An Island of Fire

Picking up from where I left off last time on a bus to Isla de Ometepe, we arrived after possibly the most magnificent ferry ride I've ever had, watching two volcanoes get bigger and bigger as we got closer and closer. The name Ometepe comes from the words ome meaning two and tepetl meaning mountains in Nahuatl, the language of the Nahua people. The two volcanoes that the island is composed of are Concepción and Maderas. Concepción is the higher of the two at 1610m and is active. It is also considered the most perfectly formed volcano cone on Central America! Maderas is slightly smaller at 1394m and is dormant, although it does host a crater lake at it's peak and supports a diverse rainforest ecosystem.

Approaching the island on the ferry - Concepción in the foreground, Maderas further back

When we arrived we were taken to a hostel that was recommended to us, El Zopilote, which doubles as a working farm. At first we thought it was extremely cool, right in the forest, very rustic and laid back. Then we went on the hike to our dorm. I'm not kidding when I say hike, it took a good 5/10 minutes to get there and wasn't fun in the dark. Then we saw the bathrooms. Apparently compost toilets are a bit of a thing in Nicaragua, who knew? We lasted two nights in El Zopilote before moving to a more convenient hostel but we don't regret our time there and we definitely got some stories out of it!

On our first full day on the island we decided to rent bicycles and visit the ojo de agua, which translates to 'eye of water' though is actually just a natural spring that has had a swimming pool built around it. It was a hot ride but really fun and we had the perfect way to cool off waiting for us at the end!

A reminder from the hippies

The morning we left El Zopilote, Amy and I decided to get up to watch the sunrise from one of the miradors (lookout points) before taking advantage of the free yoga classes guests were offered. The sunrise was a bit disappointing but yoga was excellent. As a bit of a yoga pro, I've done it once before don't ya know, I obviously knew exactly what I was doing... It was good to get a bit of a stretch and ended up being so relaxing that I actually fell asleep!

The hostel we changed to was called Hospedaje Buena Vista and was right on the beach in the next town over, Santa Domingo. The beach had a great view of Volcán Maderas and was just the right temperature for a swim.

Our most interesting day was definitely when we decided to rent mopeds and drive to the San Ramón waterfall. Have any of you driven mopeds before, I hear you ask? No we had not. All was going smoothly until we left the paved road and it was not five minutes until we had our first crash. More like a topple to be honest but of course it was our beloved but accident prone Lucy that was driving with Jesse on the back. A quick patch up and reshuffle of drivers and we were off again with nothing but a minor mechanical issue before we reached the start of the hike to the waterfall.

Concentration or avoiding getting flies stuck in her teeth? You decide

However when we arrived there it was to find out that we didn't actually have enough time to hike it and get back in time to return the mopeds. We decided we would rice back around the island and go for a swim instead but even that didn't go to plan.

The view of Concepción from almost the other end of the island

The minor mechanical fault from before turned major and we had to fetch a mechanic and wait for ot to be fixed. This meant that despite turning around with hours to spare we only just made it back in time! Once we got back on to smooth roads I had a turn at driving and I was pretty good, as in I had no crashes unlike some of our drivers...

A spiral? A monkey? An modernist portrait?

Our last day was nowhere near as interesting, for me anyway. Amy and Tom left at 5.30am to climb Volcán Maderas while the rest of us lay around and then went to find some petroglyphs. 

Petroglyphs are drawings carved into stone and many of Ometepe's contain spiral designs, leading to archeologists calling it the Island of Circles and Spirals. Relatively little is known about the history of the petroglyphs on Ometepe though it is estimated that they could be up to 3000 years old.

I think we were all a little disappointed by them, maybe because we were expecting something more like the Mayan ruins in Copan. It was still worth the trip though as they are part of what the island is known for. 

We ended up being chased of Ometepe by the threat of Hurricane Otto. For those of you that don't know, Hurricane Otto touched down in the very south of Nicaragua on the 22nd November and continued down into Costa Rica, doing a lot more damage there than here. The worst weather we had this weekend was half an hour of semi-heavy rain. 

After Isla de Ometepe we chicken bussed our way back up to Granada - watch this space for the next blog! 

The view from part way up Maderas, shamelessly stolen from Amy

Plans? What plans?

We are now one week in to many of travelling around Central America. So far we have seen five places and are on our way to the next. Despite having planned how we were going to spend our time in Nicaragua, nothing has actually happened the way we though it would. Everything from buses that don't exist to trekking through a national park in search for a random old man to awkward hostel opening has meant that we are having to be very flexible with our plans - something that pre Honduran Sara would have struggled a lot with but I have managed to keep any worrying (mostly) under the surface. 

Our first stop last Saturday was Yamaranguila where there are  other Project Trust volunteers (shoutout to Grace and Hannah for putting up with us!) and where we were going to meet up with Jesse and Lucy from Tomala and Calum and Tom from Roatan, our travelling buddies for the next few months. After cramming 8 people into their two single beds we left for Tegucigalpa the next afternoon. We arrived in the dark but I wasn't very taken by Teguc and was glad we were leaving at 6.30 the next morning.

We love you Yam!

In la Esperanza, minus Grace and the boys

Enter the bus that doesn't exist. We got driven to where it was supposed to leave and it had already left at 5am. Cue a lot of improvising and four buses instead of one but we got where we wanted to be, Estelí in the north of Nicaragua.

Tom and Calum are obviously thrilled to be with us for the next three months

Our plan had been just to stay a night in Estelí but we were all exhausted so decided to add an extra night (a luxury we have because we haven't booked anywhere to stay until Utila at Christmas so we can kind of just wing it until then). There was only one thing we wanted to do in Estelí anyway - find the stone man. 

In every picture that his visitors take of him, Alberto raises his right hand in a symbol of peace

The stone man is Alberto Gutierrez who lives on the side of a mountain in the national park next to Estelí and carves amazing drawings into the rock face. We set off with the vaguest of directions and took a taxi for almost an hour to get to the area before wondering around blindly for a while. Eventually we found the sign we needed that pointed to Alberto's (having already walked past it) and found the stone man. 

He was very welcoming and had us sign his visitors book before he took us to his carvings. He's been doing this for 38 years and has over 3,500 drawings. They were absolutely incredible. Hitchhiking back turned into a two hour walk before a car actually picked us up! Overall I really enjoyed the few days we spent in Estelí, surprisingly as its not usually a must see traveller's spot, but the city is nice,  we had a great hostel, Hospedaje Luna, and the stone man was definitely worth a trip.  

Alberto and his elephant. His favourite drawing is a large depiction of Jesus' birth.

Spreading the peace - thanks Alberto

The next morning it was up at 4.30 to head to León. This is in an area populated by lots of volcanos and we saw our first two on the bus on the way in. After being up so early our thoughts went to one place - the beach. 

There are two beaches by León and we chose Las Peñitas to relax on. We hung out at a hostel/bar/restaurant called Oasis and spent six hours battling the huge waves, relaxing with a cold drink, treating ourselves to some expensive food ($8 is expensive for us!) and watching the sun set over the Pacific Ocean. Pretty magical. 

One of things León is famous for, apart from its gorgeous white cathedral, is the fact that it's close to Cerro Negro, the only volcano in the world that you can board down. That was where we headed on Thursday with the social charity Quetzaltrekkers. Cerro Negro is the smallest volcano in Nicaragua at 728m but the most active. It erupts every 15 years or so and last erupted in 1999 so it could happen anyday now! 

Cerro Negro looking otherwordly

Volcano boarding was an interesting experience. The trek up was hot and heavy with the boards and jumpsuits but thankfully not long. I have to say though that I didn't enjoy the first run down. I didn't chicken out and I went extremely fast from the start but however steep Cerro Negro looks (which is very) it's actually even steeper. This meant I was getting sprayed in the face by the volcanic rocks, in my eyes, nose, mouth, even my ears! And then I went over a bump at the bottom came flying off and rolled down the last bit! I was fine, nothing wrong except a bruised bum and bruised pride. 

With Quetzaltrekkers there's the option of boarding down a second time which most people actually didn't take but I was determined that I would enjoy it so braved the trek a second time and took it a lot slower on the way down. Much better and no crashes! An absolutely incredible experience and even if you don't like the actual boarding the views from the top are still worth it.

Action shot of me shredding my trainers!

The stunning rooftop of León's cathedral

Yesterday we took the morning to look around León and finally made it up to the roof of the Cathedral which is just as beautiful as it looks in all of the pictures. We took a late afternoon bus to Granada which was meant to be our next stop but timing issues with the particular hostel we want to stay means that we decided to change plans again. We found a hostel for the night and are currently on a bus to Isla de Ometepe which promises to be amazing. We'll be there for four days so will probably get its own blog post written on the bus as we leave! 

It's been such a fast and furious start to travelling, it's hard to believe I only left Candelaria a week ago today! If this week is how the rest of our time is going to go, it's going to be pretty fantastic. 

Bus Rides, Bumpy Roads and Breathtaking Views

So I was on a bus the other day, setting off on our three months of travelling that will contain more buses than I care to think about and I realised that while Honduran buses are now extremely normal to me, nobody at home has any idea what they're like. So here's hoping I manage to write a blog post about buses that proves to be more interesting that it sounds...

Timing

• Despite the relaxed Honduran sense of time buses do actually leave fairly promptly.
• Every trip we have ever taken begins the same way - waiting at the esquina (the corner) for either the 4am or 6am bus to Gracias. 
• It has taken us three months but we have finally accepted that the bus does not come at 6 and is not supposed to come at 6 but instead 6.30. 
• It's rare that we get the 4am bus (which likewise also comes at 4.30) though this does give you a stunning view of the sunrise as you drive through the mountains.

The Roads

• All this time I've been talking about bus rides. A much more accurate way to describe them would be roller coaster rides. It is extremely possible and highly likely that you will get some airtime while speeding over a bump.
• The roads in our part of Lempira are not brilliant, I won't lie to you. They're not paved, most of the time they're barely flat and occasionally if you're really lucky you'll wonder if you're on a road or driving through a mudslide. (One of the reasons I'm trying and failing to dissuade le padre from renting a car when he visits... Don't listen to me the buses aren't actually this bad!)
• To give you an example, our regular bus ride to Gracias takes 4 hours, 3 hours 20 minutes until we get to paved road in San Juan. San Juan is 65km away. If the road was paved it would take an hour and a half I get there. Let that sink in.
• In general the roads don't affect either of us that badly, neither of us get bus sick, though I can tell you going home on the bus with the flu and an especially enthusiastic and speedy driver was not the most enjoyable experience. 
• As we travel more around Honduras I can see the range of quality. There are both roads like ours between Candelaria and Gracias but also beautifully smooth dual carriageways like the one we took to Tegucigalpa recently. 

The Buses

• The buses themselves are not what you'd expect. There are no fancy Citylink or Megabus monsters here. It's an old American school bus or nothing. Before you ask, no the novelty still hasn't worn off yet.
• They are surprisingly comfortable, except when there are three people squeezed onto a bench that really only has room for two bottoms.
• There is also the Honduran version of a conductor who is always ready to stuff any size or shape of bag into the luggage racks and will take the 110 lempira (just under £4) for the four hour journey ahead.

Cold/dust

• A welcome and unusual sensation in some bus rides, especially those through the mountains. It gives us the opportunity to actually wear the massive Project Trust hoodies we lugged all the way over here but never have need for in Candelaria.
• A decidedly unpleasant sensation on the unpaved roads is the invasion a dust through the open windows. The dust can be so thick that the banks at the side of the roads can be grey due to the continual onslaught. It gets in your eyes, it gets in your hair and it makes constant cleaning of phone and kindle screens a necessity. 

Vendors

• Something that would never happen in Britain - at certain stops, usually in bustling towns but occasionally just at the side of the road, the bus will be invaded by a swarm of vendors marketing their wares. 
• San Juan, on the way to Gracias is and especially busy one; anything from baleadas to empanadas to cena tipica, tajadas and popcorn, sweets, ice cream, oranges, lychees, jewellery, medicine, all without leaving your seat. 
• My favourite is when the fresh granadillas (passion fruit). We are physically unable not to buy a bag as they go past and I have to fight Amy off to make sure I get my fair share out of the bag!
• The one thing about the bus vendors is that there are a lot of children, especially the granadilla sellers. It means they're not in school and are probably extremely poor if selling bags for 20 lempira is more lucrative than receiving an education.

The Views 

• These by far make up for any unpleasant aspect of the bus rides in Honduras. They are absolutely stunning, breathtaking, whatever adjective you prefer. They are the kind of views that you are used to seeing in long swooping shots in David Attenborough documentaries or on the front of a glossy photography book but never expect to see in real life. 
• Around Candelaria you'll find rolling patchwork hills painted in green and brown and adorned with patterns of trees and the occasional house, that tweak at my heart and remind me of home to more distant, craggy mountains shrouded in clouds in the early morning, seen over vast flat expanses of lush forest. 
• My favourite bus ride that we do is the one between Gracias and Santa Rosa. A short 50 minute drive, the hills, right next to the road, are so dramatic that they demand attention. 

Glimpses of Honduras

• I'm a big reader and at home there's nothing I like more on a long car journey than to bring a book along. I still read on the bus journeys but I actually prefer to stick in a pair of headphones, block Amy out and watch the world (or Honduras at least) go by on the other side of the window (when I'm not catching up on my beauty sleep!).
• The time we spend going from one place to another gives is the opportunity to get a glimpse at other parts of Honduras, if only for a second. This can range from passing incredibly rural houses to passing by great big cities. 
• On the road from Candelaria to Gracias, we see houses that littered along the road and can barely be considered a town, churches that are the only building in sight for miles and crops climbing up the hillside alongside the house of the farmer. We think we're rural in Candelaria but these sights make it seem like a bustling town centre full of everything you could ever need.
• And then there's the other side of things. Passing by, or through, large cities like Comayagua and Tegucigalpa, like we have in the past few days, is a very surreal experience. We are so immersed in the towns that we live in that I think we sometimes forget that Honduras isn't all corrugated iron roofs and tiny corner-store pulperías but does actually have shopping malls and skyscrapers. 
• These are the times when the poverty and wealth inequalities are put into the harshest light. We live in areas where many of the children are we teach are poor but there aren't that many wealthy familes to compare them with so there's no contrast. It begins to become normal, as bad as that sounds. Then when you go into the cities and suddenly everything we're used to falls way down in comparison with the glossy buildings, bustling shops and mix of people. 

Hopefully this has given you an insight into what has become a very normal part of our lives in Honduras. It's something that I keep forgetting, things that have just become normal for us were strange for us when we first arrived and would still be unusual for everyone at home.

End of Term, Start of Adventures

It feels like we've spent this last week wrapping up things in our project, from the English exam in the escuela to spending the rest of today seeing all our friends before we leave for two and a half months of travelling tomorrow. That's what this blog post is for too, to wrap up the last few weeks in our project. As they've been happening there hasn't felt like too much to report, apart from our three month anniversary in Honduras which I marked with a special bog post, but now that I'm sitting down to write this it seems that things have built up!

First of all, I decided that the best thing to do the weekend after being bedridden with flu was to go and play football with some energetic fifth graders... Must have worked though because I am currently back to full health! We have also spent the last few weekends making more tomato soup (our best batch yet), attending a first grader's birthday party (featuring a piñata obviously) and taking many trips to the river.

With the standard Honduran sized piece of cake a.k.a massive!

Going to the river is one of our favourite things to do here because it's just so damn hot! We have a couple of friends that we usually go with but recently we've started to go with Daniela and Jamie, the girls we live with, because they don't know how to swim and as two qualified swimming teachers we feel it is our responsibility, even our duty to at least teach them enough that they can be safe in the water. It's a surprisingly common theme here that, despite the fact there's a river running right through the town that lots of kids play in, many don't know how to swim, which terrifies me slightly. There was also a child from Kinder who went down to the river by himself last year and drowned. We feel it's very important to teach our girls as much as we can while we're here, especially as we can't do anything large scale.

Obviously pros at this...

When it looks like this why wouldn't you come here as much as possible?

In the past month and a bit we've also had two weekend trips, one to Santa Rosa and one to Gracias, both to celebrate birthdays. First up was Santa Rosa for Jesse and Lucy, who are not just partners but also have birthdays within two days of each other. This was the first time we'd stayed overnight in Santa Rosa and we took full advantage of being able to stay out past our usual 10pm limit!

Gracias was the weekend just past and we manage to gather more people than usual, 15 in total, this time for Siobhan's birthday. It was nice to have a different mix of people than usually come to our weekend trips and it meant we also got to meet Eve and Alice, two volunteers who have joined us from the Dominican Republic because their project wasn't working.

There have also been a few interesting events in Candelaria. On the 1st November we celebrated Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) with our family by going to Jaime's home town of Erandique to visit and clean the graves of family members. The Day of the Dead has a reputation for the colourful, vibrant and altogether very lively celebrations that happen in Mexico and while it is more subdued in Honduras, it felt like a more personal connection with the dead.

Unfortunately that has not been our only contact with the dead recently. Walking into school one day, we were met by some of my fifth grade class who told us they were going to a classmate's house because his mother had died the night before. After our classes had finished we accompanied a few other teachers to his house where a wake was taking place. It was a very difficult experience for a few reasons. Obviously it is incredibly sad, but at the same time it was heartening to see the way the community rallied around the family and gave them so much support.

Seeing the house was also hard for us. We don't get to see too much of the extreme poverty that exists in much of Honduras because we are lucky enough to live with a family that doesn't have to worry about having enough food or whether they can wash themselves today. From what we saw the house consisted of one room with a kitchen area attached at the side. The whole situation got to me because neither of these things are something that anyone deserves, especially not this kid who is so sweet.

Deep breath, and moving on to lighter things, guess who we had the honour of meeting last week? Only the First Lady of Honduras! Haha just kidding! Wait no I'm not...

And then that's us almost done. As I said before this week was composed of exams, marking exams and packing most of my clothes back into my rucksack. Tomorrow morning we're on a 6am bus to start our adventures! First up, Nicaragua!

Some gorgeous pictures of us and our kids snapped by Amy on her big camera - 

Looking adorable

My fifth grade girls

With a collection of Amy's students

Victor and Carlos Salinas, fifth grade

Second Grade

Sixth Grade on their last day after we fed them cake and coca-cola instead of teaching them English!

Survival Guide: Candelaria

Here we are already, 3 months in. It seems like a long time ago that we arrived in San Pedro in the middle of a hurricane. We have pretty much settled into our project now, we have friends, our classes are going well, we might even know what we're doing a little bit (but don't tell anyone!)... just in time to go travelling for two and and a half months!

Anyway, I thought this milestone should be marked with a special blog post so here I present to you 'Survival Guide: Candelaria'! This is basically a summary of all the things that I have learned are necessary, or at least advisable, for surviving in Candelaria. To my family, take note for when you visit, these are invaluable to make you blend in, no one will be able to tell you're not actually Honduran!

 Survival Guide: Candelaria   

 

• At least a mediocre level of Spanish or Edwin the English speaking barber will be your only friend. As funny as using charades to communicate for a year would be, it becomes slightly more impractical when you try and take it into the classroom.

•  A taste for tortillas. And refried beans. And scrambled eggs. And plantain. And rice. And chicken. A Honduran diet right there.

•  A strong stomach for the bus rides. Also hope everyone else has a good stomach or hasn't eaten breakfast so they don't throw up on you (speaking from experience here).

•  Strong sweat glands to deal with the temperature and the humidity. Unfortunately this means that twice daily outfit changes are not uncommon.

• Full body midge suit (or is that just me?). A different blood type to me might work too, mine is just too sweet.

• Strong calves to get you up and down the vertical roads. If the heat, mosquitoes or crazy bus drivers don't kill you the physical exertion needed just to walk home from school might.

• Football skills or a coping strategy for boredom because that's all there is to do here.

• A rucksack filled with assorted home comforts, among them as much chocolate as is humanly possible and tea bags, because we are British after all.

• An acceptance of Crocs as they are the chosen footwear of a large portion of the population. for some people this may be a deal breaker, but please, I implore you, look past the Crocs. 

• Jeans, as overwhelmingly ridiculous as that sounds. They are very à la mode here and shorts are off limits for women for modesty reasons so there are few other options.

• Tolerance to some of the more noticable differences between Honduras and home. For example, religion is a very important part of life here and people will assume you are religious and proceed to ask you whether you are Catholic or Evangelical, the two main branches of Christianity in Candelaria. They can be shocked if you tell them you aren't and it can lead to some interesting, if slightly uncomfortable, conversations/discussions/arguments (we have experienced all three).

• Thick skin because as the resident white people you will attract some stares and possibly comments. If you are a girl, learning to ignore it when men catcall you, make kissing sounds louder than you thought possible and especially when they use the same noise they use with dogs to try and get your attention will have to come quickly so you can still enjoy it here. The machismo culture is difficult but something that has to be dealt with.

• Patience, from having every child you see on the streets call out your name and being repeatedly asked the same questions to having to go over the difference between dog and duck what feels like a thousand times with first grade.

• An open heart because these kids will worm their way in there whether you like it or not. Cheeky grins, their boundless energy and a non-stop stream of hugs are sure to win you over in seconds.