Costa Rica take two - and Nicaragua

I was in Costa Rica again in November.  Still not the dry season it seemed!  But, I did manage to visit some new places. 

On the Caribbean coast I visited Puerto Viejo.  This part of Costa Rica has a lot of influence from the Caribbean islands and it shows in the style of living and even the look of the people.  Apparently they didn't even have Spanish as their main language until the 60's.  Whilst there I visited a chocolate plantation and watched handmade chocolate being made.  It was pretty impressive (but I still prefer my Galaxy!).

                                          cocoa beans

                                          baby sloth

Another weekend we went to La Fortuna, to visit the Alajuelo Volcano.  The rain/fog prevented us from seeing anything but we did make the most of the 'aguas calientes' that the volcano provided.  Even though we didn't get to see the volcano, it was a relaxing weekend.

Deciding to make the most of the rain, we decided to get wet - and go river rafting.  There were about 15 of us and it was a lot of fun.

The last place I went to in Costa Rica was Samara on the Nicoya Peninsula (west coast, on the Pacific).  The sun came out for me here and I enjoyed relaxing on the beach, watching the surfers try their luck on the waves.

Whilst in Samara I met another girl travelling solo and we decided to go to Granada in Nicaragua.  This was my favourite place.  It's an old colonial town and the buildings are well preserved, and very colourful.  Granada is on a lake and has a very peaceful atmosphere.  We also visited a volcanic crater lake and enjoyed the views and tourist shopping there!

Costa Rica

A recent trip home brought me via Costa Rica en route back to Honduras, so I did what any clear-headed person would do, and got off the plane... My first impressions of Costa Rica where great, my second was frustration as I was there during the rainy (or as they like to call it: green) season.

I spent a day in San Jose and had a look at some of the downtown sights. 

I then got out of town and visited one of the volcanos.  Poas volcano is about an hour north of San Jose and is semi active.  It has a crater that is about 1km in circumference.  Unfortunately when we visited it was covered in clouds so we didn't see any of it, hence no photo!

Costa Rica is south of Nicaragua and north of Panama with the Pacific Ocean to the west and Caribbean sea to the east.  I chose to go to the Pacific as I was told that there was likely to be less rain there at this time of year.  My objective was to go diving, however, there were not enough people so the diving didn't happen.  However, it was nice to get to the coast anyway.  This one seemed to be popular with surfers so it was fun to watch the ones who did go out try to catch their waves.

It's hard to describe why but I had a really good feeling about Costa Rica.  It was immediately welcoming to foreigners and seems to have a lot of areas that are of interest to tourists.  I hope to come back in the dry season and do some diving.

Ojojona

Tegus is surrounded by mountains and consequently mountain villages too.  We'd already been to visit Valle de Angeles and Santa Lucia.  These have become real tourist towns and at weekends are packed with Tegus residents who bring their visitors there. 

Another of these villages, though less touristy, is Ojojona, south of Tegus, en route to Choluteca.  I went there with some friends to have a look around.  It's a cute village, very small, with a pretty church in the Parque Central.  We tried to enter the church but were told it was locked and only open on Sundays.  The reason they locked it on the other days is due to roberries.

Ojojona seems to specialise in ceramic arts, as opposed the Valle de Angeles which has a lot of wood carvings.  We would pass shops and watch the ladies paint their wares.  Of course we also bought a few things.

I found this a nice outing to make and much prettier than some of the more touristy ones.  The other thing we enjoyed is that we were pretty much left alone.  We obviously stood out (3 white ladies and a blond 2 year old) but we weren't hassled by people trying to sell us things etc.

Copan - Mayan ruins, coffee plantation and aquas calientes

Semana Santa (Easter week) is a big event here in Honduras.  I'd say it's 'bigger' than Christmas.  Most companies close for the week and even Keith's company closed for a few days.  So, we jumped in the car and like most Teguc residents we got out of town.  Our destination was Copan Ruinas, in the west of Honduras (on the Guatemalan border). 

We went via San Pedro Sula (north-west) and stayed with a collegue of Keith's there.  I'd not been to SPS before and welcomed the stopover.  SPS is the commercial capital of Honduras.  As it's close to the beach it's also a popular arrival point for tourists.  In fact most international flights arrive in SPS rather than Tegus.  The city is very modern and laid out in a grid system with a ring road around it.  We didn't see too much of it but first impressions were that it would be a nice city to live in, and easily navigated (unlike Tegus).  It was a lot hotter and humid though, bearing in mind that we live at 1000m in Tegus and effectively have a very pleasant micro-climate.

From SPS to Copan it was only a few hours.  The journey was nice, lots of mountains (hence curves) and often following a river.  I always find it amusing to see that most rivers become swimming baths for the locals, especially when it's hot, and car wash areas, where they drive their car into the water to clean it.

Copan Ruinas is a very charming town, made of cobbled roads and low-rise buildings.  We stayed at a lovely little boutique hotel (Yat B'alam: http://www.yatbalam.com/) which was one block away from the main Parque Central.  We enjoyed exploring the local bars and restaurants but were especially spoiled by the Easter celebrations. 

They blocked off one side of the main square and laid out sawdust to create the alfombras (carpet).  Then over the evening and overnight they created pictures with coloured sawdust representing Jesus and Easter.  I got up early in the morning to see the end result and it was very impressive.  In the evening there was a procession from the church, through the town.  It finished off walking across the alfombras which I thought was a shame as then all the designs were ruined.

Our main reason for being in Copan Ruinas was to see the Mayan ruins that are there.  We got up early one morning and were some of the first there.  This was great as we saw Macauw birds roaming around.  The ruins are impressive and expansive.  We had a guide who took us round for about 2 hours, explaining some of the markings and buildings.  We both found it interesting.

There are plenty of other sights in the area.  One is the Macauw Bird Sanctuary which is home to many Honduran and Central American birds.  Some of breeded there but they also take in birds that have been abondended or found for sale along the road sides.  The Sanctuary is nicely laid out and interesting to visit.

We spent an afternoon at the Aquas Calientes.  It was a windy journey from Copan Ruinas but very beautiful.  Then we found the hot springs.  They have some public pools that were popular with families who had come for the day and had picnics.  Then on the other side of the river are the Aquas Calients.  You can walk along the river and dip into the various pools.  The top ones are extemely hot (almost boiling) and the further down you go the more they cool off.  We spent a while there, enjoying the mud baths and then rinsing off in natural waterfalls or just enjoying the pools of warm water.  There is a spa there too, for those who want massages etc.

Copan is known for its cigars and coffee.  We didn't get a change to visit a tobacco plantation but we did get to go to the Finca Santa Isabel which makes Welchez coffee (http://www.cafehonduras.com/).  We were shown around the plantation and were surprised not to see rows and rows of coffee plants.  It seems there are all grown on the mountain side and hand picked when the time is right.  We were taken to the top of the finca and then walked down along paths surrounded by coffee plants.  At the end they also showed us how the beans get processed to eventually be roasted and packaged.  They explained that for wholesale distribution they don't roast the beans as that gets done by the buyer to make it their unique roast.

Comayagua

The original capital of Honduras was Comayagua from 1537. This changed after Honduras got independance from Spain when the capital city rotated between Comayagua and Tegucigalpa depending on the government. Finally they settled on Tegucigalpa in 1880.

The city is well preserved and popular with tourists. There is also an American army base nearby (their Central American base) and so you see much more English spoken in Comayagua than you do in Tegucigalpa.

The parque central is dominated by a church, as with most Honduran cities. The clocktower of this church is the oldest one in the Americas and one of the oldest in the world. It was originally built around 1100 for a palace in Granada and then donated to Honduras by King Philip II of Spain.

Comayagua is a very catholic city and has big celebrations and processions during Semana Santa (Easter week).

making friends...

All your life making friends is easy... until you get a stage where it's not.

First you have friends at school, then university, then work... it carries on. Now I'm at a stage where I'm not working or studying and it's proving to be harder to meet people. So, I decided to do as the people of this new decade are doing: I looked online. And it was successful. I found a networking website with postings from people in Tegucigalpa and signed up. Since then I've met two new friends, both of whom are very nice, and in a similar boat to me.

I had to chuckle at myself that I made friends online (felt like I'd resorted to online dating) and Keith's first reaction was: what if they are pedophile men. This of course did not turn out to be the case.

Through one of these friends (who is married to a half Honduran/British man) we ended up at a makeshift obstacle course for a 4x4 competition. It seems Honduras boys/men spend their time souping up their 4x4's and go around the country competing in these courses. This weekend was in Tegucigalpa. The sun was out, the beer was cold and the music playing: it was fun.

Roatan

Off the Caribbean coast of Honduras there is a group of islands known as the Bay Islands. These are Roatan, Utila and Guanaja. Historically these were discovered by Christopher Columbus (he landed in Guanaja in 1502) and the indiginous people were taken by the Spaniards to work in the gold and silver mines in Cuba and Mexico. Later, the islands were used as a base by pirates from England, the Netherlands and France. Today they were filled with tourists from America, Canada and Italy (there's a direct flight from Milan, as well as a seasonal one from Rome), amongst others.

We visited Roatan for a long weekend. We went with a group from Keith's work and enjoyed the luxuries of West Bay and the night life of West End. I stayed on a little longer and did some diving. It seems the second largest barrier reef is here, after the Australian Great Barrier Reef. I also came across some family friends who now live in Roatan, and who I hadn't seen in 25 years.

Living in Tegus

We've been living in Tegus for about a month now. We finally moved out of our hotel and into an appartment, overlooking the city. We look out onto the statue of Jesus on one side and the Basilica de Surayapa on the other.

Shopping in Tegus is unique. You either encounter people with wheelbarrows selling produce (avocado, aubergine etc) or we even found a drive through shop where you pull in and pretty girls in short skirts come to your car and ask what you want. They have the basics like milk, coffee, donuts etc. as well as plenty of alcoholic beverages. It amused me that this place even exists, given that all the gas stations have these products, if not more. However, I think it's the novelty of the girls that keep people using this place.

I also found a van on the side of the road who was the 'key cutter'. He had all the keys and the machine and parked opposite a church and just waits for customers to show up.

I was at a cafe where I like to have lunch the other day and all of a sudden a convoy or jeeps arrived with a pickup full of army men with them. They stopped, the guys got out, and went into a formation around the cafe. Then the 'vip' got out of his blacked out car and came into the restaurant. It turns out he was the Minister of Security.

Our appartment block has a pool area and they've supplied a BBQ and fridge on the patio in that area. This is ideal for a group to get together and enjoy a BBQ, as we did with the Digicel crowd. This tends to be the expats and a few Honduran staff who work closely with them. It's fun.

Keith is very busy at work, but he seems to enjoy it. I've been busy settling in and meeting the neighbours. We've also been enjoying the vast array or restaurants and bars available here (compared to the 4 we had in Juticalpa). These range from the American fast food chains to some nice sushi bars and Honduran restaurants. One of them is called Amanda's Restaurant. We went there for my birthday last month.

The city is not huge, but also not a walking city. There are lots of highways crossing the city and it's not generally safe to walk around much. This does not give it a pleasant or cozy feel. However, I do enjoy the little things we come across, which differentiate it from the big western city feel. For example you'd come across a man selling his produce on a wheelbarrow, at the side of the road,. Or when I needed to get keys cut there was a van parked on the side of the road with all the keys and machinery in the back. Or when I got my hair cut they told me they couldn't wash it as they had no water.

Goodbye Olancho, Choluteca, statue of Jesus

We have now been moved from Juticalpa to Tegucigalpa. We had mixed feelings on this. Whilst Juticalpa had little in terms of restaurants, shops etc, it is a truer example of Honduras countryside than we'll see in Tegus. But, from a social perspective it's got a lot more to offer so it should be a more interesting place for us to live.

Another advantage of Tegus is that we are within easier reach of many areas of Honduras. One weekend we drove to Choluteca which is south, near the Pacific Ocean (though we didn't actually go as far as the coast). It's a lovely town with lots of whitewashed walls and pretty churches. It's also the last main town en route to Nicaragua and a popular stopover point for travellers and trucks heading there. This has led to a strip of fast food outlets which you need to get past in order to see the charm of the town. It's also a very hot part of Honduras, as it's in the plains, surrounded by mountains.

Near Tegus there is the Parque Naciones Unidad El Picacho. This contains a zoo with Honduran animals and a large stone statue of Jesus. It amazes me how so many central and southern American countries either have statues of Jesus or the virgin Mary. The statue is set high on one of the mountains surrounding Tegus so the views are pretty spectacular.