but due to civil unrest and volcanic activity it didn’t happen and so it happened in Panama instead.
• The main income for Nicaragua comes from agriculture, with their main export being tobacco and cigars. In fact the tobacco that Cuba uses in its cigars comes from here!
• The following biggest exports are gold, silver, and then leather.

Now, onto the history.

Before the Spaniards got here, it’s estimated that there were 1.1m indigenous people. After their arrival, only 50 thousand remained. Due to its rather strategic position right in the middle, the Brits, Dutch, Spaniards, and French all had a go at taking it.

In 1812, the first university was established here (above). This will become important later.

Unlike in South America, they got their independence from Spain without having to fight for it, kind of by defacto when Guatemala claimed it in 1821.

Skip over to the typical jostling of powers leftover fighting to become the ones in power (sounds familiar to Colombia!). The Conservative folks in Granada would battle the Liberal folks in Leon. Those Liberals were damn well fed up with the Imperialism imposed on Central America (the Brits had the Caribbean coast at this point! Who knew!), and so they brought in William Walker from the USA, a la ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’ and someone who was seen to be anti-imperialism himself. Except he was a pretty bad guy, who then basically claimed power for himself and brought back slavery. This actually managed to be the thing that united the warring factions, again a la ‘the enemy of my enemy is my friend’, and so the previously at odds parties (and other countries) came together to defeat their common enemy, Mr Walker’s party. This is why the capital of the country isn’t in either Granada or Leon, which were the main cities of each group, but rather Managua, a city in the middle, as a compromise from both sides.

Skip forward again to the first of decades of horrendous actions from the USA. Now, this is all simplified and truncated, and with all the tour posts, I strongly encourage you to read up on this yourself. Also, history is often written by the victors, but much of what follows seems faiely agreed upon by those outside the current ruling party.

Firstly, did you know that the USA occupied Nicaragua from 1909 to 1933? This was done to ‘protect their citizens in the country’, but they also happened to get the rights to the canal and some valuable leases along the way of ‘protecting their citizens’, hmmm. Cue another civil war, where a pact was formed. One person disagreed with it, a General Sandino, who fled, formed a guerrilla army, and fought against the government and US Marines who had basically been taking advantage of the actual Nicaraguans who lived there for decades.

The USA physically left in 1933, leaving behind a military armed and trained by them to be loyal to US interests (also sounds familiar eh). A man called Somoza was put in charge, who happened to be a loyal friend to the US government. Our ex-General Sandino agreed a ceasefire, but Somoza later ordered his assassination. Below, and in the subsequent murals, you’ll see Sandino’s shadowy figure, as whilst he wasn’t alive to be part of the Sandinista revolutionaries, he was the spark that created the fire of what was to come years later:

Somoza takes power, basically gives himself absolute power, and puts his family and friends also into power (this also sounds familiar doesn’t it). He sets things up for a permanent dictatorship and indeed it is his sons who succeed him after his death. During his time, he gives many favours to the USA, and they in turn give him lots of money. Once again, the USA is taking advantage of the country, taking its land, its resources, and polluting the land, at the expense of the people that had lived or did live there.

On the right of the picture above there is a piece of paper with a pistol on top. This is to symbolize a Nicaraguan poet who left behind his “suicide note”, before assassinating Somoza and being gunned down himself. In his note he says he understands the sacrifice he must make of his life to liberate Nicaragua from Somoza. He is basically a martyr to the cause. Unfortunately the sons take power and are even more American than their father.

Now back to that university that had been educating people for over a hundred years. It was one of these students that started the FSLN, known as the Sandinistas, named after our old General Sandino. The revolutionaries have been gathering forces for a while in exile, seeing what’s happening in Cuba, being inspired and supported by them from afar. These two murals again show the shadow of Sandino standing atop the head of the USA and also the Somoza family.

More jostling happens until eventually, after a huge earthquake destroys 90% of the capital Managua, and the Somozas siphon relief money, the Sandinistas take power. They then get democratically elected, the people finally get their power back…

Unfortunately for the Sandinistas, a socialist party, this also coincides with the USA’s crackdown on the “communist threat”, even though the Sandinistas were fairly elected into power. Knowing the history, you can understand why the people would lean left after all they’d been through under Somoza and the abuses to the everyday people. But no, no, no. Democracy is only democracy when the people vote for the ideology the USA agrees with.

So, time for the USA to get involved again, at the expense of real people with actual lives, by imposing sanctions, and arming and funding the “Contras” in an effort to stop Nicaragua turning and staying full red. The Contras (and Sandinistas to be fair) are known for committing human rights violations, and this period is bloody, brutal and terribly sad. I think it’s fair to say this would not have happened were it not for CIA involvement and backing of the destablising Contras.

In 1982, Congress legislates to finally stop funding the Contras, but the Reagen Administration keeps funding them via a loophole through Iran (look up Iran-Contra Affair for even more next-level ‘What the …?!’). In 1984, Daniel Ortega, a member of the FSLN party gets elected. In 1986, the USA are ordered by the International Court of Justice and the UN General Assembly to pay Nicaragua $12 billion in reparations for their ‘meddling’ of the Contra-Sandinista war (spoiler, they never paid, look this up as well if you want to despair even more at international politics). In 1988, there is finally a ceasefire between the Contras and Sandinistas. In 1990, rule shifts back over to the middle-right, until Ortega and the FSLN are re-elected into power in 2006.

However, our guide tells us it’s become fairly evident that the current FSLN government run by Ortega is repeating history by behaving as Somoza did in its actions against any opposition. From one government that became authoritarian to another. The current government, that leant so much into its rebellious and (quite understandably) anti-USA roots, now no longer having this to rely on, seems to be going the way of ruling by fear and exiling its opposition, rather than leading by doing a good job. As many Latin Americans tell me from years of experience, the pendulum just keeps swinging.

Antonio sums up this swinging for centuries, and the butterfly effect of international politics. The USA gained independence from the UK. This kicked off the French revolution and making of the Republic. This inspired the people of Latin America to revolt against their Spanish rule. A university is founded. The USA protect their ‘assets’, imposing a corrupt and authoritarian government. The students learn of a better way of life and fight for it. They tip the scales back to giving power back to the people who lived there and were let down for so long. The USA puts sanctions in place to make this as difficult as possible. The party in power struggles to undo the decades or centuries of disempowerment, divestment and literal poisoning of its people by previous ruling parties. People blame the ideology, but really, do any of these parties have a chance? They end up resorting to the same terrible means to remain in power themselves as their predecessors. Whether this is related or not, whilst education is free in Nicaragua, it isn’t obligatory, and so many children don’t go to school, and even less go to university.

Who swings the pendulum back the other way?

Does the pendulum keep swinging?

A video I subsequently watch points out that the USA is kicking off about migration from Central America, when arguably it’s the USA that made life in these countries so difficult for so long, and why the USA contains so many diaspora in the first place. Of course the people want to go there, be safe with their relatives, and be somewhere not trying to undo decades of turmoil. I think back to the point of our guide from Arequipa… if you want people to stop migrating from somewhere, make where they come from better. Nicaragua seems to be enjoying some kind of stability, and as a tourist, you’re golden, but it seems more blind eyes need to be turned to really think things are fine for the people that live here.

And that’s the history lesson, not complete, but over for now. The rest of the tour we spend in the food market trying some local food, such as various items filled with cheese, some nacho-like crisps, some sugar-based snacks (there are a lot of these!), a bread and cake like bite, and a cinnamon-based drink.

I think this is just some nice art showing the full Nicaraguan history. The elegant man is a famous Nicaraguan poet:

Post tour, I go to find James in a sports bar watching the match whilst locals get drunk at 11:30am to overly-loud karaoke music, largely featuring Abba!

That evening we’re getting picked up at 2am to begin our mammoth journey spanning four countries by shuttle bus, so we stock up on snacks and are in bed by 7pm. Maybe I’ll make James a morning person after all!

************

Adventure – going to a sports bar at 10:30am and ordering a beer as it was the same price as a soda.

Excitement – Being cold again thanks to aircon for the first time in a while.

Trauma – The divide to the toilet from our bed being a shower curtain. The driver of our shuttle out of Nicaragua, who drove so erratically we were flung around the inside of the van and couldn’t sleep despite it being the middle of the night. He then told a border guard he hadn’t slept as had been driving through the night to pick us up. He also undoubtedly charged us over the odds for ‘border fees’, before we ended up in a garage to fix the brakes.

Eden on the Chocolata is not just a hotel, but a yoga retreat. It was one of the only ‘affordable’ ones we could find, and availability was really limited, which meant we could only wedge in three nights. We had to do a higgledy piggledy route around Nicaragua to see stuff in the north before heading back down south to it, before leaving the country from the north again. But oh how it was all worth it, and I’m really grateful to James for not just suggesting it, but being up for it. Even when it meant dancing around like lunatics at 8am! In this post you’ll get to hear from both of us, for reasons that I think will become clear.

But first, a round up of the pictures and our itinerary of what turned out to be way more than a quick yoga retreat.

Day 1

• Welcome from Samana and fruit smoothie
• Get settled into our huge cabin, a palace compared to our Aloha shack!
• Meet Chelsea and Jack in the beautiful pool
• Enjoy a quick swim
• Receiving a warning about the intensity of the upcoming breath workshop and how we must go ‘all in’ to get the most out of it…
• Breathing workshop with Remy, one of the founders of the retreat
• Family-style three-course dinner meeting everyone else
• Finding a scorpion in our bed frame

Day 2

• Yoga at 7:30am, learn how to do warrior poses correctly and stretch muscles we didn’t know we had
• Delicious fresh fruit, cooked breakfast and juice
• Call to wish Heather a Happy Birthday from the yoga shala
• Laze about by the pool, practice getting comfortable getting my head under water, practice jumping in the water (where James doesn’t let go of my hand this time 😜)
• Head over to The Space hostel opposite for an unhealthy lunch of schnitzel, burger, chips and frappuccino
• Read and chillout in a giant loveseat in The Space
• Back to Eden for a Cacao Ceremony run by Samana, writing down and throwing things we want to let go into the fire, sharing vulnerabilities
• Another wonderful 3-course dinner
• Early to bed

Day 3

• ‘Freestyle Friday’ yoga at 7:30, including a dance around the shala
• Wonderful brekkie
• James checks out the ‘jungle gym’ and calls John back home, I finish The Gunslinger (book)
• More swims and lazing around
• Back to The Space for unhealthy pizza, club sandwich and a brownie, swim about in their pool
• Wind-down yoga at the shala
• 3-course dinner of chickpea curry
• Play Bananagrams (James won)

Day 4

• Final morning yoga session including doing the splits!
• Last family breakfast
• Saying goodbye to all the wonderful people we met
• Onto León…

My Experience (Alex)

For some reason (my money is on a consistent lack of proper sleep), my mental health at Popoyo wasn’t at its best. Falling back into negative thought patterns and unsure how to get out of them. Thankfully, our trip to Eden provided a perfectly timed opportunity to break down not just my negative thoughts from Popoyo, but potentially a lifetime of them.

Our breathwork workshop with Remy involved learning about the benefits of nasal breathing, a couple of different breathing exercises to either wake you up or calm you down, and a round of holotropic breathing. If anyone saw the BBC series with Wim Hoff, it’s the part of that where everyone lays on their backs, hyperventilates, the facilitator gives you affirming statements, some people have breakdowns wailing and sobbing, and you scream into the air. Repeat. The experience can cause some people to hallucinate, and can make you feel physically uncomfortable. Remy gave us some tips for what to do if we want to control our experience… but we’re only here once, and after Popoyo, it was time to go all in. Whilst I didn’t hallucinate, the rest followed much of the celebrities on the BBC series. It provided not just a physical relief (by crying and screaming) but a mental one, having some profound realisations about myself, and also how fortunate I am having James in my corner. At the end, Remy brought us back to ‘ground’ telling us to visualise someone we were grateful for, someone we love, and someone we forgave. As I sat up, I realised the physical effects the breathing had had, as though I had been out drinking and unable to co-ordinate myself or stand up. Nothing to do then but crawl over to James, have a big hug, and watch the amazing scene in front of us of the sunset yellow haze, the birds gliding around, the waves rolling into the bay, as the levels of whatever in our brain returned to normal and I began to process what I’d experienced. What a first day!

The second profound experience for me was at the cacao ceremony run by Samana. We sat around the fire pit, flowers strewn around, as she lovingly poured cacao into mugs and handed them out to each of us. It had a bitter taste to it that was nothing like a hot chocolate, but was filling and tasty. If yesterday was about realising my own worth and strength in undo-ing a lifetime of poor mental pathways, this day was about realising the work to be done to finding those new pathways to self-love. Our time was spent with Samana and some of the rest of our group asking profound questions, such as our takeaways from our time there, our greatest moment in our lives, our biggest fear, and who we are grateful for, and each member of the group providing their answers. Everyone was so open and vulnerable in their answers, it was kind of contagious. To steal a comment from Chelsea in our group, these are normally the kinds of deep and meaningful conversations you might have at 2am in the kitchen after a long night partying on your substance of choice, and here we all were sharing such deep vulnerabilities after nothing more than some cocoa. Samana explains how much care and love she puts into making the cacao drink, to pass that on to us all who receive it. It’s something she drinks every day, and reading up about it later, I find out cacao does also have some physical benefits to it.

Alongside these two profound experiences, it was just a magical space to be in and wonderful to have a yoga teacher like Samana not just improve my understanding of how to hold certain poses, but in opening up our spiritual sides, and an example of blissful calm and true self-confidence in your skin. The ‘confessions’ of our group also showed how much we all have in common, with shared fears and concerns. One share from a member of our group is one I particularly wanted to include, from someone who had found the troubles and sadness of the world overwhelming and wandering how they can make any difference. Their advice. Start local. Smile at a cashier, talk to a neighbour, don’t underestimate the power of the little things.

So that’s where I am now. Still with a lot of work to do, but with a renewed hope and perspective on how to get there, rewiring those pathways, with my best cheerleader by my side (and this blog!), serving as a reminder for all that I can be.

James’s Experience

First the breath workshop. Very interesting stuff, some nasal breathing exercises similar to what we’ve learned at Chasing Lights combined with the methods made famous by Wim Hof.

Remy believes in the importance of nasal breathing so much that he tapes his mouth shut at night to ensure he breathes through his nose while sleeping (do not try this at home).

My healthy stress release is running, my unhealthy one is drinking booze!

Right then, the main event. The Holotropic breathing was one of the most intense experiences of my life, both physically and mentally. This practice digs deep into the mind palace… some rooms you love to revisit, happy memories with loved ones, friends and family, thoughts of hope, joy and bliss; other rooms have had their doors closed for a long time, memories of rejection, trauma, depression and anxiety thoughts of sadness, fear and guilt.

During all of this is an orator reminding me between tracks of elevating music that this isn’t supposed to be easy. You need to put in the hard yards and feel uncomfortable to be born again. I now see why we were warned about this experience.

Compared to some people who do this practice to relieve deep psychological scars, I didn’t feel like I had a burden of trauma that needed to be processed. I’ve got pretty good at dealing with my demons and I’ve been blessed with a loving family and great friends. I’m at a much better time in my life than I have been in the past.

It was moving though, a mental marathon, ploughing through acres of memories. Feeling like you’ve been through the ringer and thrown out the other side. I went as deep as I dared to go and still feel comfortable, my hands and feet felt really numb so I had to come down a bit and revert to the less intense nasal breathing. I screamed, I cried, I felt like something had been released even if I didn’t know quite what it was. 34 years of experiences and memories processed in one intense hour.

During the practice we had to choose a happy thought, I thought of a group hug with my Mum, Dad and Sister. A thought of someone we love, I thought of Alex smiling on a sunny beach. A thought of someone to forgive, I forgave myself for all of the times I’d been my own worst enemy.

After it was over, I slowly crawled over to Alex and embraced her as we watched the beautiful sun set, both of us with damp eyes, clearer minds and elevated spirits.

Cacao Ceremony

I enjoyed throwing something into the fire I wanted to let go of, as we sat around the warm fire pit and sipped the delicious cacao.

It was a beautiful and moving experience to share what are often our most private and sacred thoughts and fears with a group full of strangers. Speaking about things in front of Alex that I’d always been too scared or ashamed to say before. Even the most confident, self-assured people have anxieties, regrets and fears. There was a commonality between all of us around that campfire, from all walks of life and everyone’s personal history, the good, the bad and the ugly.

I said I was grateful to be travelling, to have this opportunity to see the world, meet amazing people and embark on new experiences.

My takeaway from Eden is to be more in touch with my spiritual side. A lot of my ways of dealing with mental health back home are physical, going for a run or to the gym etc. Sometimes all it takes is some nasal breathing and a minute of inner reflection.

The best moment in my life was to keep going when the storm clouds gathered, when I was down I knew if I just kept going that the dark would eventually turn to light. From that I’ve been able to enjoy a marathon, a triathlon, drinks with friends, holidays, adventures with my family, meeting Alex and many, many more moments.

My biggest fear is not having the confidence to be myself and looking back with regrets about this.

Something that makes me unique is getting people involved. Whether that’s bringing friends and family to a running crew or simply rallying the troops for a night out.

The thing I love most about myself is my willpower, it’s how I got through the bad times to enjoy the good and here I am loving life on this trip of a lifetime.

***********

Adventure – Exploring The Space, floating about in the pools, exploring parts of our minds we hadn’t explored before

Excitement – Staying in a room we can stand up in, having an actual wardrobe!, the amazing food (and eating everyone’s leftovers)

Trauma – The hotel worker bashing the scorpion with a padlock, bludgeoning it’s tail off after promising to ‘ethically remove it’.

We had a yoga retreat booked for the latter end of January, which meant finding somewhere to kill time. What better place to do this than by one of the many amazing beaches that line the west coast.

Our days here involve little variation from reading, researching next steps, playing games, lolling about, sunbathing, hiding from the sun, watching the sun go down over the pacific with rum and coke in hand, paddling in the sea, diving through the waves and running or walking along the beach. Meaning there’s little to blog about this time, just a few worthy mentions and photos.

Staying in a tiny palm-leaf roofed hut, probably our smallest accommodation so far.

Finding out one of the owners used to work at Brixton Academy and lived in Central London and Brighton whilst he was studying. He has a friend who lives in Old Street Studios, literally down the road from us.

Meeting various super-friendly people, including Gabi at Castaways, a gringo at the shop, who tells us about pineapples and iced cookies (which are essentially fridged alfajores and very nice), Adam from Putney who bought a plot of land years ago and built the Castaways bar, Marion from Switzerland who had 5 weeks off work to enjoy and explore Nicaragua.

Trying to time swims in the sea with the small waves, only to get wiped out a few times in some absolute monsters.

Enjoying and battling the many cats of the property who had taken the bar as their own.

Seeing a sunset like no other, with a haze of grey, yellow and pink instead of the usual rainbow.

Finding the night-shot setting on my phone and getting carried away trying to take it all in

Rum

Sunset dogs

Horses galloping along the shore

Sandcastles and drawings

Finally getting a ripe papaya:

The pool

The toilet door being guarded by this crab, claw raised, “you shall not pass”

All the endless, empty beach views:

And never getting tired of sunsets, seeing the bright, orange yolk of the sun squash against the horizon before finally giving in and dropping behind:

***************

Adventure – walking and then swimming across the channel to get to the other end of the beach (James saw a man fireman’s lift his partner across it!), diving through the waves.

Excitement – finding avocadoes and getting to eat a ripe papaya! Tasty local stout. Every night watching the sunset. Meeting friendly people who made us feel welcome and comfortable. Sleeping in a tiny hut while gale force winds whoosh around us.

Trauma – the relentless heat, not sleeping properly and getting in my head a lot, the shouting phone calls by our hosts. Getting sandblasted by the strong wind. Sand EVERYWHERE.

Getting to Granada

After a long day on a busy bus and waiting for hours to cross the border, we arrive in Granada as the sun starts to fade from the sky. There’s just enough daylight left to admire the pastel coloured buildings and remnants of colonialism in this quaint city nestled on the edge of Lago Cocibolca.

We find our way to Hotel Il Padrino, we’re welcomed by Gabi and Toby the husband and wife owners, Maxi their son and Milan and Lola their dogs. Toby is actually English, but stayed out here after travelling this way back in 2009. Our room has a nice view of the interior garden and we enjoy being able to spread out again after being cooped up in claustrophobic hostels in Costa Rica.

Now we’re in Nicaragua, we can have a nice meal out without it costing a small fortune so we head to the Garden Cafe just down the road. It’s a beautiful setting, we sit in a courtyard surrounding a garden and enjoy a green curry with fish and dahl. We both left our phones on charge at the hotel so this image from Google will have to do:

Exploring a ghost town

We spend our first morning here having a wander around and getting our bearings. We walk past the iconic cathedral with it’s custard coloured walls, bright white accents and topped with a stunning dome of white and burnt orange. We see dozens of horses lined up on the main square with their Cinderella like carriages waiting to transport tourists around for a hefty fee. It seems cruel to have these horses out in the midday heat for long periods of time and it doesn’t seem like they are particularly well cared for.

Alex suggests the lake should only be around ten minutes walk away so we head there next. It’s slightly unnerving how quiet it is. We barely pass another tourist and there are only a handful of locals at most. We wonder if it’s because they’re hiding from the heat but even at night it’s eerily quiet. The few locals we do see are either trying to entice us into their restaurants for lunch or ask us to spare a dollar as they’re out of work. Considering it’s supposed to be peak season it’s a strange atmosphere and feels like a bit of a ghost town. Still, we reach the lake and it is pretty stunning. We walk around a boulevard surrounded by palm trees and agree this could be a good place for a run in the morning when it’s not quite so hot.

We spend the rest of the day planning, blogging, food shopping, withdrawing local currency and cooking in the shared kitchen at the hotel. The less glamorous side of travelling for a year but it has to be done!

Mazy markets and the magic of magma

To Alex’s surprise, I am actually up and ready to go for a run at 6.30am. Back home I barely get out of bed before 9 but I find it’s best to make the most of the daylight here and I’ve become used to early starts. We retrace our steps from yesterday and with a few laps around the sports pitch we manage our first 5km since Chile, way back in November!

After a well earned breakfast, I convince Alex we should go to the local market I’ve read about on a blog and don’t want to miss out on. This is one of those situations where the blog article had very much raised my expectations and I believed we were heading to an undiscovered gem. It turned out to be a typical chaotic Latin American market… Full of hustle and bustle, noisy, dirty, busy, locals giving us confused and slightly irritated glances, all of the usual stuff. We squeeze through the narrow channels where women sell clothes and children’s toys, opposite meat that looks like it has been there for days splayed out across damp wooden blocks. Flies circle around it, only occasionally batted away by a lazy wave of a dishcloth from the stall seller. A man sharpens his machete on a grindstone. Another man hacks away at a huge block of ice with his hammer, freezing shards of glass fly in all directions. After passing rows of stinking fish we make for the exit. Along this corridor are giant pigs heads facing away from us so we get a nice look at the severed muscle, fat and sinew that once connected it to a body. I try to reason this is true Nicaraguan culture and we should see the ugly parts too not just the bits for the tourists. I’m not sure I even convince myself.

We crave something sweet to recover from the trauma. We find a local chocolate factory/cafe heavily inspired by Willy Wonka and his Umpa Lumpa’s. We order a brownie with ice-cream and a cup of cold cacao with cinnamon. Both are delicious and hit the spot. In the background a couple of tour groups pass through, stopping at a wooden board where they “help” make chocolate. Each time a tourist does this activity, their guide bursts into song and dance “Bate Bate Chocolate, Bate Bate Chocolate”. We hear this at least a dozen times while enjoying our snack. It sticks in our head all day long.

After lunch at our hotel, we’re picked up for our afternoon activity to visit a volcano, we’re excited and hopeful we will be able to see some actual lava. On the way to the Volcan Masaya we stop at a viewpoint over-looking Laguna Apoyo which we’ll visit tomorrow. We’re both grateful for the strong breeze that keeps us cool, we don’t have air-con at our hotel and the room gets pretty stuffy, so this is our first time not overheating in a while. We chat with a German girl in our group who has been teaching German in the Costa Rican capital San Jose. We exchange travel stories and some tips, she’s in her early twenties and has ambitions to do much more travelling. I’m impressed by all of these younger people (usually German or Dutch) that have their lives in order and believe in themselves enough to travel at that age. I suppose I am a late bloomer to this nomadic lifestyle.

Dramatic scenes greet us as we arrive at the volcano. The gas seeping out of the crater creates a giant misty cloud that obscures the sun. Even though it’s over an hour until the sun will go down, it’s a fierce red colour you usually only see during sunsets.

We explore the area, trying out a few viewpoints desperate to spot some lava. Unfortunately it’s hard to see into the crater and the sulphuric gas makes us cough and wheeze as we lean over the wall for a better look. We try and follow the road that leads to the edge of the crater but a park ranger advises it is off limits and we should hike up to a nearby Mirador to watch the sunset. We follow his instructions and race up the hill just in time to catch the sun disappear behind the volcanic peaks. It’s amazing having a 360 degree view, uninterrupted by mountains or skyscrapers as the sky fills in with various hues all around us. The volcano continually chokes out gasses straight from the core of the earth, even if we don’t get to see lava the trip has been worthwhile to see this natural wonder.

On our way back down towards the car park, we hear a guide tell his group the best time to see lava is after sunset. Relief! We return to our original spot on the edge of the carpark where we have the best view to see into the belly of the volcano. We wait patiently, we can faintly feel the heat of the Earth’s core as we look over the edge. After a while I try using my phone camera to see if it can spot something my eyes cannot. I think I can see a faint glow somewhere down in the pit of darkness and fog. I revert back to using my sight and a stream of magma glows for a few seconds, almost pulsating with light before fading back into the dark. This happens a few times and Alex and I both get a good look at what we came here to see. It’s not the spewing lava fountain you see on some travel photos but it’s more than good enough for us.

Bliss by the lakeside

We’re back in a minivan just after brekkie, on our way to spend the day at Laguna Apoyo. The lake sits nestled in a vast volcanic crater a couple of hundred meters down from the viewpoint we were at yesterday. I’m not 100% sold on the idea as I’ve seen plenty of lakes and spending all day by one seems a bit odd to me but I go along with it. We arrive at a resort where we’re given a card to use as a tab, a wifi password and a QR code to scan for refreshments. We walk down through the resort to the lakefront, there’s pool tables, table tennis, a big bar and restaurant, hammocks, sun loungers, rubber dinghys and kayaks included. I’m starting to see the appeal. We find a spot under the shade of a palm tree where the strong breeze bellows off the lake right over us. Idyllic.

After a couple of hours of relaxing we grab a rubber ring and attempt to elegantly sit on them without being thrown over by the strong waves. It takes several tries and some gymnastics but we get there. We swim out to a floating platform and soak up some sun while watching other tourists fight with their rubber rings or attempt somersaults off the platform with varying degrees of success. We chat with an American guy who’s big into his cigars, always has a bottle of beer in his hand and has tattoos of a few countries he’s been to. Some of which we’ll be visiting, so we pick up some tips and make a note of a few famous tattoo parlours! He tells us he’s arranged to go and see the Masaya volcano later on so we advise him it’s best to see the lava after dark.

We make our way back to land and order lunch while looking out at the waves lapping across the lake. We both order hamburgers, I have a fruit smoothie while Alex inhales a chocolate milkshake with added rum, why not. We’re slightly envious of the $27 tomahawk steaks being served to other tables. Perhaps another time. Our cigar enthusiast sat behind us, devouring a steak and lines up a few cocktails, clearly enjoying his day in style.

With time running out before our minibus comes back for us, we just have time to digest lunch and hop in a kayak. We battle against the waves and the wind to make it about 100 meters out from the beach. We decide against trying to cross to the other side of the lake, if only we had enough time… For a while we just sit there and let nature do it’s thing, spinning us and throwing us around on the water.

Back on land, as we wait for the minibus we ask our American friend with a new drink in his hand what time he’s going to the volcano, “AHH I got drunk. I’ll have to do it tomorrow”. Living his best life, good on him.

Later on, as we are preparing dinner at the hostel we get talking to a German guy called Jan. He’s travelling for six weeks with his wife and two year old daughter. He caught the travel bug from an early age and is seemingly passing that onto his infant daughter. He’s been to some amazing places in the world, Iran, Myanmar, he’s got friends who have been to Yemen, Syria. Places that as Westerners we only know as dangerous, war-torn countries you’d never even consider going to. He talks about the friendliness of the local people and it makes you wonder about what a twisted view we have of the Middle East thanks to our biased news channels and political rhetoric. We ask him Juan Carlos’ question of “if you only had seven days left, where would you spend them?” He surprises us by saying he would go somewhere he hasn’t been before, Nepal or Machu Picchu. Every answer so far has been somewhere nostalgic, a place from a romantic memory or of significance in their past.

Would you go somewhere you already know or take the plunge on a new exciting adventure for your final seven days on this planet?

************

Adventure – Running Granada first thing in the morning, exploring the lake by kayak and inflatable ring, walking the volcano in search of lava

Excitement – seeing magma!, having our own room again and lovely cooked breakfasts made for us, finding not one but two proper supermarkets, being able to afford things again

Trauma – seeing a man shit in the street. Bate Bate Chocolate x 16