Huck and Henna En Route

17.1.2008, Esteli

The last day in Esteli and the last full day in Nicaragua, for who knows how long. We certainly liked and enjoyed Nicaragua and intend to come back.
Like so often when travelling I want to come back one day, but here we are pretty serious about it.
Today we booked a bus-journey from Esteli to San José. Almost 12hours we will spend on the Panamericana.
Today I tried to kick off a project with UCA, buiding efficiant and smoke-free fireplaces into homes of the Miraflor area. Especially familis with children shall benefit.
More about this, as soon as things are running, I am hoping the best for it.

So for now we say “adios” Nicaragua and Nicaraguens and tomorrow we will say “hello again” to Costa Rica.

..with the locals in the Natural Reserve Miraflor were a great experience. I´ll write a bit more in “stories”.

Now we are back in Esteli and so far haven´t decided yet, if we are going to stay in the area a bit longer, or if we are going somewheer else…

Let´s see.

..we read about the Nature reserve Miraflor in our guidebook and we also read about a local organisation, called UCA, organising and supporting ecotourism and sustainable farming in local comunities in the area of Miraflor.
So we went to Esteli, near Miraflor (not to Matagalpa), where we found a relativly quiet city on the Panamericana.
Esteli is on the bottom of the Nicaraguan highlands and was a stronghold during the revolution.
We arrived yesterday and since then spend a lot of time cycling around the town.
At 6am this morning a loud fire-siren woke us up and we were prepared to grab our things and leave the hotel. But since everything around stayed silent, we kept on sleeping a bit longer.

During the day we heard the siren again and this time we asked somebody and learned, that the purpose of the siren is simply to wake up the people and tell them, when it is time for lunch…
For tomorrow and the next three days we booked a local guide for a tour with UCA. We will stay at peoples homes and travel the Miraflor reserve on foot and by horse.
We are excited…

we woke up early today and after realising that I got a bit of a funny tummy (1st time!), I prepared myself for the flight back to Managua with a strong anti-sh..-pill.
Well, it worked and we had a pleasent flight, landing after the second attempt savely in the capital.
the main reason for us coming back to Managua is picking up our Jopos and get going to the northern parts of the country.
Since we “lost” everything important for hiking and independant sleeping, we now realize, that our travelling has changed a bit. But it´s still so very good.
We also realize, that we are “running out of time”. The finnish winter is coming closer every day, and even we would like to have a minute of cold every now and than, we have difficulties imagening such a different climate and culture.

well, it`s hard to leave the Corn Islands. We intended to fly out yesterday, but now we`ll probably leave tomorrow.
The time on the islands (now we are back on Big Corn) was pleasant and fast and there is something paradisic about the Corn Islands.
We also went diving a couple of times and snorkeling, though some days of (really) stormy weather restricted our activities a lot, since the storm effected the visibility under water. Also it is not advisable to have long walks on the beaches, with coconuts and coconut leaves falling down all over.
According to statistics, more people are killed by coconut leaves than by coconuts.

So tomorrow (early morning) we will most likely sit in  that little chessna again and fly back to the mainland. If the plane lands in Bluefields on the way we will hop out there, otherwise we are going back to managua, where our Jopos are waiting.

…what a place. Due to our delay with all this robbery stuff, we decided to fly from stinky Managua to the refreshing Corn Islands, off the carribean coast. The domestic terminal at the international Airport of Managua was a pretty different place.
The staff there wasn´t only interested in the weight of our luggage, but also we had to step on the scale.
The crew personal was waiting together with the passengers and when we were finally sitting in the aeroplane (45minutes early!!!), I was sitting right behind the pilots.
During the flight I had a perfect view out ofthe front and onto the instruments. Because the little one-engine plane wasn´t pressurized, at some point almost all the 12passengers and the pilot were sleeping. The Co-pilot was doing all the work.
When we arrived on big corn, we tranferred to a boat, crossing over with 400hp to the little corn island. The driver was pretty skilled with handling waves and it was a pleasure to be back on the sea.
Little corn is a place from carribean pirat stories. No cars and endless white beaches with palm trees and coconuts all over (very tasty).

Historically this place was important for pirates and colonialists, who refilled food and water supplies on the islands.
Even today, the drug smugglers with their speedboats, pass the islands on their way from columbia to mexico, or the nicaraguan mainland.
During the first night I heard a helicopter, flying without lights. Was it the coast guard?
We arrived here on the 30th of December. The first thing we did here was booking some dive-trips and buying some snorkeling gear.
Even when snorkeling, we saw stingrays, corrals, a huge what-the-hell-is-this fish, loads of other fishes and two gigantic hermite crabs.
The people here speak a funny kind of english or spanish and are ethnologiocally creols.
New years was this year without any (!!!) firecrackers, but with plenty of rum and white russian. Happy new year.

after our travel experiences at the Laguna de Apojo, with all its beauty and those few criminals, we were given the pleasure of exploring one of the most ugliest cities in the world. There is more beauty in Mangalore, India.

Well, it´s busy and loud and smelly and we walk around with allergic reactions and headache.
Today we  were trying to find some sort of replacement for Hennas camera, but that was not possible. We also went looking in the “Mercado oriental”, but found only cameras, that probably belonged to other tourists at some point.

But there will be more about this in “stories”.

Tomorrow, we will go with a small aircraft to the Corn Islands. There we will probably spend some time and money and get some motivation for the rest of our travels.

Oh, we went to see a movie last night and were surprised by the applauding audience (on sex-& kissing scenes).

Internet will be most likely non-exsistend or super expensive on the Corn Islands, so maybe we will not write for some time.

Things happen, and  we have to coupe with those, good and bad.
So far we´ve been so lucky. People are wonderful here in Nicaragua, friendly and helpful. Most of the Nicas are always smiling, children with a slim figure and not much to eat, look happier than most of the spoiled kids in Finland.

But, some dirtbags live here too.

We had our moments with those.
What we lost is only material, so don´t worry about it. The only thing that gives me some bitter thoughts is that I lost 2 months of work. But, I didn´t come here to work anyway. And, we descided already in Finland, that we are ready to take a risk by taking my expencive gear with us. Some local said, that it is possible, that we´ve been observed earlier. I´ve been walking with my camera everywhere, and it indeed looks expensive. For some Nica the value of my camera is worth of few years salary.
Like I said, it is only material, and we would hate ourselves if loosing stuff would bring us down. No, we will not lower ourselfs and get depressed because of that (and a good insurance makes it a bit easier too..)

So, we will continue today, with only one backpack. Next destination is called Corn Islands. It´s supposed to be a great place for diving. Pictures from there are beautiful. We are excited. Seeing some positive sides: we have no valuable stuff, so no need to be afraid we atract thiefs any more, it is easier to sleep in a hammock. Also, travelling without camera is rear “luxory” for a photographer.

Please don´t feel sorry, worried, sad or any other negative feelings because of what happened to us. Things will turn out fine, they always do.
Henna

Ps: We´ve promised a reward, 300$, to a person who helps us finding our stuff. For some Nicas it´s worth of few months salary. It should make our thief alert, I hope he/she´s sleeping very bad, while waiting….

Well, as requested we showed up at the police station today to collect our report.
VERY surprisingly they told us to come back “mañana”. Great.

So we are still at the spanish school and use the time spreading notes of paper, promising US$300 for the person that gives us the informations that might lead to the bad guys and Hennas camera or/and the pictures. The worst is the loss of two month professional and potentionally valuable pictures.

So tomorrow we will go via Masaya (police) to Managua. We hope to be able reaching the corn islands before the 31st.

The last few days we spend here at the beautiful crater lake. We live in a scientific research station that also is a language school.
And yes, we followed our plans and took five days of spanish courses.
Classes started for us on the 22nd, and with a one day break (yesterday, 25th) our last schoolday will be tomorrow.
So far we are amazed how much a human brain can learn in such a short time. The course is very intense and in the afternoons we learn grammar and vocabulary (or/and go swimming). It´s fun doing it together.
There is also one scientist from Finland and one from Germany here (both study fishes) and we also saw some travellers coming through and there are a few other people learning spanish, as well.
Christmas in Nicaragua seems to be very much about getting drunk, swimming with cloth in the laguna, lighting firecrackers (very impressiv) and playing loud “music”.
For us and many others the Station was a refuge from christmas chaos and we enjoyed sitting on the terrace together, enjoying the “holy” time. There even was some german-style “stollen” with marzipan…
So far this christmas was really nice, until we returned to our room, where we found evidence, that somebody broke the window and fished through the broken window for our belongings. We spend the rest of the night with the police and some crime scene technicians, filing a report and listing everything that we lost.
I am afraid to say that a lot got stolen (cameras, all the pictures, computerstuff, one backpack, bicycle tools, poncho, waterpurifier, …).

So big shit here for Christmas, but tomorrow we will continue travelling, heading via Managua for the corn islands.

We are pretty angry now, sad and disappointed, but still we are healthy, in love and happy travellers.

I´m sorry, no pictures anymore for you.